I took my bike to evans cycles to have the front brake bled after a bit of emergency, the guy who did it says the rotor i have for brake is not an ideal match but it will work (he wasn't trying to sell me anything). He is right it is not the original rotor but it is a 'match' 6 bolt 160mm rotor probably not hayes.

Since I installed the brake there hace been some pad rotor rubbing issues, could this be it?

some rotors are different thickness so your pads may be rubbing and some braking surfaces are smaller than others, but 160mm is 160mm whether you measure in the Hayes factory or in the Formula one…

Within reason, a rotor is a rotor… It's not quite as simple as any rotor will fit any brake (some have narrower pad tracks, and some with ally spiders can cause interference with some brakes), but for the most part any rotor of the same external diameter will work…

Saints work with Hayes, which work with Shimaino, which work with Avids. I haven't tried any other combinations – the only ones you'll have problems with is Hopes as they're 165 and 185.

I have run shimano calipers with hope rotors and hopes with shimano rotors. Works fine although the hope ones are thinner.

Thanks All

I've got Avid rotors with Hope M4's on my 853 Inbred. Just cos they looked nicer and I had them handy. The rear's actually 160, but the front is 185.

Yes they are but you can often 'get away' with different brake / rotor combo's. People (me included at one time) think that Avid and Hayes are the same but the actual brake track of an Avid rotor is narrower than a Hayes so if you use an Avid rotor with a Hayes brake then the pads will sit over the whole track plus on part of the spider and therefore you will not get as efficient braking as using the wider (track) Hayes rotor which has 100% of the pad in contact with the track. Same goes for other combo's.