One of my newish XT brakes is pulling a lot further back to the bars than the other. As they’re new, boxed ones I’d be surprised if they needed bleeding but who knows. Is it a case of bite point adjustment or bleeding? If it’s the former, how do I do that, if the latter, am I best running it down the LBS?

The lever has a little dial saying “Free-stroke” (IIRC). Have you tried that?

Ps; I don’t own XT brakes. But a couple of my riding mates do, and I am sure I have spied this on their levers.

The little dial seems to be to move the lever around rather than the bite point. There’s a screw for the freestroke but I don’t want to mess with it without understanding wht it does

Did you fit the brakes and shorten the hose yourself? If so I would have thought it would be a bleed issue. Its easy enough to do yourself but you do need the right bits.

Given you should only need to do it once and given the cost of the bits you need you may want to just take it to your lbs.

The only other thing to check is that there is no oil leaking from the pistons. Some XT brakes seem to fail here for some reason and it generally happens early on in their life. If they don’t fail early they tend not to ever fail.

Would be a warranty return if they are.

Bite point adjustment does not really do anything to be fair.

I fitted but didn’t need to shorten them (well, I could do with taking an inch or two off but that’s it).

The Shimano guy said, in an article on Bike Rumor, that the free stroke adjust (or bite point adjust) should be wound all of the way out during bleeding, and then when you wind it back in it will actually do something. Although I’ve not tried it myself.

One thing I would say is that excess lever travel is a classic symptom that the brakes need a bleed. Factory bleeds are not always to be trusted from my experience.