Anyone out there had a good experience sending off their avid’s for a good old piston service? Looking for a overhaul incl new Pistons and rebleed.

I can do that….send me your Avids and £120.And in return I will send you a perfectly working set of shimano slx’s.

Now there’s a business recipe for disaster.

Yeah….they’re called “the bin and Deore”. 😛

Buy a bleed kit and do it yourself.
£15 for a bleed kit and I think pistons are about £10 a pop.

Bought a set of Elixirs off here as spares and repairs, stripped them down, cleaned everything.
Built back up with existing pistons and seals lubed with silicon grease.
Also shortened the hoses and after a thorough bleed with Dot 5.1(talking 30mins per end) all is good.
Thing I found whilst bleeding them is when you think you have got all the bubbles out ,then take a break and have a brew, come back and using the syringe to pressurise and then create a vacuum you will not doubt end up drawing some more air bubbles out.

@Robert

don’t repair…

SLX for the win – crazy cheap if you shop around, and so darn good!

I’ve just come off a faulty pair of Elixir 7 (which had been replaced under warranty twice) onto SLX and am very impressed

Thanks for advice (and for jokes?). I’ve dropped my XO’s at the lbs. Anytime I’d have to fix the brakes myself would be better spent on the bike.

I too went from Elixr CR’s to SLX, absolutely faultless braking performance.

Have long been a fan of Avids – well apart from the juicys which were just shit – but my patience is running out.

Trying to replace the pistons in a Code – it seems that new pistons are just ever so slightly too small, so brake fluid comes out round the sides

The one thing I’ve always likes about the Avids is how easy they are to bleed (with the kit). Are Shimanos that easy ? i.e. syringes that screw in ?

@christhetall

Shimano’s are much easier to bleed and don’t need any fancy kit, reminds me of Hope in that respect

its generally a plastic “bucket” that screws into the master cylinder (brake lever) bleed port, and then a length of hose at the caliper running into a catch bottle (i.e. old Coke bottle) or bag.

Gravity bled, with some lever pumping assistance, very simple, and using Shimano mineral oil so less corrosive if you spill (you still need to wipe away any spills).

I’m with Chris on this, Avid brakes are nicer to bleed than Shimanos. I like the screw-in kit. But then they had to make them straightforward to bleed since you need to do it all the time…

Shimano recommend bleeding from bottom up which makes sense to me given the direction that bubbles move.

I’m with Chris on this, Avid brakes are nicer to bleed than Shimano

Wow, really?
Shimanos are so simple!
I’ve had a set of Juicy5s on my Cove for 5+ years and they’ve never needed bleeding or maintenance of any kind.
Annoying thing is though, I swapped the back brake to my son’s bike, straight swapover, no hose shortening or anything, and now it’s gone all squidgy! All i did was wind in the lever adjuster.

There are some proper bargains out there though. The slx look good vfm and there’s some magura’s one offer in CRC at the mo