[Closed] XT brakes.

There's not much difference, the lever issue is all down to maintenance and how regularly you bleed them.

My M8000 are 2 1/2 years old, have nigh on 4000km on them, bled at least once every 12 months and they're absolutely fine.

The older 68x/78x brakes are identical except the logo, the bite point screw being replaced with a security screw and the shiny plastic vs dull plastic and the callipers have a missing bolt ...

I'm currently running a calliper that's half SLX and half XT.... I meant to free the other side and never got round to it.

I wouldn't expect the 7000-8000 differences to be large either...

Deore are the best of the bunch IMHO. unless you have an unreasonable desire to fiddle with the lever position all the time I can't see why you'd go SLX or XT. They:

Are the same weight (within a few g).
Look the same if not better.
Have as far as I can tell the same power
Are much cheaper

Deore are the best of the bunch IMHO.

That sums it up for me too.

I have XT on my bling bike and Deore on my day to day one, and I struggle to notice any real difference in use.  The worst part of the Deore is the use of a split-pin rather than a threaded bolt to hold the pads in, but it's far from the end of the world 🙂

They are going to be replacing Deore brakes. The front is ok but the back is pretty lame. Even after trying different pads and a good bleed.

How do new deores  compare to some that are 5 years old, have they had technical improvements?

Have slx on my fatty and they are the business.

The worst part of the Deore is the use of a split-pin rather than a threaded bolt to hold the pads in, but it’s far from the end of the world

The calipers are threaded for the bolt style and if I recall the bolt style XT pins are about £4 each if you want shot of the split pins next time you change your pads 🙂

Deore are the ones that seem to score the most points in MTB Mag reviews, they are, as far as I can tell, nigh on identical to SLX/XT with a few 'nicey' bits removed like tool-free adjusters.

Set them up once, tweak once to dial them in as you like, then ride and forget.  I'm a massive faff, but I honestly never, ever dick around with the dials on my XT or SLX brakes now they're set where I want them.

The calipers are threaded for the bolt style

I checked mine a while ago (M615 model) but no threads in there 🙁

I got them stupidly cheap though (£45 for the full set, brand new), so can't complain 🙂

My old style Deore calipers weren't threaded.

Buy a cheap set of taps and you're sorted. They come in useful to cleaning out stiff threaded holes and all sorts.

Oh yeah.. Maybe mine were threaded after I tapped them ....

Got XT's on mine and they have had one bleed in two years which took minutes, no issues at all with them and they can stop 225lbs of me + bike on a sixpence. However it's all window dressing as the series brakes on my kids Bossnut seem to work equally well and to me "feel" very similar.

Aside from tool-free adjustment at the lever, there is the tiny matter of hose routing into the caliper. Banjo bolt on higher models. Tool-free reach adjustment I can take or leave, but tidy hose routing matters

I've used XT/SLX and Deore for years, never had any issues with any of them.

but tidy hose routing matters

That is indeed a good point. Another win for the Deore as its the only one that has the hose leaving the right (both directional and correct) side of the caliper. I never could understand why most Shimano brakes have the exit on the wrong side. Now that hope swapped theirs over I think Shimano are the only ones that persist with the madness.

EDIT: Except of course the new 8020 caliper, on which they've changed the hose exit side. Maybe all other new versions will follow suit.

To be honest.... I notice absolutely zero difference between acera/alivio calipers and xt. Just picked up a cheap (£12) set of alivio trekking calipers for my shimano 105 / rs685 hydro levers on my cx after the caliper started to leak, matched with bh90 hose and these seem to perform better than the 785/xt calipers supplied by the OEM.

They may be a few grams heavier.... But at a quarter of the price.

Deore are my go to brakes on all other bikes now. They just work (except when the lever or caliper blows a seal which is not unexpected these days).

bought some XT 4pots the other week after my Guide RSC shitted on me twice.

done a few days shuttling in Finale and can say that they are plenty powerful. nice lever feel and no wandering bite point (one of the clients had this problem with older XTs, but likely due to him dragging his brake everywhere).

had to swap the hoses over and had forgotten how much easier Shimano are to bleed compared to Sram (or any other DOT brake?).

Alpin yeah I won't use any brake system that uses dot fluid. I am allergic to it and it's bloody nasty stuff.

The Deores don't get phenolic pistons, also the enduro mag dyno tests indicated they were down on power compared to SLX and XT.

I have xt 2015 on one bike, slx 2012 on another and my wife’s ebike has deore 2014.

apart from the slightly different lever shapes, I doubt a blind test would show anything conclusive.

bigger rotors would yield a more noticeable difference imo.

get deore.

The Deores don’t get phenolic pistons

The deores dont get the ceramic pistons, but they're still phenolic. I reckon thats no bad thing given the number of ceramic ones Ive seen disintegrate.

I understood that deores are missing servowave which knocks approximately 20% of their power.

The Deores have servowave (as did the predecessor).

Oh, ok. Thanks.