New rear pads - down to canvas after 2000 miles!

Previous 1150 Adventure without ABS, rear pads changed at 6K miles, but OK at 12K service. 2005 1150 Adventure with ABS and servo, no pads changed at 14K miles to date. IMHO there must be something drastically wrong to wear pads out in <2K miles.

Charles

Wrong? Well if you mean with the bike/brakes then perhaps. But if not....

So OK, a few people seem to think that by 'wrong' this means that it's the riders fault, but the evidence in this thread seems to prove otherwise. Perhaps the nay sayers dont own a 06 1200 with linked servo brakes, as that's all I'm talking about. Perhaps they dont ride in conditions that might cause high wear rates. Perhaps they dont commute in fast busy mixed B road and urban high brake use environments. Perhaps they ride everywhere at 10mph with pipe and slippers! And yes, perhaps my last comment is just as ignorant as saying that the people who are suffering pad wear at 2000 miles must somehow be 'at fault'. :nono

And when I say they, I dont mean you personally :)

FWIW I'm on my third set of rear pads at 8500 miles with the front pads looking like new!! As it's linked to the front I never use the rear brake (it's pretty much useless!!) as I might on other bikes (say 50/50 wet weather braking), except that is for very slow speed manouvers. Oh and my rear brake isnt binding, when I start the bike on the centre stand the rear wheel spins freely with the drag from the G/box. All the posts seem to point to the rear pads/brake. Make of that what you will. :nenau

In over 25 years or riding almost every bike imaginable I've never had pads wear so quicky, and this includes R1100GS, GSXR 1100/1000's, CBR's, FZR's and ZXR sports bikes with track days.

Oh, and I guess this is my fault as well :D

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97974
 
Yep 1600miles to the metal on the GS and my ZX9r did over 16000miles on a set with still a fair bit of meat left on em, so no it's got nothing to do with riding style, resting on the pedal or rear brake over use.
The rear brake is supposed to be dependant on load when link applied with the front brake, mine doesn't seem to be, bike on centre stand, bike running in 1st gear the front brake will cause the bike to stall, surely with no load on the bike the rear shouldn't lock up straight away? :nenau
 
R1200GS '06 with ABS and servo. 1680 miles and the rear pads are down to the metal, dealer says it's my riding but I don't use the rear brake at all on the road and the levr is so far away I can't reach the thing anyway! Managed to save the disc and fit some new pads but theres got to be something wrong with the brake bias if it's screwed the pads so quick! Is there any adjustment on the load sensor or am I going to be using 2 sets of pads to 1 tyre for as long as I own the bike :mad:

The dealer is wrong to suggest this out of hand. Unless you're wearing out the front pads at a similarly low mileage then why would the 'ineffectual' rear brake wear pads out more quickly? Theory? All the braking force is normally transfered to the front brakes, soo... Tele-lever? Perhaps the tele-lever front end is distributing the braking force more evenly and the smaller rear single disc and smaller pads simply cant cope with being linked (40% I believe) and servo'd? Couple this to high wear organic pads and it's bingo, exceptionally high wear rates under certain riding/environmental conditions.

Who knows? But I'll soon be asking my dealer this very question :)
 
Yep 1600miles to the metal on the GS and my ZX9r did over 16000miles on a set with still a fair bit of meat left on em, so no it's got nothing to do with riding style, resting on the pedal or rear brake over use.
The rear brake is supposed to be dependant on load when link applied with the front brake, mine doesn't seem to be, bike on centre stand, bike running in 1st gear the front brake will cause the bike to stall, surely with no load on the bike the rear shouldn't lock up straight away? :nenau

I'm not 100% on this one, but I believe the load is determined with the first few braking applications. The ECU then works out how much force should be applied. I could be wrong and this is another question I'll be asking. I'd be over the moon if I could have a software update that helped.
 
Well John keep me posted with how you get on, not only do I have to deal with the normal dealer attitude once they've parted you with your money but I've got a language barrier to deal with as well:blast
 
Will do m8 :)

I must admit though, the dealer I frequent (and all the staff) is :thumb with a great attitude to bikes and bikers :)
 
Yesterday I replaced the 1200's rear pads with EBC replacements as recommended by Nippy Norman (usual excellent service - thanks). The OE lasted just over 5000k.

Took the bike out for a 20 mile ride to bed the pads in, and, short of interest in my life, I stopped on various occasions to assess the temperature of the rear disc. With minimal brake usage the disc stayed cool, however, with more normal usage, the rear disc heated up quite surprisingly, whilst the fronts hardly got warm at all. Maybe it's related to the bedding-in process, but it seems to me that in most braking situations the rear brake is doing more than its fair share of work, or maybe it comes into effect sooner than the fronts during modest applications. Certainly, I was impressed by how fast the caliper moved when I fired up the servo after fitting the pads.

