Tired of having very poor braking and howling discs every single ride.
Ive had my brakes to bits half a dozen times bleeding them and removing pads which appear to be oil damaged. Before replacing them and riding and then repeating the process.
When Shimano do fail especially at the caliper, it’s game over isn’t it?
Can’t find the source of the oil, hose or lever are dry, guessing it’s the caliper seal?
Any tips?

This is sorta why I chose Guides as Shimano longevity would be somewhat lacking and never found them to be that good at braking, well the older ones.

The m985 races were nice brakes but didn’t have them long, very on/off power but doubt the seals would have lasted long under normal mtb usage.

Hi,

Interesting…

Got same bad experience with Avids… That’s why I’m avoiding any Big A stoppers like a plague… Maybe apart from BB7s…

On the other hand can’t prize enough both BR-M666 and BR-M785. Triple sixes on my bike for the third season, without any problems, XT-s clocking end of second season…

Truth to be told, if you have faulty unit they are next to impossible to fix. Would replace them under warranty if possible…

Cheers!
I.

Umm. That’s not my experience. Shimano have been utterly consistent and reliable for me during the last 20 years.

Two possible explanations come to mind.

You’ve unfortunately obtained “Friday afternoon” components or perhaps usage may have exceeded design performance parameters…..

Hope you get sorted.

🙂

I have a dicky XT front brake, that either works a dream, has no power or howls. I can never predict which. It does not seem to leak, just plays me around.

I’m on Guides at the moment as that’s what came on the bike and they howl a lot worse than any of my Shimano brakes ever have.

Walked away from avid juicy brakes, never going back. I have to change both intergrated shifters and brakes so I can choose whatever I want. I just can’t fix what j have. Hopes are appealing but they have a howling reputation themselves.

I find it interesting that many peoples’ opinions seem so polarised on the shimano/ sram spectrum. I personally won’t touch Sram, perhaps in part due to stubbornness.

I’ve used exclusively Xt brakes and drive trains for the past 5 years and can’t imagine anything better. Faultless in my opinion. Equally impressed with the deore/ SLX parts on my girlfriend’s bike.

I guess like most I’ve had a lot of different brakes over the years reliability-wise Shimano have been the best, I’ve also had a caliper deal go, it’s annoying but at least it’s an easy fix, just buy a new caliper.

Avid were the worst, a super expensive set of Code’s didn’t last the first ride and broke every other week, my Juicy 7s never worked the same way pull to pull, the Juicy 5s I had before were the same but worse, my Hope Tech V2 could stop a train, but were too powerful and hard to control for a mountain bike and my Formula R1 were simply sublime to use, but needed the patience of a saint to keep them working.

Any tips?

Contamination from other sources.

If you have eliminated the caliper and hose connections ‘completely’. Try putting in some toilet paper in them over night and see if theres anything leaking.

Never ever had any issues with my zees, past xt’s or deore’s before that.

great tip with the bog roll. Just can’t find a hint anywhere, but the pads are always dirty with that dark slightly damp disc dirt when you wipe it with a finger.
SLX might be better.

FS or HT?

My wife’s FS rear Shimano brake howls like mad. BUT it also howls like mad when I put my Hope brake on it too!

I have swapped all braking components and still howls.

I put it down to slight play in the bearings/linkages.

Had my Commencal Meta since 2009 – still with original XTs.
Bleed rear once, never bleed front – obviously changed pads many many times which in itself is super-easy.
Never failed – even a week of descending in the Alps recently.
Yep – they’re sh*t, them Shimano brakes 😉

Ran XTs for 18 months with no problems or howling (thank you organic pads), great power and modulation. Swapped them for the GF’s Zees as she hated them and they’re no where near as good, one knackered caliper (now replaced with an XT caliper?XTZ?? And they’re fine). Meanwhile the Original XTs are still going strong and as reliable as Swiss railways. Only bled them twice.

Most of my friends ride with XTs and no faults to report.

Elixxers put me off Avid/alSRAM, they were always good for about 12 months then suddenly became shite, inconsistent and high maintenance. We have some Guides coming on a new bike so we’ll see if they’re as good as the hype and if SRAM have solved the problems from the Elixxers.

Tom KP.

If they lack power as well as noise it will be a leaky caliper.

I had to change the front and rear of my 2012 Kona Kila Watt running XT’s.

LBS mechanic wouldn’t have it that they were leaky and rebled them at my cost several times.

My Juicy 5s were such an improvement over the Hope Minis and Mono Minis that preceded them that I’ve stuck with Avids since. The only exceptions have been a terrible set of Juicy Ultimates and my commuter’s brakes. Its original Juicy 5s seized after one winter. An LBS recommended Shimano or Hope brakes as being better at surviving road salt so I stuck some old Deores onto it that lasted for years and only got replaced (with some new Deores) because I thought one caliper had finally seized when actually its brake pads had corroded in a weird way that caused them to effectively swell up. I have however yet to try Guides.

I have what appears to be the teensiest bit of oil ‘smear’ leaking from both of my two pairs of XTR trails – at the hose end. On dry dusty rides, it is visible as a thin film of black dust that collects around the hose end and runs over the calliper. I’ve also had similar honking problems that you describe. And with the honking comes poor power.

I wouldn’t have been able to spot this if it weren’t for the dust

I took to binding the hose end with a small bit of rag and insulating tape.. But that was probably a tad excessive!

I’ve since found that being really religious about really carefully cleaning the discs with methylated spirit immediately before each ride the problem is gone. The brakes sometimes honk a bit at the start of the ride – but any minor contamination seems to burn off by the first hill.

They are utterly brilliant brakes though. I can’t fault them for feel or power. Bags of the stuff.

XT brakes what was the question? Easy to maintain, mine have been faultless. Yes the howl sometimes. Dont care, want good brakes. Exlir brakes utter crap

avid bb7 is the only trouble free brake system i have ever used.
got deores on now, which seem to be doing ok. time will tell.

Ive had some cable discs but even though they were simple, I was never happy with them and they required re-spacing before every ride. I’m thinking this is a question of a damaged caliper deal leaking oil and causing soft lever feel wet pads and howling noises. Hope stuff is expensive but even though I can service the lever from the ground up, I’m not sure I will ever want to.

Fantastic brakes, but mine were howling… info from this thread said that is was the leaking fluid.
Bought some Uberbike hoses. Problem cured. Now fantastic brakes without the howling.

Swapped to Shimsham brakes and haven’t looked back, everyone else I know who has faultless brakes run Shimano. I had Avid previously.

I had terribly loud howling brakes and then put some Copperslip on the back of the pads – as the song goes “Silence is Golden” just the same colour as Copperslip.

As a LBS mechanic I won’t have sram on my bikes, appalling stuff. Mainly from Elixir days, but not seen enough of the guides yet to convince me otherwise.
Had one dodgy Shimano XT rear calliper a couple of years back that I stripped and found a nicked piston seal. Replaced that and then fault free from then onwards. Got a pair of SLX and XTR trail on my bikes currently and I don’t see me changing that. Fault free, oodles of power and silent (unless soaking wet of course).
Regarding noises, make sure the calliper is aligned to the disc properly, so both pads contact equally. Also, have you checked the calliper mounts are true? I still see a lot of bikes that need the mounts facing to make them true.

I had a set of shimano howlers with lots of noise and no power. cleaned them, bled them, bled them, cleaned them, bled them, changed pads, bled them.

eventually tried them on a different set of rotors and they were perfect again.