Rep Power: 481

I'm just a little confused I guess about changing out my rotors. I know that it's going to be relatively easy to do, but I'm just wondering if I'm going to need an alignment afterwards? It would make sense to me as you're pretty much going to be taking apart your whole front end to change the rotors. What has been your guys experience in this?

 
Rep Power: 0

You don't need an alignment when switching rotors. If you feel something is not right afterwards, it's probably something that went wrong during the installation, not an alignment problem.

And you don't need to take apart the whole front end just for rotors : take off the wheels, take off the brakes, take off the rotors. Grey's got a nice DIY for this... check the DIY section.

 
Rep Power: 419

The only thing that used to be done was a machining of the surface of the rotor to be true to the rotational plane. This way you don't get uneven brake pad wear and what not. Although I don't think many people get their new rotors turned these days. I guess manufacturing tolerances are pretty tight now.

 
Rep Power: 0

Actually, most Honda dealerships will turn brand new rotors on installation. And they ONLY use the "on-car" rotor lathe... i.e., the portable lathe machine that you hook up to the rotor to lathe it, AFTER the rotor is installed. Apparently, this gives you a truer resurfacing than traditional lathe machines.

My dealership told me that for some reason, Hondas are very sensitive to brake vibration if you don't "true" the new rotors to the car.