I bought the 08 Honda Accord EX on Nov.27, 2007. I have had a little squeak here and there in the morning but about three days ago I started hearing this awful squealing noise while driving. It came and went on my way home. The next day I contacted the dealer about the issue and had my wife take it in that evening. The response was I have good and bad news."The good news is that we found the problem. The rear breaks will need to be replaced. The bad news is that its not covered under warranty" and the dealer promptly offered to change the brakes for $167. No. Thanks!! This is unacceptable for a car with only 21,000mi. As I was looking on the internet and stumbled across this wonderful site I thought why not jump on the bandwagon. After all we all bought brand new cars so we worry about servicing them the first year.

I have NEVER had a car need brakes at 20k miles. I was so proud to be the owner of a new Honda and bragged to all my friends. Now they all laugh cause it needs work at only 20k miles. This is my first and my last Honda EVER! The real pain was a week and half prior to my rear brakes failing I got a oil change at Lee's Summit Honda and they did their inspection and reported my brakes to be in the GREEN range on their scale. When I returned a week and half later I asked why wasn't this caught earlier? They said well we only check the outer pad. Then they went to explain that on Hondas the Inner pad wears faster??!@!@#@#! WTF? Then why not check it? I understand cars have problems and such but this is a safety issue too. Feeling very confident in my new car I would have never imagined that it needed brakes so soon. Good thing I wasn't on a long trip out of town someplace. My brother owns a Ford 500 and he had the same thing happen to his rear brakes at aprox 30k miles. The Ford dealer took care of it free of charge. Maybe the commercials are right....Ford is the new Honda/Toyota?

At 15,000 miles, I brought my Accord into the dealer after a day of my rear brakes squeaking. I was told the rear breaks were warn down to 10% and needed to be replaced immediately. This problem was explained to me as "my fault" since I drove the car too hard. My previous car was a 1999 Accord & I went 70,000 miles before needing new breaks - what gives??

To add insult to injury I had to wait an extra 4 hours for the break pads to be located due to this being such a 'new' car!!!!!

Bottom Line: Accords have a reputation for being low maintenance; the 2008 Accord just broke that rule!!!

Bought my 2008 Accord in October 2007. Shortly after buying I noticed the brakes squeaked upon stopping especially in rain and cold. I never had it looked at, because to be honest the brakes worked and I didn't want the headache of taking the car in to be looked at. Then at roughly 23,500 miles I started hearing a high pitched noise and upon breaking it would feel like sand was grinding in my brakes. It came and went for a few days, so I had the car looked at and was told I needed new rear brakes. Goodyear didn't even have the brakes available so to make it less expensive I picked the brakes from Honda and Goodyear put them on. It's been about two months and even with the brakes working I still have a squeak when stopping, especially in the cold. It's sooo damn annoying. This is a new car, a nice car, and I shouldn't have this problem. It's to the point where I regret buying the car. This is my third Accord in a row, and my last two were definitely better cars, even if I bought them used. Never have I had brake issues like this.

Update from May 8, 2009: Just got off the phone with American Honda Motor Co. The gentleman I spoke to stated that if enough people call in with complaints about premature brake wear Honda would review each complaint and make a decision if a recall is needed. So call 1-800-999-1009 and complain!!!

I bought my Accord in November of 2007. By June 2008 I had roughly 35,000 miles on the car before I heard the brakes wearing and grinding in the rear. I checked the pads to find that both of the inside rear pads were wore to nothing and the Rotors needed replacing. I took it to the Honda dealer and the service rep told me that I "must have been driving around with the Emergency Brake on"... Yea, I am not a total Moron. They were going to Charge me $500 to replace the brakes and Rotors, I bought the parts myself and installed the Parts.

My Brakes seemed to be working fine until this last week when the brakes wore down again. This time at 73,000 miles. Again I found that the inside pads on both rears where worn again. this time the pads wear worn diagonally on the pad as if the piston was pushing uneven against the inside pad. This is very frustrating seeing that the outer rear pads had almost 100% of the pad.

I put on a lot of miles and have found that this problem will only get worse the more miles that are put on the rear breaks. there is a definite design flaw in the caliper/rotor system.

same problem as everyone else, 15k miles started hearing it a little noise and thought it was odd...ignored it and by 15500 miles started hearing it a lot and checked online and saw all these complaints. had to go to the dealer and of course they acted like it was me being too harsh on the car and also said, "all the new cars are like this now...rear brake discs, when they used to be front brake..." blahh blahh blahh... trying to say its all new cars and not just Honda... doubtful!!

never will i get a Honda again, i had a new Subaru wrx and it was 40k miles before i even touched the car for anything. i thought i was being "economical" when i got this car. i got a new car so i wouldn't have to worry about problems for a few yrs... wtf...

i hate going to dealerships for repairs cuz you really gotta watch them and make sure they dont screw you! in LA, CA where i got the car, i would go to downey Honda world for this repair cuz they are straight up about it and dont screw you. im in SF, CA now and it costs $100 more for repairs!! so almost $300 for this crap that needs to be replaced every 15k give or take? wtf!!!

im definitely filing a complaint where possible and hope everyone does the same.... at the very least reimburse us for the first set since we are supposed to go back every f'n year to take care of this crap!!!

So i seem to have the same problem as everyone else who has filed a complaint. My 2008 Honda accord had a squeak in the brakes. So i took it to my local dealer and they told me my rear brake pads need to be replaced. I was shocked, as i have owned a 2005 Honda accord and never had this problem with it. I lucked out this time and managed to talk my way into getting it covered by my warranty even though i have 16,000 miles on my car. I saved money this time, but i am not looking forward to the next time i have to replace them($225). I wish i would of know this, i would have never bought a Honda accord.