Can't say I am too worried, and will, reluctantly, accept new pads at 5k, the overall brake set-up is superb and has already saved me more from accident avoidance than the price of a set of pads. I had a near miss and such was the effect of the emergency braking that the back wheel popped into the air momentarily - ironic really.
 
Well decided today to see if there was any adjustment that could be done at the brake pedal, but unfortunately it was one of the things redesigned on the '06 bikes :blast , so now no adjustment apart from the pushrod and that was fine.
Last check I did on wednesday involved running the bike in 1st gear on the centre stand and pulling the front brake, did this about 10 times and everytime it stalled the bike (which is why I thought there was too much pressure going to the back brake), today I did the same but this time the front brake barely slowed the back wheel no matter how hard I applied the lever (the rear brake pedal stalled it no problem though!), did this for quite abit with the front lever and the disc felt only slightly warm. So my question is since I've been away for the past 2 days who's been in and fixed my bike? :thumb On a serious note I have been away for about 7 months with the battery disconnected, could something have stuck and eventually reset itself while I've been p*ssing about with it on the centre stand??:roll
 
bmw "brake pedal" tolerance spec's just out!!!!

My dealer here in the Pacific Northwest tells me that his "tech" keanly observed that the "wear" on my brake pedal was the reason my pads are metal to metal at 5100 miles, front pads at 75% +. Sherlock Holmes says there is to much paint wear on the pedal for 5k. What kind of boots are you warin? BMW Santiago's, are they ok? I said, and no I don't ride the rear brake. If I was riding the brake it would stink and the rotors discolored. I have only been riding 30 plus years and have never went through a set of rear pads before 16-20 k. So I guess the next step is to send out the BMW Nazi in there white shop coat and send the pedal into (denial) forensics.

Add to this the bike was in at 4900 miles for a ABS fault code in which they traced it to the front brake sensor self destructed. Now, most "factory trained" techs would have done a cursory glance at the pad thicness at that time and been able to see they were about ready to die as they did less than 200 miles later. I guess not in this case. The service guys are nice and oversights do happen. The service people felt a new rotor was "on them" for the oversight and I appreciate that. Goes a long way in rebuilding faith in the dealership.Later, in talking to the owner of the shop he came unglued at the fact his service manager "OK'd" the rotor in the first place and told me he was going to "fire" him. What an 8 yr old. His employee was looking out for the customer to keep them a customer and this guy wants to put the burden on me personsonaly for the termination of his service managers job. I'm somewhat shocked that BMW even let's a guy have a franchise before profiling them to see if thay are of the right attitude to represent their brand. Jesus, how can anyone with that kind of attitude ever hope to keep from running his store into the ground?


It also is insane that a premium brand motorcycle manufacture would be so reluctant to stand behind there products. WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? Why would I buy one of there cars? The dealer here tells me that BMW only sold 16000 bike in the USA in 2006 and that is not enough pay attention to little complaint like this.

If this dealer continues to give me the run around he will find out just how resourceful I am at getting to the "right" people at BMW Motoradd here in the states as well a Germany.
 
Well decided today to see if there was any adjustment that could be done at the brake pedal, but unfortunately it was one of the things redesigned on the '06 bikes :blast , so now no adjustment apart from the pushrod and that was fine.
Last check I did on wednesday involved running the bike in 1st gear on the centre stand and pulling the front brake, did this about 10 times and everytime it stalled the bike (which is why I thought there was too much pressure going to the back brake), today I did the same but this time the front brake barely slowed the back wheel no matter how hard I applied the lever (the rear brake pedal stalled it no problem though!), did this for quite abit with the front lever and the disc felt only slightly warm. So my question is since I've been away for the past 2 days who's been in and fixed my bike? :thumb On a serious note I have been away for about 7 months with the battery disconnected, could something have stuck and eventually reset itself while I've been p*ssing about with it on the centre stand??:roll


Could it be something to do with this, an e-mail from BWM, posted up on ADV Rider on a similar thread :nenau


"Ok. Here is the translation. Excuse my english, but I hope you will get the point:

"R1200 GS Adventure is equipped with integral ABS and brakepads that wear out realatively quickly, which is an effect of their ability to give full brake-effect even in wet/muddy conditions.

The integrated brake affects the rear brake even when you are only using the front brake-handle, as you probably already know.

After ignition (if have being shut off before departure), the distribution between front- and rear brake is set so that the rear brakes get maximum possible effect.

