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A friend has just had an email from her LBS (shed in garden affair, she didn't realise this in advance) to tell her that "3 maybe 4" of the pistons on her front Code R are cracked and "these brakes are notorious for it". I know my immediate thoughts on the matter, but thought I'd check if I should sharpen the pitchfork or if anyone else has heard of this? Sticky pistons and swollen masters absolutely, but this...
The slightly longer story is that she's just had a **** time with her normal bike shop, including them breaking off her charging port door and "fixing" it with a bit of tape whilst telling her that it just so happened to perish whilst in their shop, despite being fine when it arrived. Shop 1 also half-arsed bleeding her brakes and seemed to leave them over both filled (reckon they bled them first, then swapped pads... which also didn't need to happen). Chucked on a new chain without ask, tried to get her to spend £200 on a new cassette that it doesn't need and so on.
Shop 2 just so happens to only have a Maven Ultimate in stock, and a rebuild kit (£25) plus labour is apparently the same price as a new brake. Rebuilding would be pointless anyway as "it'll just happen again".
I know my thoughts. but does anyone else care to share theirs*?
*on this topic, not about life in general
Gut feeling would be there has been enthusiastic use of the wrong tools to push the pistons back by someone at some point.
never once heard of it and i've been brutal on sticky pistons more than once. I've run Codes for 10+ years on more bikes than i care to remember.
Not enough pressure in a brake system to crack pistons under normal use!
never once heard of it and i've been brutal on sticky pistons more than once. I've run Codes for 10+ years on more bikes than i care to remember.
That was my thinking too. The only time I can ever remember hearing about proper piston damage is when people haven’t realised that (Shimano) ceramic pistons are more fragile and have broken them when trying to push them back.
For all 4 (steal) pistons to go would have to be some extraordinary bad luck!
I'd agree that it's been someone's ham fisted attempt at pushing the pistons back in with a screwdriver or something (not that I would ever have done that, oh no, not ever), that's cracked the pistons.
aren't sram code pistons resin/composite as opposed to "steal"
aren't sram code pistons resin/composite as opposed to "steal"
phenolic plastic for RSCs, alu (so I was wrong about the steel part) for Rs
Shop 1 also half-arsed bleeding her brakes and seemed to leave them over both filled (reckon they bled them first, then swapped pads... which also didn't need to happen)
Did they over fill them and make a mess of the pistons trying to force the new pads in?
hhmmm not sure if that last post if here or not.
Not possible to tell which shop has done the damage. It doesn't look good for shop 2 though when he's giving it the "Code Rs are notorious for this" nonsense
Not being funny but I am not sure it makes much difference what some randoms on the internet think. If somebody can't do the work themselves and have taken it to a mechanic, they have to go with his diagnosis and method to fix. if it doesnt work afterwards, it is up to the mechanic to resolve at his cost.
If I were the mecahnic and somebody came back to me questioning my diagnosis as some blokes on STW have never seen it before, I'd tell them to ask STW to fix it....
I'd tell them to ask STW to fix it....
bollox to that…. They’re notorious for cracking.
Not being funny but I am not sure it makes much difference what some randoms on the internet think. If somebody can't do the work themselves and have taken it to a mechanic, they have to go with his diagnosis and method to fix. if it doesnt work afterwards, it is up to the mechanic to resolve at his cost.
If I were the mecahnic and somebody came back to me questioning my diagnosis as some blokes on STW have never seen it before, I'd tell them to ask STW to fix it....
That’s a very odd take on the matter. Of course it doesn’t matter what anyone here thinks, as the damage has been done and nobody could possibly say by who. What can be said is that it wasn’t the customer. 1 of the 2 shops has made an arse of things though, and shop 2s nonsense stance makes him look untrustworthy. His method to fix is “new brake”
Nobody is going to back to challenge, as his stance of “happens all the time” would make it a warranty job (8 month old bike)… which we all know it isn’t
Not being funny but I am not sure it makes much difference what some randoms on the internet think. If somebody can't do the work themselves and have taken it to a mechanic, they have to go with his diagnosis and method to fix. if it doesnt work afterwards, it is up to the mechanic to resolve at his cost.
You make a fair point, and it's part of why I don't hand my bike over to a shop to fix normally, I know what has been done to my bike and who is to blame (me).
I would however be googling this "known" issue (which in effect the OP is doing via STW) and I would be asking to see these cracked parts first hand and exploring warranty/redress with SRAM as pistons don't tend to just crack IME.
Dunno TBH, not heard of that and it didn't happen to my Code Rs - but if the brake is buggered anyway then why not send it in for warranty and let Sram diagnose?
Can you help her find and buy a cheap replacement brake in the meantime? There are still bargains to be had and front brakes are easy to fit.
You make a fair point, and it's part of why I don't hand my bike over to a shop to fix normally, I know what has been done to my bike and who is to blame (me).
I would however be googling this "known" issue (which in effect the OP is doing via STW) and I would be asking to see these cracked parts first hand and exploring warranty/redress with SRAM as pistons don't tend to just crack IME.
Agreed, I prefer to be the only ham fisted idiot messing things up on my bike 🙂
I would be asking to see these cracked parts first hand and exploring warranty/redress with SRAM as pistons don't tend to just crack IME.
She got in touch with the shop she bought it from yesterday. Their reaction is the same as everyone else’s - “that doesn’t happened on its own”. TBF to them though, they’ve heard about the crap time she’s had and said she can get any brakes she wants at cost price and they’ll also fit them for free.
I’ve also offered to do her spannering for her in future. Annoyingly the bike only went to shop 2 as I didn’t have time to look at the brakes last week, I’d had to focus on the crap job shop 1 had done with the gears first
Pistons don't just crack. Someone has tried to force them back using a screwdriver.
And to think, it is hardly difficult to keep a pair of worn out pads in your toolkit in case you feel the need to get a screwdriver in there.
🤦♂️
Do we know that they are actually cracked? Seen them or photos at least?
FWIW and confession time.
I cracked one piston in an XT 4 pot caliper before i knew they'd switched to ceramic (long time ago though). I'd always used a DIY spreader tool up to then. Which obviously wasn't good enough to do ceramics. But to crack 3 or 4 beggars belief unless the mechanic is a completely ham fisted gibbon.
I always put an old set of pads to protect the pistons, use a flat bladed screw driver between the pads to spread the pistons. I thought everyone knew that.
I thought everyone knew that.
50% of the shops involved managed to rip a charging port cover off and couldn’t index gears properly. Nothing should be assumed
Personally, I would just get the bike back and fix the Codes. Assuming the pistons really are cracked, piston kits are £23 from SJS or similar, so without labour charges, it's a cheap and logical fix with the bonus of being more sustainable than binning them for a new set of brakes.
Obviously you'd need to do the work, but since you seem happy to commit to a lifetime of servicing her bike, you might as well get used to it 😉
I'd forget about wasting effort on attributing blame or diagnosing the cause Sherlock Holmes style. No-one's going to fess up at this point and even if you knew definitively what had happened, what would you do about it?