Maintenance Minder A19

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vick

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My Clarity is at 20,000 km (Canadian), and as I understand it, maintenance minder A19 is an oil change and tire inspection, and 9 for servicing the front and back brakes.

My question is, the service for 9 costs about $170 Canadian (at the dealership). Is this a necessary service at 20,000 km?
 
You need to ask questions. What exactly are they “servicing” on the brakes? What did the shop find wrong with them? For replacement pads only that’s a fair price. But I can’t fathom that any Clarity on the road today needs them yet. If they’re also replacing rotors or something that’s an absolute steal. If flushing brake fluid it’s kinda pricey but not highway robbery. But again I am suspicious of the need for anything. If they’re just inspecting them to tell you nothing is wrong (my suspicion) then $170 is a huge ripoff, as most shops will do this for free with every tire rotation.

But as a rather experienced mechanic, I can quite confidently say that a car with 20,000 kms simply does not need a brake “service” whatever that is. And I fail to understand why such a thing would appear on the maintenance minder.

Again, ask questions. My spidey senses are tingling and this is a red flag to me of a potential ripoff.

I also urge a knowledgeable Canadian to chime in. Maybe this is some sort of government oversight safety requirement? US models don’t do this code at all, as far as I know. I’m in the US so I may be missing something here.
 
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The same brakes are in both Canadian and US models, and the Canadian is a brake “sevice” while in the US it is folded into the “inspection” of several components.
That makes me speculate that it might be a governmental requirement since the US far north sees as much winter salt and slush as our Canadian neighbors, so why would Honda specify it differently? Is this true for all cars sold in Canada? But as @craze1cars said, we really don’t know yet.

I do know that I would be bummed out if I had to pay for a “service” that was just a visual inspection most times. When I rotate the tires about every 7,000 miles, I look (inspect) at the brakes but have never had to do anything to them between pad and rotor maintenance intervals. And that’s over 50 years and a dozen vehicles. Although if I lived in the frozen north or on dirt roads, I might inspect more often.
 
David in TN said:
The US code of A0 is equivalent to the Canadian code of A9. Owner's manual pages 477-478.
Click to expand...
It may be significant that the Canadian 9 says “service brakes” while the US version says “inspect brakes” if that means the Canadians have to pay for something that is just a visual check for us Americans
No mechanic I’ve ever used has ever charged me to visually check the brakes, lines, etc. when I had a service done like oil change or tire rotation.
Hopefully our Canadian friends will post their experiences with this.
 
This video does not directly apply, as the codes have since changed in the Canadian Honda maintenance routines (in particular A19 is likely equivalent to "B" service that she describes), but I think the answer to what they do for brake service is given from 1:08 - 1:19 in the video. "... Clean the rust off the rotors; keep the calipers lubricated; make sure you still have good life on the pads..."



$170 CDN = $127 USD, which is ~$32 USD per wheel. Perhaps not a crazy amount of money for cleaning the rotors and lubricating the calipers, but it is up for debate whether the 20,000 km is a little early for it.

Keep in mind, if you rotate your tires yourself (or at a garage for ~$10?), you can reset the #1 on the maintenance minder which may push out the oil change and brake service out until the 12 month anniversary of the oil.
 
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