Make him test drive it. 
I wouldn’t think of making her drive it until I checked it out.
Anyway, to some of the points raised in this thread:
The brakes on her car are sufficiently low that I’m going to change the rotors on principle. There has been a squeal for a while, meaning that they are already requiring service, and since the wear indicator is chewing on the rotors it only makes sense to replace them. I can’t wait to try to get out the two rotor screws, though. That should be a lot of fun if they didn’t put anti-seize on them the last time they were changed. I don’t plan on changing the calipers unless something bad shows up, in which case this job will become much more involved. I think everything will be fine, I’m not doing this because the brakes are acting up, I’m doing this because the linings are worn and inspection is due soon.
I plan on getting jack stands, rotors, pads, and brake fluid. That said, a follow-up: must I bleed the brakes? I suppose I should, but getting an experienced guy to help me with this job is probably not going to happen, and what Robin knows about cars can be written in foot-high letters on the head of a pin. Can it wait, or is it essential? The pedal isn’t soft or anything right now.
Last, were I to do the rears also, there is some sort of tool I understand I must use. I’m not sure why. What’s the story with that? Is it a parking brake issue or something?
Yes, definitely, bleed the brakes. That is always the last step in the process, and it’s often a 2-person job, one to open and close the bleed nipple while the other steps on the brake pedal.
If you didn’t have a problem like a soft brake pedal you don’t need to bleed the system unless you have opened a line. If you replace the calipers then yes you need to bleed.
No. Don’t bleed the brakes. Jesus Christ. You’re replacing pads, not the damned brake lines. You also probably don’t need to add brake fluid either.
This is routine maintenance. This is not rocket science… It should take you about 30 minutes per wheel.
In order to change pads you must open the bleed nipple to retract the caliper pistons. This lets air into the brake line which, after you’ve changed the pads, must be bled out.
I’ve never seen a car on which this is true. But you may need a C-clamp to gently coax the pistons back into their bores. Some rear brake calipers have the parking brake mechanism integrated into them, and the piston actually has to be screwed back into the bore. If you look at the piston face and see indents at the circular edge, you can usually borrow/rent a tool from the auto parts shop for screwing these pistons back into the bore.
To the OP: The most applicable information for your job can be found in a service manual. The cheapest option there is to pick up a Haynes manual for your 2001 Accord. This will have detailed instructions, with pictures, showing how to change the pads on your particular car. It will also list all of the relevant torque values for the various nuts and bolts you’ll be loosening/tightening as you do this work.
And now the patronizing point, since I have no idea of your level of experience/ability:
If you don’t own a torque wrench, you’ll want to buy one for this job; brake bolts and lug nuts are safety-critical items, and you want to tighten them to the torque values specified in that manual. Get one that’s big enough so that the highest torque you’ll use it for (probably the lug nuts) is no more than about 80% of its full range. You may also want to get a smaller torque wrench so that the smallest torque you’ll use it for is no less than about 20% of its full range.
If you’ve never used a torque wrench, get some pointers from a trusted friend who can give you hands-on instruction.
If you’ve never jacked up you car, here’s the important thing: never get under your car if it’s supported by just a jack. For the purposes of a brake job, putting your head and arms into the wheel well counts as “getting under the car.” Always support the car with a jackstand when you’re doing brake work like this. If you don’t own a jackstand, you’ll want to buy one. If you’ve never used one, get some pointers from a trusted friend who can give you hands-on instruction. The basic idea is that you don’t want to trust the jack for anything beyond raising/lowering the car; for enduring support, the weight of the car should be transferred to the jackstand. An on-site friend can show you where suitable spots are for the jackstand to bear the weight of the car.
Opening the bleed nipple allows the brake fluid to escape when you depress the pistons. If you don’t open the bleed nipple, then when you try to depress the pistons where would the fluid in the system flow to? Up to the reservoir? Does it overflow the reservoir? It would have to flow somewhere otherwise you’re never going to depress the pistons, and you’ll never get the clearance to fit new pads over the rotor.
Without knowing how many cars you’ve done brakes for, this statement can be true if you’ve done it on only one car. Or also if you’ve changed brakes for hundreds of different cars. How many is it? Pardon me, but I don’t know you or your credentials. Are you a mechanic who has changed brakes professionally on hundreds of different cars? Or like me, not a mechanic (as I said earlier in this thread) and who’s only done it on the cars they’ve owned?
The first car I changed brakes on, I followed a service manual and that’s what it said to do. That was in the early 1980s. Since it was so straightforward and easy that’s the approach I followed on the other cars I’ve owned since then, import and domestic, and it has worked well each time.
Yes, exactly. It flows back into the reservoir. In a perfect world, the brake fluid reservoir gets topped off to exactly the “full” mark when the pads are new, goes down as they wear and should jump back up to full when you put new pads on. If someone topped off the reservoir between brake jobs then, yes, you’ll have a mess.
Now, there’s a bit of automotive folk wisdom about opening the bleeder valve and/or pinching off the brake hose to prevent the supposedly contaminated fluid that’s been in the caliper from flowing back to the ABS components. I think some service manuals actually do recommend it, but it’s far from universal. Most cars are just fine with pushing the piston back.
And ‘quality’ does not necessarily mean ‘ceramic’. If your car is not designed for ceramic pads you hose your rotors in short order.
BTW, I am one of those clowns who opens the bleeder nipple to retract the piston. Clear fluid just makes me happy. I think it’s a preference thing, although to be honest I didn’t know you could leave it shut and displace fluid back to the reservoir.
Well I’ve been doing brakes professionally for over 40 years. I’m an ASE master automotive tech among other qualifications. I have done thousands if not tens of thousands of brake jobs.
I’ve never seen a car where it was necessary to open a bleed screw to retract the piston.
