I have a 1999 1.6 Civic Vti Coupe with which I am having brake problems.
It has done 39k miles and went into my local Honda dealer to have the pads
changed when the right rear wear indicator started to contact the disc.
Front and rear were changed.
When the car went in to the dealer the brakes were working perfectly and
were very sharp especially at low speed braking (30 mph or less) and
requiring minimal pedal pressure.
When it came out the pedal required much more force to get the car to stop
especially now from slow speeds.
Emergency stops work OK.
Many days of spending money and arguing with the dealer got me nowhere, in
the end neither did contacting Honda UK.
The car has done over 1000 miles now so they are bedded in and still feel
the same.
The system has been bled twice.
I have had another new set of pads on the front, different make fitted at
a different garage, no difference so the Honda ones went back in.
When the disks (rotors) have a light coating of morning rust on them then
the brakes pull up like they used to, once the rust has gone (2 presses),
back to normal.
Front rotors very lightly scored (way less than 0.5mm).
Front Rotor thickness measured at 20.98mm on a digital Micrometer.
I re-surfaced the front pads just in case they were glazed, no effect.
I sanded the front rotors with a mechanical detail sander and there was an
improvement until they went shiny again.
It used to feel like my 2000 1.8 Vti Civic (22k miles) but now it feels
more like my 1989 2.0i Prelude (160k miles on the original rotors)
The best description of how it feels is it feels like you have just been
through water, light braking poor, heavy braking OK but with much more
pedal pressure required.
This has been ongoing now since mid October 2004, can anyone please tell
me what the problem is with my braking system?

Thanks
G