Has anyone replaced the brake rotors yet?

I've driven 360 miles since rotor replacements. My commute begins with a mile-long 500 foot descent. During that I felt a slight vibration which disappeared when I stopped at the bottom of the hill. I drove 1.5 miles to the interstate under 50 mph with no vibration. The throbbing appeared on the freeway at @ 55 mph and worsened the faster I went. It did not disappear until after my complete stop at the next exit. Burned rubber smell from the front left wheel. From there home, only the rub-rub-rub like a warped rotor.
 
ElementalJackal said:
Follow-up: My shop had recontacted dealer service and they said the regen needed to be re-calibrated, and that it was an issue with the Clarity and CR-V. But I can't find anything about it with an internet search. I have an appointment with the dealer Friday am.
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I looked at the repair manual and there is no mention of any kind of calibration when pads/rotors are replaced.
 
We just replaced our front rotors at a little over 75,000 miles and 5 West Michigan winters. They were rusty. My mechanic suggested that the regen braking doesn't heat the rotors up enough to burn off the moisture that gets on them. He suggested that, every once in a while, we drive for a bit in maintenance mode to clean off the rotors.

I must confess I never considered driving in maintenance mode. When driving in maintenance mode, regen braking and most all the electronic enhancements are off. (cruise control, climate control, etc.) When I came to a red light I turned the car off and back on. Still had no cruise control. I pressed the Main button, then pressed and held the Follow distance button to set the cruise mode. That got the cruise back.

Pictures of the rotors.PXL_20241017_194817004.webp PXL_20241017_194811710.webp PXL_20241017_194821511.webp
 
@Danks, Wow. That’s awful. I’ve got 65k miles on mine and they still look pretty much like new. Benefit of living in the south with no salt on roads to speak of, I guess.
 
Danks said:
We just replaced our front rotors at a little over 75,000 miles and 5 West Michigan winters. They were rusty. My mechanic suggested that the regen braking doesn't heat the rotors up enough to burn off the moisture that gets on them. He suggested that, every once in a while, we drive for a bit in maintenance mode to clean off the rotors.

I must confess I never considered driving in maintenance mode. When driving in maintenance mode, regen braking and most all the electronic enhancements are off. (cruise control, climate control, etc.) When I came to a red light I turned the car off and back on. Still had no cruise control. I pressed the Main button, then pressed and held the Follow distance button to set the cruise mode. That got the cruise back.

Pictures of the rotors.View attachment 23436 View attachment 23437 View attachment 23438
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Those rotors are astoundingly bad, I wonder if this is a defect, and not just the combination of Regen braking with crappy parts.
 
Danks said:
We just replaced our front rotors at a little over 75,000 miles and 5 West Michigan winters. They were rusty. My mechanic suggested that the regen braking doesn't heat the rotors up enough to burn off the moisture that gets on them. He suggested that, every once in a while, we drive for a bit in maintenance mode to clean off the rotors.

Pictures of the rotors.View attachment 23436 View attachment 23437 View attachment 23438
Click to expand...
This looks to me like you are using regen for 99.9% of your braking and the brake pads had not yet even broken in. Nothing to do with heat. Forget maintenance mode. Brake pads have on top a pyramid shape which transitions to the full area as they wear in. This looks like you never got anywhere near the end of the pyramid shape, so much of the rotor area has never even been exposed to the brake pads. So it has just sat there and rusted. I suggest with the new rotors make sure within the first year you get all the pads fully in contact with the rotors by doing agressive braking on a regular schedule. At that point the shiny contact area should extend almost out to the full diameter of the rotors. And make sure you keep using the brakes after that, not just regen. Keep it shiny.
 
David Towle said:
This looks to me like you are using regen for 99.9% of your braking and the brake pads had not yet even broken in. Nothing to do with heat. Forget maintenance mode. Brake pads have on top a pyramid shape which transitions to the full area as they wear in. This looks like you never got anywhere near the end of the pyramid shape, so much of the rotor area has never even been exposed to the brake pads. So it has just sat there and rusted. I suggest with the new rotors make sure within the first year you get all the pads fully in contact with the rotors by doing agressive braking on a regular schedule. At that point the shiny contact area should extend almost out to the full diameter of the rotors. And make sure you keep using the brakes after that, not just regen. Keep it shiny.
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Honda should have figured this out--and I don't mean the Clarity's Maintenance Minder should flash a "Brake Hard Sometime Soon" indicator. Does Chevy do a better job of maintaining the brake rotors on the Honda Prologue or did they come up with something less oxidizable than an iron rotor?
 
David Towle said:
This looks to me like you are using regen for 99.9% of your braking and the brake pads had not yet even broken in. Nothing to do with heat. Forget maintenance mode. Brake pads have on top a pyramid shape which transitions to the full area as they wear in. This looks like you never got anywhere near the end of the pyramid shape, so much of the rotor area has never even been exposed to the brake pads. So it has just sat there and rusted. I suggest with the new rotors make sure within the first year you get all the pads fully in contact with the rotors by doing agressive braking on a regular schedule. At that point the shiny contact area should extend almost out to the full diameter of the rotors. And make sure you keep using the brakes after that, not just regen. Keep it shiny.
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We have done almost all our braking with the brake pedal like a normal car. Car was driven almost every day and per normal city driving, some stops were harder than others. After the last several maintenance visits, the mechanic indicated how much the brake pads were worn. The pad left decreased with each visit as expected.
 
