? Rapid rear brake wear ?

[gdouglas]

I just got done with a brake inspection on my '05 RT with 21k miles and found that one of the rear brake pads is down to the metal and the other one isn't far behind. For comparison, the front brakes are hardly worn at all.

 

I do most of my braking with the front brake lever which is supposed to provide optimum brake bias pressure to the rear brake at the same time. I also use the foot pedal for the rear brake very lightly while stopping just to keep the habit of reaching for the rear brake. This way I am not prone to not reaching for the rear brake pedal at all when I am riding another brand bike. I do not apply any significant pressure to the rear brake lever at all.

 

Anyway it looks like it's time for new rear pads and a rotor resurfacing at work next week.

 

Has anyone else here experienced rapid rear brake wear on their hexhead servo brake assist machine?

[Kannon]

Exact same situation, 20,000 mi. and the rear brakes are down to metal. I also hardly ever use rear brakes, really never use rears except at parkinglot speed. But remember, we are using the rears even if we don't touch the pedal - the front brake is linked to the rear and applies it at a reduced pressure every time we brake. I also suspect that BMW uses a softer compound on the rear pads for some reason.

I was shocked at the price for the pads too, $70 bucks -WOW.

When I installed the pads I found there to be alot of drag after actuating the pedal to seat the pads so I loosened the caliper and twisted it to retract the pistons and tried again, same situation, after torquing the caliper and appling the brake I still had quite a bit of drag - I could turn the rear wheel with a little effort but it wouldn't spin even an inch if I wasen't turning it. I decided to ride and see what happend - the caliper got hot but not overheated (no discoloration) I could feel the drag at first but after about 100 miles everything is back to normal, wheel will spin by hand with only a slight amount of drag.

[pbbeck]

Similar situation here. I was told at my 18K service that my '05 RT has 30% left on the rear brake pads. I asked the service manager if that was a normal wear pattern for this bike and he saide "yes,' though he qualified his answer by saying he didn't really have enough data to be sure.

[Pickaxe]

We've already discussed the rear brake bias/over heating.

I think that, whether by design or fault, all the rear brake caliper/discs get very hot, even with minimal use.

[gdouglas]

I have also noticed the seemingly questionable drag without any brake applied that Kannon mentioned in his post above. Today, I found some Galfer brake pads locally for $38 that are the same compound as the originals. While I had the old pads out of the rear caliper, I was able to easily push the pistons back into the caliper with only thumb pressure. The fact of the ease of which the pistons were able to be retracted seems to rule out the possibility of a sticking piston. My next theory to check was to make sure the guide pins for the caliper self centering function were free and easy, which they were.

 

The inside pad was the one that had just gone down to metal yesterday. The outside pad was very close to metal with about 1/64" to 1/32" left. For all practical purposes as far as disc brakes are concerned, this is pretty much an equally worn set of pads. The equal wear between the two pads also indicates that the self centering of the caliper is functioning properly.

 

All I can do now is to try laying off the rear brake pedal completely for a while and only use the hand lever for normal braking and see if it makes a difference in rear pad life. I sure hate to get out of the habit of applying some rear brake at all since the habit will naturally be transfered with me to my KTM or my wife's bike when I ride them.

[ChrisRappl]

If I remember correctly there we many posts regarding the R1100 series only getting 6000 to 8000 miles on a set of rear pads. 18,000 to 20,000 seems like a nice improvement.