Honda: Braking with clicking noise only in the morning, cv boots, cv boot

Question
In the morning, when I brake for the first time, I hear a clicking noise on my front brakes. I drive a 04 Honda with 100K miles. The noise disappears at the next stop and wont hear it until after work when the car is cold and clicks again at the first brake. I just had my brakes cleaned two months ago and they did not see anything wrong. Thank you-Laura

Answer
Laura,

Definitely an odd one. I would suspect a bad CV boot more than I would the brakes due to the mileage of the vehicle, clicks are more attuned to a torn CV boot when all of the grease leaks out of the CV joint(usually outer boot), the most definitive way to know is to go to an empty parking lot and from stand still and wheels fully turned right or left, slowly accelerate, if the clicking increases with speed, the likelihood is a bad CV boot. Following that knowledge, grease leaking out visually if you look underneath the vehicle would be the definitive. Torn CV boots usually occur when drivers like to go into corners at fast speeds, placing stress on the CV boots more than normal.

If is isn't the CV boot, brakes are more known to squeal and grind( from a sound descriptive). Cleaning brakes is not a sure fire way to rule out this clicking problem. One possibility is, if you have your brake done by a mechanic, is it may be a loose caliper bolt. Not being tightened down, everytime you accelerate,then brake, the caliper has "play" when it should be tight. The bolt knocks in its seat because it isn't tight, therefore causing a metallic click. It can also be a pad tensioner that pushes the pad in place but that would be unlikely.

The best way is to actually remove the tire and visually inspect the brake system (caliper, caliper bolts, pads both inner and outer) inspecting the caliper bolts especially making sure they are torqued properly.

There is no way around a proper inspection and ruling out possibilities, the things mentioned above would be how I would go about ruling out this sound you have described.

Hope this helps.