Is is easier for the DIYer to open the bleed screw? Well it makes the piston retraction easier but adds having to bleed the brakes to the length of the job.
I don’t open bleed screws, you might choose to but it is not a requirement.
To the OP only disassemble one side at a time. Leave the other side assembled. Two reasons. 1. It gives you a reference of how the system should look assembled and 2. When you compress the caliper piston you don’t want to push the other piston out of its bore.
On what principle? Worn linings does not generally mean worn rotors. The great majority of the time, the rotors are in reusable condition and there’s no pont in replacing them. If the squeal is from the wear indicators, it means the pads require service, not the rotors. I often explain the wear indicators as being akin to fingernails on a blackboard, making an annoying noise to get your attention. And those wear indicators “chew” the rotors as much as a fingernail on a blackboard, which is NOT. AT. ALL. It does NOT make sense to replace rotors just because the wear indicator has been riding on them. Now, if the lining is 100+% worn and the pad’s backing has been grinding up the rotor surface, that’s a different story.
My illustrations don’t show screws holding the rotors on, but if it has them the way to loosen (and tighten) them is with a hand impact driver and a #3 Phillips bit. There may be two threaded holes to screw bolts (8X1.25) into to pull the rotors off.
Generally not. Maybe one time out of a hundred I find the pedal has gotten soft (excessive travel) after pad replacement, for no apparent reason, and bleeding will take care of it. If you understand how to bleed brakes, your assistant only needs to understand “up” and “down” while pressing/releasing the pedal for you.
Yes. The parking brake mechanism inside the caliper needs to be screwed back in at the same time that the piston is pressed in. The tool allows you to both rotate the piston and press it in. The technique is to screw the big hex (that has engaged the notches in the piston) a half turn or so, then press the piston as far as it will go (won’t be much), then continue to screw a bit – press a bit – screw a bit – etc. until the piston won’t go in any further. At that point, rotate the notch to line up with the tab on the pad.
It’s worth pointing out that in 9 cases out of 10, this means genuine OEM rotors and either OEM or truly compatible pads. Volvos in particular - whether you buy cheap AutoZone rotors or gold-plated grooved, drilled and coated racing rotors, 99 times out of 100 these choices will result in brake vibration, rapid wear and an endless parade of hassles small and large. Plain old genuine-Volvo rotors? Almost never a problem even under hard use. Except for those few models and makes known to have crappy OEM parts - I think it was mid-80s Toyotas that had hand-carved rotors and cheese for pads - you simply can’t go wrong with OEM parts.
Right. The best bet is to insist on the type of pad (organic, semi-metallic, ceramic) that came with the car from the factory.
If you don’t have any pulsating on the rotors, that little “wear indicator” will not have done enough damage to warrant replacing them. Unless the pad backings have been grinding on the rotors, you should be just fine to leave them as-is.
Looks like I was Ninja’d by Gary, who said almost exactly what I did. Seriously, don’t make more work and expense for yourself than you need to.
Oh, one last thing…when putting the wheels back on, make sure you torque the lugs properly and in the proper order. I swear I never had problems with pulsating until I took the car in to have the tires rotated and the dipwad at the shop air-wrenched each lug to full torque one at a time, instead of using the star pattern. Never again.
I, too, did not know you can leave the hydraulic system closed (bleed nipple closed) to retract the pistons. Cool, thanks for the info, and ignorance fought!
FWIW that first job I did was on a 1979 Fiat X1/9 and IIRC the shop manual (Haynes, again IIRC) said to open the bleed nipple for this.
IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO LOOSEN THE BLEED SCREW IN ORDER TO PRESS THE PISTON BACK IN. In some cases it might be desirable, but it is not necessary.
The advantage in loosening the bleed screw is that it makes it easier to press the piston home. It also avoids the possibility of pushing debris into an ABS valve and causing a problem, which I imagine has happened to somebody somewhere at some time, but which I have never heard an actual case of.
The disadvantage is it’s more work, more mess, and makes it necessary to top up the fluid in the reservoir. I do it rarely when I think it’s called for, but I don’t do it routinely.
If you’re going to do it, get a piece of hose that fits snugly onto the bleed screw and run it into a waste container (clear vinyl tubing is great for this, as you can see the fluid in it). With the bleeder oriented high, open the bleeder, press the piston in, then close the bleeder. Carefully remove the hose to avoid/minimize making a mess with the fluid. When it’s done this way, air cannot get into the caliper and bleeding is not necessary.
It’s my understanding that most shops and mechanics consider a flush essential after pad replacement, even if the caliper is not opened up and the bleed screw is left closed.
25 years ago or so, rebuilding a caliper was an essential part of disc brake service at the time of pad replacement. It was considered a bogus shortcut to compress the piston and install new pads, a move sure to lead to leaks and brake failure. Now, calipers aren’t touched unless there’s evidence of leakage or another problem, but replacing degraded or contaminated fluid and particulate removal make a post-service flush critical to essential.
Not in my experience. No more so than a coolant flush is essential after replacing a radiator hose. Now it may well be that the vehicle is due for a flush at that time, but that’s related to how it has been maintained up to that point, not to the repair work being done.
Again, not in my experience. Resurfacing or replacement of rotors was done routinely by the better shops, mainly to minimize the chance of annoyance noise, and it was considered a cheap substandard repair to not deal with the rotors. Improvements in pad material (and perhaps rotor design/material as well) have rendered this approach obsolete. There may have been a time when caliper service was likewise considered the hallmark of a complete brake repair, but I don’t recall it.
I don’t know of any shops that adhere to this philosophy.
I stand by my initial assertion: the best advice for working on a vehicle is to read the service manual for that vehicle. If it says crack the bleed screw, OK. If it doesn’t mention it, don’t do it.