I was out riding with a buddy and came down a light slope to enter a 35 mph at around 75 mph tapped on brakes to slow before corner. Upon doing so the back locked up and i was send across oncoming into the ditch, was able to stay on bike through it all. I have a Video on www.youtube.com of the event. The title is CBR600 Brake Failure. I took the bike back to the shop where i had the work done they stated it was all me, so i took the bike to another shop. The other shop manager with tech looked it over and said it was my rotor and pads needed to be changed. What blows my mind is i had just spent over 1200 dollars plus at the other shop to have the bike summer ready and race day ready. The pads are less than 4 months old front and rear. If anyone has had these troubles or knows anything about this please help!

Thank You

 

What type of pads did you have installed? A lot of guys go for race type & unless you are racing the pad material glazes & has the effect of bugger all breaking.

 

First check your pads, they should wear flat.

Lift the rear up by a stand, how does it spin? does the rotor look warped. It shouldn't spin freely because of the chain, but if you took the chain off and spun it, it should spin fairly nice, no warp in the rotors.

If the rotor is straight and the pads look good, you may have to rebuild your caliper and/or master cylinder. Problems in there can cause your pistons to not retract, which will over heat things, or they can cause problems with even you pushing on the brake lever. These problems wouldn't come and go though, they would always be there. So if everything on your rear brake system seems smooth, then there is probably nothing wrong.

 

Did you downshift and tap brakes at the same time? Could of been a combination of downshift/curve/speed/brakes all coming together? I don't know what your skill level of riding is but that's guess a guess... Good luck on finding it out!

 

driver error.... no offense... everyone's done it once or twice.....



-Lee

 

I used organic on the rear they seem to go more evenly to me. The rotor needs to be replaced i took it to a 3rd shop to have it checked to be safe. The brake system also runs really hot on the rear and cooler on the front by far. I didn't downshift i had already set a speed in mind for the corner. It could have been driver error which sucks but its a learning, yet still doesn't explain going through the rear brakes in less than 4 months and a shop unwilling to be of any help. The last shop i went to the guy said its because the other shop didn't replace the rotor and brakes same time, now i have to either get them to fix the error or do it myself.

Thank You

 

how thin is your rotor? If it is seriously below spec, it could cause massive amounts of heat and cause your brakes to lock up. And like i said, be sure to check how well your pistons retract.

It could be rider error, sure, but its best to find out if there is a problem, not just assume its rider error and have it happen again.

btw replacing pads without rotors will not cause your pads to wear in 4 months. It will increase the wear speed slightly, but lets see. I've had my bike for 7 years (put on 25,000 miles myself). I rarely or casually use the rear brakes and stomp on the fronts on the track. I've never once needed new rear pads or rotor, and only once changed my front pads (probably first change, bike had 31,000 miles on it), never the front rotors yet. So either you do some serious riding, or your pistons aren't retracting.

 

With the combination of running hot and rapid wear, could you be resting your foot on the break while you are riding. Consider readjusting the position of your foot or the break lever.
mikey

 

Sounds like driver error to me. How much are you using your front vs. back brakes?

When slowing, you are going to have much less weight on and potential stopping power from your rear tire than your front and its going to be relatively easy to lock up your rear tire. Make sure you are using the front brakes for the majority of your stopping power. Also, especially at a lower skill level, make sure that you are giving yourself ample time to set your speed for a turn ahead of time. Don't try to push too hard too quickly; you don't want to be a statistic..

That said, organic pads are inferior to HH pads (I prefer EBC). For the small upcharge, they seem to be well worth the money. Incidentally, those are what Honda puts on production bikes for several years now.

You definitely want to inspect the piston action while you have it apart and you'll need to rebuild it if its not retracting properly.

Again, it sounds like you stomped the rear brake and locked her up... but change those pads and rotor if they're worn!

 

Another thing I forgot to mention is that race pads/calipers need to actually warm up to operating temp in order to work well. I don't know if this is true on all pads and all bikes but I see a lot of guys talking about it on race forums, but it seems to be mostly R-6's

Just something else to think about.