So Mrs P’s deores that came on her Giant liv have just been replaced under warranty due to the caliper seal issue. The bike was a 2014 Liv lust so have shimano fixed the problem since then?

I’ve always run hope darling, but times are hard and shimano are cheap! 😉

I’m debating flogging the warranty replacements and donating Mrs P my Xt’s which have been flawless so far, but are far too grabby for my taste. Got a few big alps trips planned and Mrs P is coming back from second baby so any riding time is precious and unreliable kit is not an option (first world problems)

Both my 2016 Deore and 2015 XT have been faultless, discounting the XT’s none replaceable banjo. Still thinking of going back to Hope though.

No problems with my XT8000s* or the Deores we had on 50 hire bikes this year.

(once I’d corrected my initial poor bleed)

The only problem I’ve had is the lever seal failure on an original 785 lever. I’ve now got 4 sets (2x slx, 1x xt, 1x deore/xt hybrid) and all is well.

Use proper shimano fluid, it DOES make a difference. I used halfords lhm in the two xt’s and the shimano stuff is like water by comparison. The lever feels very different with shimano fluid and I do wonder if the lhm led to the seal failure.

Also got two sets of older design shimano brakes and they’re fine.

Well hopefully I’ve been unlucky then. Never had to warranty anything before. Never really break bike stuff(mincer)

Thing is my xt are pretty new and the bite point adjust has never had any noticeable affect which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in the product. Still hope are sol much $$$$

Got the latest Deores on my HT and the latest XTs on my FS….no problems so far, had Saints on the previous Hat and they were trouble free too…iinterestingly they were the latest model but a few years old and although I thought they were great they weren’t actually any better than the new Deores I put on the new HT!
Shimano brakes are brilliant, like hitting a brick wall and cheap to boot!

Thing is our bikes tend to sit for long periods unused – basically fair weather birds! Too busy chasing wind and waves in winter and don’t like mud, or more specifically wet chalk!

With hopes these habits manifest as a problem once, with a stuck piston on some ancient xc4 which I changed the piston seal and it ran faultlessly(if you like the brake pump of a closed system) for many more years. It seems 4 month of pregnancy induced layoff was too much for the deores.

Before I had shimano brakes I wondered how Hope were still in business with their pricing, but I’m starting to see why now!

Not a shimano hater – got a 16 year old xt rear mech and old 9 speed cassette doing service on my turbo bike – in fact it doesn’t feel like theres 16 years of shifiting evolution between that my xt 8000 – especially when I back pedal in the big sprockets but lets not go there!

One set of my xt’s had two years of non use after the lever seal failed. Callipers are fine and in use again

Arrrrrrggggh – I hate shimano discs.

My rear brakes squeeling, no power – can hardly lock a wheel.

Still it worked for at least 500 miles and Mrs p new deores have done 200 bone dry fault free miles so far.

I’ve got XT M8000 on 2 bikes and so far I’ve had two master cylinder/lever unit failures. Not unknown according to LBSs I’ve spoken to. First time I bought a new unit. Second time it happened (different brake) I claimed under warrantee. So my experience is a 50% failure rate.

No issues with the relatively basic M355s that came on the Wazoo.

And I’ve still had no problems on any of my Shimano equipped bikes (all XT) nor any on our fleet of hire bikes.

I store the bikes vertically hung by front wheel in a garage attached to the house(not cold). I don’t ride in winter(3-4months) or mud, or rain. We ride light “trail”, I don’t drag brakes and I’ve never had a brake issue before all this started!

What am I doing wrong!

It’s a measure of how much I like the kona hei hei that despite the brakes being dodge and 11 speed being underwhelming, I LOVE the bike. The fox 34 on the front are amazing compared to my old rebas, and the geometry is amazing up and down.

Lever seals failed on both my M785 XTs after 18 months, warrantied for a pair of M8000.

Deores we’re pretty good, had a single calliper seal failure, could have warrantied but as they’re so cheap I bought another calliper compete with pads for about £2 more than the cost of the pads.

My 675 SLX died after only a few rides – piston made crunching noise when pushed back, then pissed oil out.

Replaced with Deore, fine so far.

Best to push the ceramic pistons home with pads in place otherwise you’re likely to crack them as above.