[Closed] I say, they are rather good....

Give it a few rides...

Don't throw the XT away just yet.

Still working, having been used most days of this fortnight. They make a gobbly noise when hard pressed - but great power and control...

What problems did you have?

How are the brakes now? Always loved magura right back to the old Louise free ride days, I have an early set of mt's on my ss which are good brakes and feel very similar to the xt's I have in my full susser

I am tempted by some new mt's tho

I've ran the mt's on a few bikes, good enough but not awesome, haven't looked back since changing to Shimano.

I don't get the love for XT brakes for me they just feel wooden.

I've got a demo bike with mt5s and I nearly Kill myself whenever I ride it, they are stupidly powerful( in a good way))

If you're a ham fisted oaf with no finger control that's used to grabbing great handfuls of brake lever, then yes, Shimanos can feel grabby and wooden.

I like both Shimano and magura, for me they feel similar, but Shimano make the ugliest brakes in the world, I look at my xt's and think eeewww

I swore not to use magura again after being a fan boi for years. I had two clamps break in seperate, very soft incidents. First, I 'touched' a tree with the lever and it broke at the clamp. Second, happened when the bar dug into a loamy section in the Alps at very slow speed leaving me on my holidays, with the only option of sucking it up and buying a 140 euro front brake, after driving around to find a shop. Magura said they purposely make them out of cheese so not to cause further damage. Fine, but at least make the spares easily available ( and priced reasonably). I would mind but I'm really fussy about not doing the clamps up tight!

Reliable performance and very powerful though.

At least when XT do go tits up you can replace bits on the cheap. I'd buy hope through choice, but run XT for £££ reasons.... (Though appreciate false economy situation).

I thought with shimano you had to buy the complete lever or caliper?

You can but bits easily for hopes and there's a good reason......

trailmoggy - Member

I thought with shimano you had to buy the complete lever or caliper?

Yeah they're not really 'servicable' you just replace whatever end is broken, but it's easy to do and they're good value - a replacement SLX caliper, with a brand new pair of pads is £23, £2 less than I paid for some SRAM rubber seals to try to rebuild a Juicy caliper back in the day (it didn't help).

I had two pairs of the original mt2 brakes a few years back. One set was on a new bike and never worked even after a good bleed by the bike shop and they were so poor they swapped them for another new pair which never worked either. Never again.

don't feel the love for shimano either. each to their own.

I love Magura brakes - been using them for at least 10 years - starting with a set of where's me Julie's and now on MT's includign a pair of 8's.

Just seem to keep working for me (and cheap second hand when I fancy something new) and have the right 'feel' too.