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Apologies if this has been done to death but....
Looking for new pads I found various types: Organic, Ceramic, Sintered, Semi-metallic
What are the differences in durability and longevity between the various types?
Any brands to Avoid or seek out? Clarks for example seem very cheap, is there a reason for that?
Organic - stop well, but can wear quickly in wet / muddy conditions.
Sintered - Stop almost as well as organic, but more resistant to wear in wet / muddy conditions.
Kevlar - Supposedly a blend of the two. Better wear resistance of sintered with the braking power of organic.
All manuf pads are generally ok. I've used Shimano (organic and sintered), Fibrax, Clarks, Goodridge (all sintered) and Superstar Components (kevlar) all generally behaved as I've listed above.
All types but Organic produce a lot of squeal, especially when wet. The kevlar ones are IMO the worst for this and sound like a flock of geese when you haul the anchors on.
I always use original pads if I can get them. I prefer the long life, easy fitting and reliability of the orginals compared to cheapo ones which have question marks over their longevity and fit
HOpe sintered - no squeal, thousands of miles of life, easy to fit and come with new pins and clips
A second for Hope Sintered pads. One wet ride round somewhere like Cannock Chase will virtually trash a set of Organic pads
[url= http://www.discobrakes.com/ ]DISCOBRAKES[/url] for me.
4 pairs of sintered for my Hope Mono M4s - £21.69! Seem to work fine, as did the 4 pairs of sem-metallic for HFX-9s at around £16.
You can spend £15 per pair if you like but I've done a few Strathpuffers and 3-4 rides per week all year round and can't say I've noticed that these last any less than OEM pads.
audiophile - Member
"All types but Organic produce a lot of squeal, especially when wet. The kevlar ones are IMO the worst for this and sound like a flock of geese when you haul the anchors on. "
I get occasional squeaking from my kevlars, but not much at all. They're pretty sensitive to caliper alignment though but get that right and they're as quiet as any other pads in my experience.
I know some people get uptight about cheap pads, sometimes with good reason but I've had expensive pads fail in the way everyone predicts cheap pads will, I've had reputable cheap pads from Disco fail but never a disreputable superstar. As far as I can tell, it's just something that happens to pads, when it happened with my Shimano ones I didn't go mad on the internet about it 😉