I've been reading two Accord forums for over an hour, and I don't have an answers to my question, yet. Please respond. :)

I bought my '96, 2.2L V-TEC Accord about 2 months ago. It has almost 150,000 miles on it. For these past two months, my rotors have worsened. About two days after I bought the car, I realized that my steering wheel shook whenever I braked. I took off the tires and inspected the brake pads to see if they were wearing out. The brake pads are fine. I'm pretty sure the problem is my rotors.

To solve this problem, I asked one of my guy friends to change them out for me. We went to a garage and the mechanics there advised us to use a sliding hammer. We tried this for almost 2 hours on the passenger side, front tire. We got nowhere - but our forearms were sore for a few days afterwards.

So, I went to Meineke, Midas, and a Honda dealership to get a quote on parts and labor to get my rotors replaced. These are the quotes:

Honda dealership - Roughly $500-$600 dollars, parts + labor (hydraullically pressed)
Meineke - Roughly $400 dollars, parts + labor (hydraullically pressed)
Midas - Roughly $200, -only- labor (sliding hammer)

The Honda dealership told me that it costs this much to change my rotors simply because they are hydraullically pressed in. I told them the story about me and the guy friend trying to change out the rotors ourselves. But the mechanics said that the sliding hammer isn't reccommended because it could mess up my wheel bearings.

BOTTOM LINE:

1. Should I pay $400+ dollars to get my rotors replaced using a hydraullic press? OR should I pay $200 dollars for some guys to use a sliding hammer?

2. Should I, instead, try to get my rotors rotated? (I don't know how to look to see if my rotors are just thinning or if they are really warped. The front of the rotors look pretty okay, but the back (from what my friend mechanics say) are wearing out.)

I don't want to be ****ed in the end by allowing someone to possibly mess up my wheel bearings. But I am pretty tight on money (I'm a college student.) It's a very difficult situation for me because I don't want my car to suffer - I love my car.

What do you guys think about the sliding hammer and how safe that would be on my car? Should I just go ahead and pay more now than possibly later? What would you reccommend me do?

Thanks. I know this is a long post.

The captured rotors on the gen5 accords do suck.

With either method of removal, if you live in a rust belt area, you'll be looking at putting in 2 new wheel bearings. When you tried to remove the hub, did you remove the axle nut, if you didn't it would never come off. Also, if you removed the nut, but not the 4 bolts on the bearing carrier, you would have destroyed the wheel bearing as the hub will eventually pull out of the bearing taking the outer race with it.

When the gen5 cars were built, Honda used bolted in bearing assemblies, the 4 bolts that hold the bearing carrier to the knuckle can be removed but very rarely have I seen them come out without destroying the wheel bearing itself.

Using a press by removing the knuckles from the car can sometimes save the bearings by pushing out the assembly (hub, bearing and bearing carrier) and then unbolting the rotor.

About machining the rotors, they should be measured, usually these rotors aren't that thick to start with and any material removed makes them more susceptible to warpage again. They have to be "on car" machined.

maybe this can help