Front pads

image by thegreatape, on Flickr

Rear pads

image by thegreatape, on Flickr

Original Shimano resin ones. It’s water you can see on the backing plates.

They don’t look bad, the rear seem to be pitted though and have different colours.
Are the fronts the same to the naked eye?
Is the friction material an equal thickness all over?

I don’t think the issue is with the XT, but it does look like a mismatch with the rotors. I think there is not enough contact between the face of the pad and the rotor. Pads in Hayes brakes may sit a bit lower in the caliper than Shimano, but I’m not sure.

FWIW I have SLX on two bikes with Shimano floating rotors, 180/160 on the more XC one, 203/180 on the more “Gnar” and no complaints at all, riding weight 80kg.

I’ve emailed the pictures of the rotors to the company to see what they say. I can’t see an obvious reason for speccing these and not Shimano rotors, other than a cost saving, but a quick look at CRC suggests not much at all in it, although different for OEM perhaps.

I don’t think it’s a good comparison to check RRP. Obviously they need to correct this if it is a component mismatch.

I do think you need to change the rotors and a 203/180 combo would be best for you.

Ok, thanks for taking the trouble to look/post. That leaves me needing a 23mm adapter for the front and 20mm for the back, both post to post. Struggling to find Shimano ones that spec, but there are Hope ones that should.

Superstar have a good range of adapters. They were doing 25% off as well although that might have run out. I have used Superstar adapters with Shimano calipers a few times and never had any issues.

Strange that people are suggesting smaller rear rotors. Makes zero sense.

Ok, thanks for taking the trouble to look/post. That leaves me needing a 23mm adapter for the front and 20mm for the back, both post to post. Struggling to find Shimano ones that spec, but there are Hope ones that should.

No problem.

I could be wrong, but I think you can use a Shimano 180 post mount adaptor on the forks to fit the 203 rotor. I can double check later today if you’re willing to wait? If you need a little more clearance between edge of rotor and caliper body you can fit a washer as a spacer.

Will that fit, with a 3mm difference? It would be much easier if they labelled the adapters as 20, 23, 40, 43 etc. rather than by rotor size, because that assumes a default of 160/140 on forks/frames. And no one should have to do sums on a Saturday 🙂

But yeah, if you’re able to find out later that would be great. So it’s what I would need to fit a 203 rotor where a 180 currently fits with no adapter, and to fit a 180 rotor where a 160 currently sits with no adapter. Cheers.

You only need to gain 1.5mm on the radius of the disc.

I’m sure that for 203 front disc a 160 to 180mm PM adaptor will fit, might need a washer as above.

For the rear a standard 160 to 180 PM adaptor.

Will double check later.

hang on. the rear rotor looks fine. the front isn’t using the whole of the braking surface, for sure, but may just be that the braking surface area on these discs is bigger than what shimano use ( ie the OD may be the same but the ID of the braking surface may be smaller ).
you don’t need new rotors! there’s a lot of magic in this thread…
certainly shimano ice tech rotors are a bit different, but generally speaking they’re all a plain bit of metal for the pad to clamp on. so long as you’re using the whole pad, it doesn’t really matter if you’re missing off a bit of braking surface on the rotor at all.
clean the rotors with some IPA or meths. clean/sand/file the pads a bit, then go get the buggers good and hot!

As above, give them a clean first.

Not sure where the magic is but if you are cooking the front disc you need to change something.

Quick response from the bike company, they have found that the Hayes rotors fit better with some Shimano calipers, such as Deore, than others, eg. XT, so they use Shimano rotors now. They’re sending me two Shimano rotors FOC, so you can’t say fairer than that.

Bed those pads in, don’t just go for a ride with new pads. Find a nice steep hill and be them in properly. It makes a massive difference to both braking performance and pad life.

There’s an eejit’s guide on the uberbikes website, I’ll follow that 🙂

Sorted then, nice.

Yep, happy again!

What fixed it, OP? Was it properly bedding in the pads?

Nothing yet, happy that they are sending some Shimano rotors to put on instead of the Hayes. But that will be done with the new ones.