Watch out for EBC brake pad catastrophic failures

[AlanH]

Alan,

are those pads from my old RD04?

Bob.

Yes they were. It's much happier now

[AlanH]

Bummer - just brought new EBC rear pads this arvo

Ok enough about thes pads being shoddy - what would everyone recomend instead ? Which after market pads are deemed the best ?

I'd use Honda Genuine. They are a good compromise between braking force and disc life and, more importantly, they don't seem to suffer from the same falling apart issues.

Now, I'm sure there are others who will say EBC is fine and that other manufacturers pads have failed on them but for me, EBC are the only ones that have done this on my bikes and, for that reason, I'm out (sorry, too much Harry and Paul).

[boboneleg]

Yes they were. It's much happier now

Did you fit them Alan ? or are you saying they were in there when I sold it to you.

[AlanH]

Did you fit them Alan ? or are you saying they were in there when I sold it to you.

They were the ones that were in there when I got the bike from you but it's certainly not something you could have possibly known about. There was plenty of meat on the pads and no visual indication that anything was adrift. They looked fine when I checked the bike over. Good job it didn't let go when you were barrelling down some mountain somewhere.

It was only when I took the caliper off and checked out the pads that I noticed a hairline crack down one of them. I poked the pad with my finger and off came a chunk of pad. I thought "Aha! Must be an EBC pad". Turned it over and Bingo! Pretty new pad too by the look of it.

[Rubberchicken]

I've had one set of ebc pads on the dommie front brake, they were gone to the bare metal in under 2000 miles. Not impressed.

Since then I've used Lucas and Ferodo pads.

I like the lucases, good feeling and stopping power, decent life (10k miles)... Downside is I had to replace about 1 brake rotor (www.braking.com @ 100ish euro) per 2 sets of pads.

Ferodo is in there at the moment, sameish feel, no idea about life yet on the dommie as it's my first set.

Also used ferodo when I changed to a 320mm disc on the GS. They've been in there for 25000 km and were replaced (with lucas) because the disc got warped. They weren't finished yet.

[boboneleg]

They were the ones that were in there when I got the bike from you but it's certainly not something you could have possibly known about. There was plenty of meat on the pads and no visual indication that anything was adrift. They looked fine when I checked the bike over. Good job it didn't let go when you were barrelling down some mountain somewhere.

It was only when I took the caliper off and checked out the pads that I noticed a hairline crack down one of them. I poked the pad with my finger and off came a chunk of pad. I thought "Aha! Must be an EBC pad". Turned it over and Bingo! Pretty new pad too by the look of it.

I'm gobsmacked Alan as I avoid EBC like the plague. I consider EBC to be total crap (an opinion shared by Barftone amongst others).

I have always used either Ferodo or Nissin pads on that bike but Fowlers stopped selling Nissin so maybe in desperation I had to use EBC.

Look in the folder I gave you with the bike and see if you can find a receipt, maybe you could use it to complain to EBC.

Sorry for your trouble, Bob.

[AlanH]

The fronts were Ferodo and were fine. The rears were EBC although the Fowlups receipt said "Nissan" - so I expect they only had EBC in stock at the time you did them last and hadn't updated their stock system.

It wasn't any hassle as I had a spare set of pads courtesy of Wemoto so I just popped them in instead. They are Kyoto pads (bargain basement) and will do for now. Having said that, they do brake considerably better than the poxy EBCs.

[Andy Freeman]

Hi Guys, my name is Andy, I am the owner of EBC Brakes which incidentally are made right there in Bristol where this thread seems to have started.

There is no excuse for a break pad to fail in a catastrophic way but I want to say a couple of things here. This may or may not be our fault. However, all we see here is a part of the pad coming away not a complete failure of the pair or an accident thank god, having happened

First if any product in life fails, dont just moan about it, contact the suppliers or manufacturer and give them a chance to do something about it and they can LEARN from it. We have no record of a contact from you Alan even if you bought a second hand bike with our pads in.

