Road disc brake problems

Quote:

Disc brakes need no more maintenance than any other brake system.

I would tentatively agree, but as a regular contributor to ‘discs are bad, hmm’kay?’ type threads, my beef is not with the day to day maintenance, but with problem solving when things do go wrong, which in my recent experience they often have…

As this thread and several like it demonstrate, when discs DO misbehave, they can be an unholy, expensive, pain the ass to diagnose and fix.

I’ve now spent at least £100 trying to figure out and cure the awful noises emanating from my SRAM Level Ts on my ‘fast commuter’. The solution? Spend another £150 replacing them with a totally different brake. I now have a complete set of SRAM brakes with several sets of pads and two sets of rotors that I cannot in good faith sell on to anyone as I just could not get them to shut up.
 

Since the industry seems intent on forcing discs upon us it seems like they should be more proactive in preventing and solving these problems, ultimately I’m sure my issue was due to either brakes with poor manufacturing tolerances, a frame with poor tolerances, or just a bad combination of brake and frame. Did the shop where I bought it care? Nope. Did Trek UK care? Nope. I could probably have kicked up a massive fuss and caused everyone a massive headache, but it just seemed easier to fork out for new brakes. More fool me perhaps.

Anyone seen or heard anything from Shimano to address the known issue of leaking callipers across all ranges and models? Nope. Seems easier for them to deal with the percentage of warranty returns and let the rest of us go through all the faff described in the posts above…

After a year of working
After a year of working brilliantly, my brakes somehow both got badly contaminated and were incredibly noisy and ineffective. I could resolve the problem temporarily by getting the brakes hot, and they’d then be fine for the rest of the ride, but the problem would return on the next ride.

I’ve now tried taking the pads out and heating them to 250c for about 5 min using a heat gun and cleaned the rotors and this seems to have pretty much sorted it.

I’ve read about the o ring issue on shimano calipers, but I’m sceptical that this is the problem here as the problem started with both brakes at exactly the same time and using the brakes seems to improve things rather than make it worse whereas I’d expect an o ring leak to get worse with use.

kevvjj wrote:

need no more maintenance than any other brake system. I have now had a set of Shimano XT disc brakes on my MTB for over seven years. I have used the MTB in all conditions both on and off road, as a commuter in the city and as a touring bike – I’ve used it for everything. I have never had an issue with contamination. The hoses, calipers, seals, pistons and even the fluid are all original. I have only ever replaced pads as they wear out. High maintenance? Bullshit.

I’ll happily bow to your vastly broader range of experience than mine…

Mungecrundle wrote:

Mungecrundle wrote:

I would hazard a guess that bicycle workshops perform many routine maintenance tasks and basic repairs that would be well within the abilities of most people if they could be bothered. Disc brakes are going to need maintenance just like any other component, or are you claming that your workshops have never been required to service, repair or replace rim brakes or blocks?

I serviced lots of things on lots of bikes for lots of people who could and  some who could not have done it themselves!

I repaired whatever was brought to me and repaired whatever it was they wanted me to repair. Rim brakes had issues, mostly poor initial setup and pad placement, but it would be a very rare occasion that you couldn’t just clean any oil contamination off a rim pad with some IPA, and a rim rubber on the rim restored those pretty easily. Disc pads, once contaminated, never came back to life very reliabley. 

Contamination on rear rotors happens quite easily when someone over-lubes a chain. Check your rims out and notice the little specs of mucky oil that accumulate on a reasonably maintained chain, so imagine that on someone who just puts some more oil on whithout fully cleaning the old off, that’s just one example of how oil is flying about near your rotors. These are the people who bring bikes to bike shops for service, not everyone is interested in the bike as a cyclist, many just like riding and the bike is a necessary component rather than the centre of their universe (weird, I know!).

Discs on MTBs seem much less prone to these issues, I think the gritty grinding paste that ends up all over them tends to rub off a lot of issues as it goes. The amount of oil and diesel deposits on our roads, especially town centre roads, means that much of this gets flicked up onto road discs especially when it rains.

As I said before, I’m no fan of road discs, but that is purely on an aesthetic basis, they clearly do work, but so did a decent set of dual pivot calipers. The difference is that calipers are very easy to maintain, with few issues, whereas discs can have lots of issues from contamination, to air ingress, leaky seals, alignment etc, so do require more care and attention. That is fine as long as you are happy and capable of doing it, in a workshop you see the people who are either not capable or don’t have the time or inclination, that’s my story anyway.

DaSy wrote:

A road bike to me should be a thing of quiet beauty, which is not easily compatible with discs, either aesthetically or aurally.

You’d be against non-disc carbon rims then? Noisy in the dry, useless in the wet.

huntswheelers wrote:

Daily issue here in the workshop for Road Bikes on Discs….. not going to say Told you So….lol. We are fairly flat in these parts so disc brakes never get used hard and the way they were designed to so the contaminents from the bike, other roads users and weather never get “burned” off. For me it’s new pads all the time and keerrrchiiing in the till….    I guess it depends where you live, hilly areas will be best for disc brakes as they will be used the way they should be but for commuting and in traffic… then you will get contaminated…  Clean the pad material as much as you like with any of the suggested methods… but in the end you will be fitting new pads

Are you convinced contamination from the road is a real world problem? Anecdotally I’ve never had that problem in 2 years of city centre commuting on my disc bike, only time I contaminated them was after lubing sticky pistons with mineral oil on my hy-rds*. Would have thought it was that sort of thing and getting GT85 everywhere that is the issue.

*Themselves a bit of a bastard and I was only stopped from taking them into a shop to address lever travel issues by pure stubourness!

DaSy wrote:

A road bike to me should be a thing of quiet beauty, which is not easily compatible with discs, either aesthetically or aurally.

The best comment on disc brakes I’ve read on here, totally agree.

DaSy wrote:

DaSy wrote:

huntswheelers wrote:

Daily issue here in the workshop for Road Bikes on Discs….. not going to say Told you So….lol. 

 

 It was in my workshop too; I too will try to resist the “I told you so”. The braking may be good, but the daily living with them is much more onerous. A road bike to me should be a thing of quiet beauty, which is not easily compatible with discs, either aesthetically or aurally.

I would hazard a guess that bicycle workshops perform many routine maintenance tasks and basic repairs that would be well within the abilities of most people if they could be bothered. Disc brakes are going to need maintenance just like any other component, or are you claming that your workshops have never been required to service, repair or replace rim brakes or blocks?