Honda has disappointed me with their lack of quality and their easy way to cut cost, but they are risking peoples safety by doing this. They need to recall this, but i know they won't because they enjoy getting the extra income from all the brake jobs they will be getting.

Premature rear brake wear on my 2008 Honda accord LX. Took the car to Midas for an oil change and tire rotation and was notified that my rear brakes had work out and had 10% left on them. And I only have 11000 miles on my car. I have owned an older Honda before and never had this problem. They told me they would change them for $150 and they would use OE brake pads (not the aftermarket ones), after negotiating i got the price down to $130 but only if i would pay cash. They told me that it was very unusual for the rear pads to ware out so quickly. Seems like this is a defect.

I am going to file a complaint with Honda and BBB. Honda # is 1800 999 1009 and BBB web site is www.bbb.org.

If you have the same problem file a complaint so they take care of this

Well, I took my 2008 Honda Accord for standard 15K service yesterday to dealership and after one hour I receive a call from the service informing that rear brakes have wore out and must be replaced immediately! I was so furious - never expected a Honda to be of such bad quality. It is just 15K on my car and about 15 months old. Dealer told me that Honda is well aware of this problem but have not issued any advisory and do not cover this under warranty. This is considered normal wear. The dealer did tell me that I need to cover only 50% of the cost - in the end it is costing me $95 + tax to replace rear brake pads.

I have had transmission replaced on my Honda Odyssey and now this. Quality of Honda cars have visibly gone down and I am definitely not buying Honda anymore, unless they can show me something substantial in terms of quality improvements.

My Honda accord was purchased in June of 08 and only has 25000 miles. i started to hear grinding from the rear breaks. Took the accord in to the local honda dealership to find out my rear breaks were completely shot and that the rotors needed to be rotated. The service manager said this was normal wear and tear and that the parking break needed to be adjusted. This cost me $210 for rear break replacement. I had a 2005 Toyota Camry with 75000 miles and never once did I have to replace the front or rear breaks on that vehicle. I have read everyone elses' complaint on this same issue and it seems Honda is doing nothing but charging customers money to do a job that should be considered a safety recall that should cost customers nothing. Maybe Honda has one or more righteous people with some pull who will do something to correct this problem.

I have a 2008 Accord EX and had to replace the rear brakes at 16,500 miles. I was told the same garbage from the dealership concerning why this wasn't covered under warranty. One service tech laughed and told me they just repaired rear brakes on a '08 Accord with 8,000 miles on it! So I guess I was supposed to feel lucky. That was a year ago and I just want everyone to know it doesn't get any better. On my way home from work today, I heard that horrible squealing noise again and cursed all the way home. My car has 32,000 miles on it now so I guess it's about that time again. However, I have no intention of replacing brakes on this car every 16,000 miles. Honda, I'm out!!

I CAN BRAKE BETTER WITH MY BARE ASS!!! My REAR brakes went out after 12K miles which is unheard of. I had a f*cking Nissan Sentra before this and never changed the brakes once (front or back) before trading it in at 80K miles.... What happened to the Japanese? Where have they gone wrong? My front brakes are still around 70% good and I am at 25 K miles right now... It is time to replace the back brakes again for the second time.... I want to brakes someone's face... Last time I buy a Honda vehicle that's for sure... I will go to my dealership today and go nuts on someone!!! This is f*cked up I am soooooo upset I cannot even explain with writing! I want to start a lawsuit if others are cool to do so....

I'm somewhat relieved to see that my Accord isn't the only one that gives extremely poor rear brake service life. I have owned more cars than I can count, probably near 100, and have never owned a car or truck that wore out the rear brakes in under 80,000 miles. Most of them go over 100,000 miles. This car has managed to do so in just 17,500 miles. It hasn't been driven hard; there are no left foot brakers in the family and the front brakes are still in good order. As stated before by other posters, the ratio of front to rear brake wear on virtually all vehicles is on the order of 3 or 4 to one.

We took it to the local Honda dealer this morning and the service writer told my wife when she got out of the car that he heard her coming. He said they see a lot of this, with mileage as low as 15,000 miles and quoted her a price to fix it. All of this before a mechanic had seen the car. His explanation was that the rear brake Honda chose to use was undersized. I had a talk with him after that and told him that this was unacceptable. There is a design flaw or defect in the car, it's under warranty and it isn't my responsibility to pay for the repair and hope that if enough people complain that future Hondas will have improved brakes. He was nice when he offered me Honda's complaint line number, but that was all.

I called Honda when we got home and spoke to Fernando, and to make a long story short, they don't care either. They were not impressed by the fact that at least 10 new Hondas have been sold on my recommendation and that I was a very unhappy, long time customer.

So I called another local dealer to see what their stand was on the problem. He said that there was no service bulletin or advisory and that only a few cars did this but Honda had asked them to check the emergency brake adjustment on 2008 Accords. He said that typical life for modern Honda cars with four wheel disc brakes is anywhere between 30,000 and 45,000 miles. Given that, mine wore out in 1/2 to1/3 of the normal service life.

Possible causes could be emergency brake adjustment, undersized calipers or pad material that is too soft, electronic brake distribution system, "vehicle stability assist with traction control" or the ABS system. With exception to the emergency brake adjustment, the other systems selectively brake individual wheels to achieve the design goals of that system. A malfunction of, or design flaw in, any of those systems could potentially cause the rear brakes to be used more than normal. A defective caliper seems unlikely because both rears would have to be defective to cause this problem. This is all interesting to speculate about but it isn't our responsibility to solve the problem. We have no way of knowing if the computer programs that run these complex systems are correct or if the electronic system itself is operating according to it’s design. We can only speculate whether or not the calipers and pads are designed up to the task. That responsibility lies clearly with Honda.

If you haven't called and reported your problem to Honda, please do so ASAP.