Front Brake chatter

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Sharpedge

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I had the front pads replaced about 3 months ago when the old set de-laminated after the wheel was taken out for a tyre change. Ran the new set in for about 20mi then on the next ride I had to perform a very heavy breaking manoeuvre from speed to avoid t boning a car which pulled out on me. Ever since then the brakes have been chattering during soft to med strength braking. As soon as I pull the lever harder the chattering settles out and the bike brakes as normal. This is very unsettling when dabbing the brakes before tackling a nice sweeping bend. The front just does not feel stable at all. Am I correct in saying that the discs are not warped as under hard braking the chatter disappears?

The dealer will most likely say that the fault does not sit with the oem components that they fitted. I think I will try to swap out the pads to see if this fixes the issue. Anyone had any similar issues? Are there any recommendations for non oem pads. 80% road use, in the wet and dry. SBS Sintered gets a mention in a previous post, I can find SBS901 HS pads on the manufacture web site but have not found a set for sale in the UK.
 
I've always found ebc HH very good for road work wet or dry.
Not sure about your chatter maybe piston sticking ?
 
Hi sharp edge. I had warped front discs. The symptoms were vibration through the bars when braking from high speed which dissipates when the wheel slows down. Heavy braking at high speed would still get the vibes through the bars, just more violent. If you notice the chatter stop when you brake/drop below a certain speed I would say it's the discs.

The dealer can check the discs to see if they are warped.

I use Brembo SC compound pads on my HP4 and they work very well. Just need to keep an eye on wear as they do not last forever.
 
I have pulled the pads and they look ok. I then checked the run out on both discs. The right was 0.10 and the left was bang on the tolerance of 0.15. All was well before the last tyre change so it is possible that the discs were damaged then. Looks like I'm going to have to go the expensive route to fix this.
 
Have you cleaned the rotors before you install the new pads? Try to clean the rotors and maybe you are lucky and get away with it. I had the same issue and it was not the rotors. I swapped the pads and the problem was gone.
 
I don't know if the discs were cleaned prior to the pad being fitted as this was done by BMW. It might still be a cheaper option to replace the pads first. If I clean the discs (brake dust remover?) and fit new pads and it remains the same can I use the same pads on the new discs if they have only been used for say 50mi? I have always assumed that new discs must have new pads.
 
Yea mate I think you would be fine if it's just that small amount of miles.

Before you re-fit the pads place a new sheet of 400/800 on a flat surface, take each pad braking surface down and move around in a figure of eight motion a few times, that will clean up and square of the braking surface, we used to do this as a matter of course if new discs were being fitted to pads which were not being replaced.
 
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Thinking of going for the Brembo T-Drive discs, has anyone used a set on the HP4? People say that Carpimoto in Italy is normal good value for Brembo stuff but at ?260 a side before postage they are a rather expensive. I found a site in the UK that was doing them for ?450 but clicked off it , no I can't remember where it was. 20 min on Google with no luck.

http://moto.brembo.com/en/detail/208A98553/bmw/s-1000-rr-hp4/1000/2013/discs/front
 
Brembo

Brembo T-Drive discs are excellent but they are expensive. You may want to try Bike Torque Racing as they are a reliable source for Brembo products as are HPS.
 
Replaced my front pads with another set of the brembos. Got a scraping sound from them at the end of the track day last week and now I know why. They haven't lasted very long.
b362d0d15fcd993ac42ab64f85ca4293.jpg
 
Jaysus...they appear to have been well used.

Might be worth getting the Z04's for track time, as you've said the HP4 is going that way.

I've been dying to try my PFC95 compound out but can't recommend till I have.
 
The one at the bottom had no pad material left on it, metal on metal. On one side of the caliper the pistons had started to stick/seize which explains the difference in the wear. Only fitted the pads in may but they are very very good at the job so it's the usual trade off between epic performance and longevity. Fitted the same pads again, now on my third set.
 
BMW HP Race Brake Pads

My HP front brake pads looked similar to that after three full days on track.
 
Ffs Soof what kind of nick was the rotor in or did you catch it in the nick

Sent from Galaxy S7

I think the rotor is ok. I almost exclusively used the back brake as soon as I started to feel the metal grinding. I checked it over when I was doing the pads and it looked ok, but I'm no expert.

They lasted me 2 trackdays and maybe 1000 miles. I checked them the morning of the trackday and they had plenty left. Big surprise that they didn't make it home.
 
A friend of mine had a similar issue under breaking and it turned out that the front wasn't balanced correctly, one of the weights had come off.
 
Had a similar problem with my hp4. after trial and error I solved the problem by removing the front wheel and removing the disc's and giving them a very through deglase. I used a coarse stone on both sides of the disc and deglased the pads with 80 grit paper. a few firm stops building to 120 to 20 then let them cool. no problems since
 
Have any of you re-used any of the break disc bolts when swapping out the discs? I'm sure the standard bolts are not meant to be torqued down again as they stretch too much. If you swap them out where did you pick up a set?
 
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