If in fact these failed pads are EBC from the photo only part of one pad has become detached. There can be several reasons for this the most important one of which from my point of view is what we call a corrosion debond. When I took over EBC in 2002 this was one thing I looked into and after some work with Lotus Cars we came up with a solution to prevent this on cars and bikes. This fix is now present in all our pads and we have made guys 32 million sets of these since I took over the factory. As the worlds largest producer of aftermarket pads we do recognise a responsibility here and have addressed and will address any issue we see,

There are other reasons a pad like this might fail and to see whether these were involved I would need the pads pad to make several tests. Happy to do that with any failed pad if you sent them to me at

Andy Freeman
EBC Buildings
Countess Road
Northampton
NN5 7EA

These other ancillary causes would ocurr with any manufacturer.

I notice in this thread people talk about EBC Green pads which we did make a few of many years ago for Bikes. We have not made Green coloured pads for Motorcycles since well before our takeover of the factory in 2002 so anyone who found a set of these got some really old stuff.

This forum has served a useful purpose by bringing this to my attention here but further expressions like EBC is crap or poxy are a little unfair considering the millions of happy bikers we have around the world. We estimate over 90% of our business is reapeat buys, cant be all that bad.

One final comment. Brakes are a very important part of your bike and need to be serviced like a chain. Remove the pads once a year and inspect them and the calipers and slider pins and re assemble, there is a taster to a very useful DVD on our website that shows you how to do this, it is admittedly something we sell but does go out free of charge when buying certain EBC product from our vendor network. The point is, dont just fit pads and forget them when you are riding in rain,sometimes mud and even salt and regularly parking a bike outside for weeks in the wet as corrosion, piston and slider seizure and bent pad pins are things that will cause a pad to stick, lead to backplate bending which can pop the friction puck off any pads. At this pad removal each year check the pads for plate flatness and check around the edges for hairline cracks which promote edge lifting and if noticed the pads should be changed.

Link is here EBC Brakes - Fitting instructions and SAFETY information for EBC Motorcycle Brakes

I am a biker of many years experience myself guys not some bloke sitting in an office raking in the dosh from unsuspecting bikers, I understand the needs of this market , I understand Motorcycles and their brakes and will rise to the challenges of their needs.

Safe riding to all

Andy Freeman

[Boris]

Hi Guys, my name is Andy, I am the owner of EBC Brakes which incidentally are made right there in Bristol where this thread seems to have started.

Safe riding to all

Andy Freeman

Thanks for the really informative post Andy. I'm sure we all overlook braking systems from time to time but there really does appear to be no excuse for this sort of catastrophic failure. I for one will certainly be interested to find out if the reasons behind these reported failures in your products have been addressed. Please keep us informed of your findings.

If it's down to older stock that may have been susceptible to debond it would be worth letting us know how to identify the items made with the newer processes that you mention.

I realise the main reason you joined the forum was to give an official response to posted events but please do stick around. It will be incredibly useful and mutually advantageous to have a braking expert in our midst.

[Andy Freeman]

Thanks Boris, its plates on sticks for me, I see a problem,resolve it and move to the next plate.

Lets wait to see how many returned parts come in, we can see a batch code on them and if there seems to be any pattern we will of course respond.

I need to see as many returned suspect parts as members can find to make a good decision and as I said we have had ZERO returns or indication that the problem is other than random.

If it is random, we will update our website and catalogs to warn but of course servicing a vehicle is anyway something that is not an EBC alone responsibility and its not just organic pads either, as you see there were other sintered brake brands mentioned as debonds in this very thread and if you look on our website using this link

EBC Extreme Pro™ Brake Pads | EBC Brakes


you will see we came across this with OTHER people pads and developed a worldwide fix, so sintered and organic pads both suffer from backplate deflection which causes pad debond for a variety of reasons, happens in the car industry a lot also with all brands of pad.

I am updating our website right now but would dearly love to get some failed or edge lift samples back if anyone has any so we can investigate properly.

Cheers Boris and all
Andy F