Would you:
1) Accept that you are a moron and bin them – swallowing the 14.95 they cost, even though they still look bright and shiny and utterly unused.
2) Do some kind of cleaning regime that the lovely people on STW recommend?

Clean it off with soap and water then burn them. 50/50 you recover the pad

I’ve tried a couple of times to clean up contaminated pads, it’s never worked.

Closest I’ve ever got was cooking them in the oven on full whack for half an hour to try to draw the oil to the surface and then cleaning them up with brake cleaning fluid and kitchen roll.

TBH I just buy Superstar ones now.

Are they organic or sintered.

Organic pads just seem to soak up some of the oil and never recover properly.

Sintered can generally be cleaned okay.

Burn the oil off using the gas hob.

Sand them back a little bit

Should then be okay

Worth a try before you give up an bin them anyway!

Not convinced the setting them on fire thing is the best idea. Did this with a set of mine once and, although it did seem to sort them out, the compound was significantly more crumbly afterwards. Wasn’t convinced I liked crumbly breakpad compound…

I’ve rescued a few organic pads, I prefer the feel and bite so sintered, but both my deor brakes weep fluid….

I usually give them a light sand, then place back down a bit of thin steel on the gas stove and cook them until they stop smoking. Combined with de-greased/abraded rotors they seem to work again. Until the caliper leaks again…..

15 quid! where are you buying your pads?!

Brakes are pretty important and the feel of them quite critical.

So, bin them and buy some from Disco / Superstar. 4 for the price you paid.

Trimix – Member

Brakes are pretty important and the feel of them quite critical.

So, bin them and buy some from Disco / Superstar. 4 for the price you paid. good quality ones – no price on safety

Try cleaning them with meths. If that doesn’t work, bin ’em.

Disco sintered pads are pretty good, Disco kevlar good (less grabby) when dry to mildly damp (bit spongy when proper wet). I run Shimano sintered in the front and Disco kevlar back in my Zees.

Warm them up and sand them down slightly. Least you’ll get a bit of use out of them.

Thanks all for your replies, I appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences.
15 quid is over estimate on my part, I actually paid 11.99 for original shimano resin pads.
I used to be an advocate of superstar/disco/etc but I have since found original pads to be much better life and value. I haven’t monitored it scientifically but on a trip to Portugal a couple of years ago I went through two sets of SS pads pretty fast, and the originals I paid through the nose in a PLBS were still on the bike a year later after two more big mountain holidays.

Given the very mixed reports and methods here I am not confident that they can be fixed. I think I will bin them, take the 11.99 hit and self flagellate for a couple of days to teach myself a lesson.

Thanks again all of you for your input.

Correct method to try cleaning them is almost as above, however rather than use the hob/oven do it on the bbq, and since you’ve got that going, cook a nice big chunk of dead cow for your dinner and serve with a chilled beer whilst your pads are drying. At least that way the time isn’t a complete loss if the pads are ruined.