Why? Well, if you have a passenger or carry heavy load this is more favourable, and a good start-mode from a safety-perspective.

If you ride without passenger and no load, the brake-pressure is adjusted at the first ABS-adjustment to a lower pressure, since the rear-brake would lock too early realive to if bike would have been fully loaded. The ABS-units logic then notices this when it compares speed, brake-pressure and how the front wheel reacts relative to the rear-wheel (which indirect signals how the load-ratio looks like)

NOTE: This adjustment only happens if you brake so hard that it activates the ABS starts working by releasing pressure due to locked wheel. The adjustment is quick and you only need to lock rear-whel for a 10ths of a second.

If you do not brake hard enough (ie do not activate ABS) you will still expose the rear-brake to high pressure, and the soft pads will wear out relative quick. If you ride hard, using the brake "hard" and regurlarly your pads will last longer.


It is also possible to exchange the soft rear-pads with other, harder pads."

Note that this applies to the Swedish market only. I guess you have the same bikes over there but I cannot grant or stand up for what BMW say here in Sweden."
 
rear pads

Had mine in for 2 year service done 10500 miles BM telephoned to say that the rear pads were don to the limiter.
Replaced with sinthered recommended by bm
Cost £65 !!!!!
 
07 r12gsa non servo - 4,400kms (2750mls) - metal to metal on leading edge of piston side pad - very little left on other pad.

95 r1100rt
96 r1100rt
98 r1100rt
00 r1150gs
02 r1150gsa
04 r1200gs
04 r1150gsa

all the above bikes gave normal rear pad wear. riding style has not changed. roads i ride on has not changed :nenau

will my dealer listen? no
will bmw listen? no

based on my wear rate if i did an 80,000 rtw trip i'd change my pads 20 times

have all (since 2004) r1200gs / gsa pads been of different thicknesses? in other words one pad (piston side) thicker than the other?
 
I changed mine and the new ones were the same thickness, the piston side will always wear first as it's a sliding caliper.

Spoke to the mechanic on saturday and he's agrees 1600miles to metal is definately not right, he did admit an average of about 5-6K which is bad and BWM already know this. He's agreed to try it on the computer to see if theres a problem with the front/rear bias when I get back from a trip away.:)
 
, he did admit an average of about 5-6K which is bad and BWM already know this. He's agreed to try it on the computer to see if theres a problem with the front/rear bias when I get back from a trip away.:)

that would explain why mines done nearly 9k!
and yes i did go buy those pads on sat:augie
 
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107463
this is the prev thread i had written
just spend a mo and read it
today i have just found this lot
i am sick to death of being given the run around by BMW
customer services - a Mr Harkan Suleyman a manager within BMW customer services has advised there is nothing wrong with BMW rear brake pads - but guess what because pads are consumables BMW will not entertain any warranty issue regarding brake pads - but as a good will gesture he has decided that i can have £115.00 back for a the new brake disc but they wont pay for the labour or pads - i have asked him to call me and explain exactly why
he will pay for the disc but not the pads or labour (this is an extra £165.00) he deems i should pay for that - i have had enough of this so tonight after speaking to an incredably arrogant BMW customer services guy called Jamie Diggins who didnt, wouldnt, and couldnt answer a single question as to why BMW will pay for the disc and nothing else i called trading standards - what an eye opener that was - no body should confuse BMW warranty with the sale of goods act 1979 - these are two completly seperate issues -
NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE was left ringing in my ears - and as soon as i meantioned this web site and this forum she took the details and because the failing brakes are a safty issue the s**t has now hit the fan - according to her a safety issue regarding brakes cant be brushed under the carpet - not even by BMW - i now have to do some things that i have been advised to do word for word by trading standards so i will update but cant at the mo - anyone else who has been forking out extra money to BMW for the brake pads trouble should write in and tell what happened because at the end of the day a judge can read this and he will decide NOT BMW if we are to get our money back - not a bit but the full 100% of cost to us:mcgun
 
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/member.php?u=1003692
nice one thanks
have read several other ones that say dealer replaced under warranty so you can see why i am seething and have had enough - thanks very much for the info cos when he calls me Thursday like he has been asked to, i am gonna get him to read this thread then call me back and then see what he has to say:beerjug:
 
dealer replaced disk and pads (with sintered) a couple of weeks ago at the 10,000km service under warranty. seemingly there is a special premature pad wear warranty code.

above copied from prev thread

any BMW dealers or ex service guys know this code please either email it to me or if youve had enough like me just write what it is ta

Gaz:hide
 
Yep would be interested in this code so I can take it into my dealer and force it down his throat :augie and get a new disc:)
 


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