Metallic or organic brake pads?

[GSF]

Yeah ... my thoughts exactly.

Can someone please tell me what "organic" brake pads are? Somehowe I don't think that homegrown vegetable material has the right amount of stopping power ...

I don't know why they're called organic to be honest. They're usually composed of Kevlar or similar synthetic fibres and maybe some other junk bonded together with resin. Maybe the resin is based on a naturally-occurring product?
I think the organic term came into being to differentiate them from asbestos friction materials when people started realising the 'bestos was bad juju...

[HenryDorsetCase]

organic must be better for the planet. Otherwise they wouldnt be allowed to call them "organic": the Green Party would be all up in their shit.

[imdying]

I don't know why they're called organic to be honest.

Just to differentiate them from the other common type, metallics.

[G4L4XY]

So Sintered pads eat standard disks for breakfast, Organic take the healthy approach and only nibble tiny bits of disk at a time

[imdying]

Well, no, not exactly.

- Metallic pads are specified for particular types of bikes to perform in a particular way
- Both discs and pads are consumables, like tyres and air filters
- Both discs and pads need to wear to work, they're sacrificial, just like tyres
- The harder you work any type of friction material, the faster it'll wear out

Sure you can put organic pads into a GSXR1000, but on the track it'll eat them in a few sessions, assuming they don't fade so much that you don't make the turn after the main straight.

Kiwi's are notoriously bad for cheaping out on vehicle maintenance... they're more than happy to fit sub standard equipment to critical areas of their vehicles. My advice would be to buy your bikes new, or carefully scrutinize your future purchases for non OEM equipment.

Aftermarket gear is often fine (EBC / Brembo / Galfer etc), but a Kiwi typically only sees the $250 for two discs on eBay, and doesn't really care much about whether the disc is actual suitable for the purpose. The saving grace is that the Chinese are always moving forward in their manufacturing, so more often than not they don't give any trouble; the grape vine does a reasonable job of weeding out the rubbish, assuming you do a little research around the net first. One make forums are often a good source of that sort of information. Generally the biggest problem with the Chinese gear is longevity.

[bogan]

I'm not so sure that sintered pads wear discs a whole lot faster for the same use, but they make a more brutal looking wear pattern so I can see why people would think that they do.

The saving grace is that the Chinese are always moving forward in their manufacturing, so more often than not they don't give any trouble; the grape vine does a reasonable job of weeding out the rubbish, assuming you do a little research around the net first. One make forums are often a good source of that sort of information. Generally the biggest problem with the Chinese gear is longevity.

You know why they sell all the 'fancy' wave and cross slotted/drilled ones right? Lot harder to put a DTI on to check the runout from factory

[imdying]

You know why they sell all the 'fancy' wave and cross slotted/drilled ones right?

I sure do, Bowie said it best.

[BigOne]

I'm not so sure that sintered pads wear discs a whole lot faster for the same use, but they make a more brutal looking wear pattern so I can see why people would think that they do.



You know why they sell all the 'fancy' wave and cross slotted/drilled ones right? Lot harder to put a DTI on to check the runout from factory

Ive run HH sintered metallic pads on my GSX1400 for 50,000km, including some pretty hard use, and there is bugger-all wear. So don't think the wear rate is much higher for metallics. But I'm not sure how you can check run-out accurately on a floating disc- the bobbins have a mm of side-ways float.