So been out on a couple of trails recently on my new bike and feel that the brakes are woeful.

They are the Shimano MT445 180/160, but thinking of upgrading to XT or Formula and was wondering any experience’s on the newer stuff.

Thanks

bed them in

Brand new bike or new to you? If the former ask your LBS/supplier for advice but I’d say not having bedding them in is the likely cause.

FWIW I find that pads bed in better in the winter with a bit of mud and gloop but in summer high speed stops repeated a few times should do the job.

Had the bike for a few months and its also my short commuter so the brakes are bed in

Just they bite but not what I am used to, had Formula R1 on my old MTB, fine on the commute but today noticed it when pushing hard

Double checked and the brakes are

Shimano BR-M447 with BL-M506 levers, not M445

Nothing fundamentally wrong with the design of those brakes, so must be an issue with yours which should be a lot cheaper to fix than replacement.

Clean rotors with brake cleaner or similar, (I used carburettor cleaner this weekend as it’s what I have in) same on pads and a bit of sandpaper to give a fresh surface, or replace is even better. Bleed both.

Also, a short commute probably isn’t the best thing for disk brake performance. Never get hot enough to burn off any bits of contamination they pick up. In which case they might not have ever bed in properly.

I made the epic mistake of trying to bed my brakes in on a long long fast decent . It was glaze o’clock . Half a dozen sharp stops is the way . Just go easy on the front brake !

Clean rotors with brake cleaner or similar, (I used carburettor cleaner this weekend as it’s what I have in) same on pads and a bit of sandpaper to give a fresh surface, or replace is even better. Bleed both.

I’m not saying your wrong because I’m not sure myself, but isn’t carburettor cleaner petroleum based and therefore not what you want near your brakes?

but isn’t carburettor cleaner petroleum based and therefore not what you want near your brakes?

Didn’t occur to me to read the contents in all honesty. Works OK though, have been using it occasionally for a couple of years now with no ill effects.

They are fine when the pace is slow but when pushing they just feel a little under powered, the commute is 3 miles each way.

I’d put a small amount of money on the fact the pads are rubbish. (The specs on the Evans site says resin pads only)

Try some sintered pads. Bed them in like mentioned above, and you should be good to go.

The disc’s say resin only on them aswell.

I’m led to believe it’s to do with the venting/cooling of them.

Girlfriend ran sintered pads on “resin only” discs no problems.
If it’s only the commuter bike your never going to really heat the disc up.

I use uberbike pads. For £7 it’s cheaper than a new set of brakes!

Is read something recently which said you shouldn’t use brake cleaner on MTB brakes as they never get truly hot enough to burn off the residue. IPA (isopropyl alcohol) will do the same thing without residue.

We had issues with very noisy brakes….constantly tried to clean them with brake cleaner. Turned out that was causing part of the problem. Changed the pads and used IPA instead, no further noise.

Due to CRC sending me an email with sale stuff on it, I went for a SLX setup with Ice Tech rotors….

Just got to fit them now, but I did try the comments above and still didn’t feel like they are upto my standard, the levers and res feel so much better quality on the SLX when comparing.

i’ll take your ‘woeful’ old brakes off your hands, for £5 + postage…