Brake Pad Life

[ShinySideUp]

Update on the EBC rear pad experience:

Today I replaced my second set of pads. The BMW OEM organic pads lasted 6000 miles. the EBC HH (sintered) pads lasted 12,000 and cost half as much as BMW pads.

However, the sintered pads MAY have accelerated rotor wear. The rotor is 5 mm when new and should be replaced when it reaches 4.5 mm. Today, at 18K miles on the bike, the rotor measured 4.7 mm.

As luck would have it, my local non-BMW motorcycle shop, after saying they had the EBC HH pads in stock, turned out to have only the EBC organic pads. The parts guy said he felt they would outlast the 6K I got from the BMW pads, so I bought and installed them. Only a few dollars less than the HH pads.

We will see how the rotor fares with EBC organic vs. EBC sintered pads.

[yim4]

Which local non-bmw shop are you going to?

[NeilS]

Bill,

The obvious question is did you measure your rotor thickness when you changed the pads the first time? Or when the bike was new?

I can't comment on the relative metallurgy, but I've had EBC HH pads on my Honda for about 22000 miles with no significant rotor wear. OTOH, I do think that using up 60% of your rotor "life" in 18000 miles is too much. Especially for a rear brake, which only does a small fraction of the work.

Brake pads are supposed to be expendable wear items, brake rotors are not.

[mogu83]

I questioned the short life of the rear pads on another thread and didn't get much action so I figured it was something I was doing. I've always been very easy on brakes to the point where I've had people riding behind me ask me to check my brake (tail) light because they thought the bulb was out. My rear pads were metal to metal and the front showed hardly any wear. I questioned the proportioning valve at the time but no one else seemed to have a problem.
Someone mentioned that because I also ride non-ABS equipped bikes the reason for the high rate of wear could be because I was over braking with the rear brake. I bought that theory, and figured I'd just stock up on rear pads. BTW: on my other bikes the fronts always go first.

Has anyone else noticed excessive wear on the rear pads?

[deilenberger]

Actually - I think this was discussed here (I know I also discussed it on another forum..)

My rear pads made it to about 16k miles, and were just about worn out (the inside pad wears out first since it starts out thinner). That seemed awfully fast wear to me, and I commented on it. Other bikes I'd typically get 30k or so out of a set of pads, and usually the fronts wore out first.

I suspect the linked brakes have something to do with it, and the proportioning between front and rear. I rarely use the brake pedal (mostly parking lot stuff, when stopped at a light and once in a while for trail-braking going into a turn.) Coming to a stop the front brake lever does the job just fine.. when I tried adding in the rear - I could feel it pushing back at me so I suspect it was triggering the ABS due to over-braking the rear.

I was going to use aftermarket pads (Carbone Leone from BeemerBoneyard), but decided to stick with BMW pads while the bike was still under warranty, just in case I had a rotor problem (none yet..) The new BMW pads have about 8k on them now, and seem fine (less than 1/2 worn). The fronts are still the originals at 24,000 miles with about 3/16" of material left.

Anyway - the conclusion I came to - the rears wear faster than the fronts.. lots faster.

[ShinySideUp]

NeilS: I didn't measure the rotor when new, but I'm assuming it was the 5.0 mm speced by BMW. I remember measuring it when I changed pads at 6000 miles, but all I remember was that the rotor was "OK", not what the exact measurement was.

As far as pads being expendable and not rotors, I agree that's the way it SHOULD be, but at $80 for a set of BMW pads, I can buy a rotor every 12K miles!

Yim4: I found the best stock of EBC pads at KC Engineering in San Francisco on Harrison and 3rd St.

I wish I knew why the rear pads wear so fast. Ever since reading Don's previous post, I NEVER use the rear brake except to hold the bike on hills. So all the wear is from the proportional valving setup.