A customer brought their Honda Accord to the dealer because there was a little clunking noise from the brakes or suspension. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the problem was once I got the wheels off.

If you aren’t familiar with cars, I don’t expect you to know what’s wrong here, but if you’re a mechanic you should be able to tell right away, which means whoever did this should not be working on cars. The dealer that the customer had just bought the car from had replaced the front pads and rotors with the wrong parts. This trim level of Accord has a slightly bigger front brake package, and they had used the smaller, meaning the pads could move around inside the caliper. Unlike a previous car I wrote about, they didn’t even change the pad holder hardware, so it should’ve been even more obvious that they were the wrong pads.

This is why it’s always a good idea to compare the new parts you’re installing to the old parts you’re taking off. The correct brake pad is on the left, and the incorrect pad I took off the car is on the right. Even without trying to install the pad it’s obvious that it’s not the right one.

New blog post or video every Monday, plus pictures throughout the week on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Watch Mechanical Malarkey on YouTube!

Mechanical Malarkey T-shirts, hats, and stickers are available to order!

-Dan