Since the arrival of the Civic Type R stateside, it’s hard to argue the success and popularity enjoyed by the hatchback. One of the common issues most common to new hatch owners is Civic Type R brake pad failure. Many owners are complaining about issues such as brake pads melting, premature damage to brake rotors and more.
This has led many owners forced to complete a Honda Civic brake pad replacement much earlier than they anticipated. This is especially the case for those owners who enjoy their Civic Type R on the track. After all, given the Type R performance as well as the platform’s racing heritage, who can blame them?
What can you do to stop premature Civic Type R brake pad failure? Here are a few things you can do to keep your Type R brakes working well for many years to come.
How to Prevent Civic Type R brake pad failure
As arguably one of the most capable hatchbacks Honda has ever built, the Type R has come with a ton of expectations. By and large, however, the little hatchback that could has delivered. High-performance compacts may be a thing of the past, but try telling that to Honda’s hot hatch on the track.
Avoid overheat – Obvious answer to keeping your Honda brakes from scouring or bedding your rotors is to avoid overuse. Give your Type R the proper breaks between laps to maintain optimum heat dissipation.
Cooldown – When pulling in from a hot lap, move your Type R frequently and allow the rotors and pads to cool. You don’t want your Type R brake pads to bed or scour your Honda rotors.
Consider buying a Honda Civic track brake pads
Of course, the easiest way to avoid Civic Type R brake failure is to buy a dedicated set of pads to run strictly at the track. Because street pads and race-only brake pads run at very different heat efficiencies, you are always going to run into some sort of issue racing on street pads.
There are alternatives to this solution, however, there’s no doubting that using a race only brake pad is the best approach.