Danks said:
We have done almost all our braking with the brake pedal like a normal car. Car was driven almost every day and per normal city driving, some stops were harder than others. After the last several maintenance visits, the mechanic indicated how much the brake pads were worn. The pad left decreased with each visit as expected.
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Well then this makes no sense at all to me. Here is what my rotors look like after 6 years and 90k miles, you can see the shiny area (brake pad contact area) is much wider than on yours.You showed only one side of the rotors in your pics, I assume the other side looks similar?IMG_1257.webp
 
I have only used the brakes hard a couple of times. Drive with regen braking almost always and mine still look and act new at 66k miles and 6 years.
 
When the brake pedal is applied, regenerative and friction braking are combined to slow the vehicle. Two situations where only the friction brakes are used would be below 5mph and when braking aggressively. I would define aggressive braking as being at, or near, the point where ABS would engage.

The lone situation where only regenerative braking slows the vehicle is when coasting (while still in Drive). Four chevrons is the maximum amount of regenerative braking that can be set by the driver. That maximum setting provides light to moderate (I’m being generous here) braking force.

It would be quite challenging to drive the car while using regen for almost all of the braking.
 
It has become clear here that there is some factor that causes extreme differences in the way that the rotors perform.
Specifically @insightman and now @Danks are great examples of VERY POOR corrosion performance.

Others (including myself) have experienced excellent corrosion performance with very little wear or rust.
Here is a picture of my rotors (2018, with 6 years of use, fairly low mikes - 44K miles, Garage kept in Maryland):

Brakes.webp

These rotors look practically new with no evidence of any structural corrosion.
It seems to me that this has to somehow relate to weather / atmospheric conditions where the vehicle is located.

I'm not saying that there isn't something better that Honda could have used, but the rotors are performing extremely well for many (most?) of us, and it is a mystery as to what / why this is happening to some...

For those who are experiencing this bad corrosion - Can you comment on your experience with other vehicles? Do all of your vehicles suffer from poor rotor performance? Or, is it a combination of atmospheric / weather conditions exacerbated by the relatively low brake use of the EV?
 
insightman said:
Honda should have figured this out--and I don't mean the Clarity's Maintenance Minder should flash a "Brake Hard Sometime Soon" indicator. Does Chevy do a better job of maintaining the brake rotors on the Honda Prologue or did they come up with something less oxidizable than an iron rotor?
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I guarantee you if Honda added a message like that we would have 20 posts complaining about having to brake hard, and wasting their previous range!
 
MrFixit said:
It has become clear here that there is some factor that causes extreme differences in the way that the rotors perform.
Specifically @insightman and now @Danks are great examples of VERY POOR corrosion performance.
Click to expand...
I accept some blame for the corrosion of the iron brake rotors. It would help if I drove my Clarity every week and more than 3,400 miles/year--and used it for city driving instead of only for long trips on the e-way (for which it's wonderful).
 
insightman said:
I accept some blame for the corrosion of the iron brake rotors. It would help if I drove my Clarity every week and more than 3,400 miles/year--and used it for city driving instead of only for long trips on the e-way (for which it's wonderful).
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I don't think your driving style is to blame... Ours gets pretty light usage too (maybe more 'city' than you), but I just feel like something else is at play here.
Can you comment on your experience over the years with other vehicles - Even other Honda's ! ?
 
Landshark said:
It would be quite challenging to drive the car while using regen for almost all of the braking.
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I have to agree, I was grasping at straws to try to come up with an explanation. The fact that the OP now says that the out side of his discs are fully shiny, while the in side is a rusty mess, leads me to another guess that the in side pads are being affected by corrosion, and are sticking and therefore not applying quite as much force as those on the out side. It does seem possible the in side could get significantly rustier from road muck buildup. Did the mechanic change the pads and clean and lubricate the calipers too I hope? It would be good to know if the in side pads had less wear than the out side.
 
MrFixit said:
I don't think your driving style is to blame... Ours gets pretty light usage too (maybe more 'city' than you), but I just feel like something else is at play here.
Can you comment on your experience over the years with other vehicles - Even other Honda's ! ?
Click to expand...
Before the Clarity, I drove a 1986 CRX for 10 years, a 1991 CRX for 4 years, a gen-1 Honda Insight for 8 years, and a second gen-1 Honda Insight for 12 years. Meanwhile, my wife had a Prelude, a Civic, and a gen-2 Insight. None of those Hondas had their rotors replaced and none got rusty rotors.
 
MrFixit said:
It has become clear here that there is some factor that causes extreme differences in the way that the rotors perform.
Specifically @insightman and now @Danks are great examples of VERY POOR corrosion performance.

Others (including myself) have experienced excellent corrosion performance with very little wear or rust.
Here is a picture of my rotors (2018, with 6 years of use, fairly low mikes - 44K miles, Garage kept in Maryland):

View attachment 23443

These rotors look practically new with no evidence of any structural corrosion.
It seems to me that this has to somehow relate to weather / atmospheric conditions where the vehicle is located.

I'm not saying that there isn't something better that Honda could have used, but the rotors are performing extremely well for many (most?) of us, and it is a mystery as to what / why this is happening to some...

For those who are experiencing this bad corrosion - Can you comment on your experience with other vehicles? Do all of your vehicles suffer from poor rotor performance? Or, is it a combination of atmospheric / weather conditions exacerbated by the relatively low brake use of the EV?
Click to expand...
Look at the inner side of the rotors
 
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