Needing new brake pads every 6 weeks!!

Luckycharm

Since November I have gone through 3 sets of pads this morning culminating this morning in breaking my Disc giving me a bit of a scary moment when I had no breaks :eek:
I commute about 20 miles a day through the city which obviously involves lots of stopping and starting but this is Ridiculous. Never had this prob before doing same route 8 years. Anyone know what could be causing it.

Oryx

What bike is it?

Luckycharm

Its a scooter Suzuki AN 125

Wossack

wrong pads
very poor condition disk
being lied to by bike shop

or more likely, bad calipers not letting the pads properly disengage from the disk, so brakes are always slightly on... can overheat your disks and cause them to fail

steamsey

What do you mean by breaking the disc? Do you mean this literally? If so - quite odd for this to happen.

I had a similar pad related problem before on my old 'ped. The issue was that I had lazily let the pads wear down to the metal at one point, so this then scratched the discs themselves, making them rougher and therefore very hard on any pads I put on there. Options were to have the disc skimmed (smoothed) by a machinist (couldn't find anyone willing to do it), or buy a new one (think they were about €150 ish), or continue to go through pads willy nilly (what I ended up doing). If a disc on my bike was damaged now I would definitely just buy a new one and save myself the heartache.

I think you'll always go through pads quicker on a 125 than you would on a 50cc - generally same brake set up on both and a 125 going much faster, therefore more wear and tear when stopping but at the same time,
a new set of the right pads (with a smooth disc) should last for 6 months at the very least on a commute like yours.

Perhaps they (or you) are putting the wrong pads in?

Luckycharm

steamsey wrote: »

What do you mean by breaking the disc? Do you mean this literally? If so - quite odd for this to happen.

I had a similar pad related problem before on my old 'ped. The issue was that I had lazily let the pads wear down to the metal at one point, so this then scratched the discs themselves, making them rougher and therefore very hard on any pads I put on there. Options were to have the disc skimmed (smoothed) by a machinist (couldn't find anyone willing to do it), or buy a new one (think they were about €150 ish), or continue to go through pads willy nilly (what I ended up doing). If a disc on my bike was damaged now I would definitely just buy a new one and save myself the heartache.
I think you'll always go through pads quicker on a 125 than you would on a 50cc - generally same brake set up on both and a 125 going much faster, therefore more wear and tear when stopping but at the same time,
a new set of the right pads (with a smooth disc) should last for 6 months at the very least on a commute like yours.

Perhaps they (or you) are putting the wrong pads in?

Yep I think this was my problem and the disc got rougher therefore going through pads much quicker. Yep Disc actually broke this morning - was going to drop in on Friday as really need bike during week so getting other things looked at as well.

Alkers

Is the fluid reservoir maybe full above the full line? This would cause the pads to be always rubbing against the rotor. Is it tough to push the bike?