Disc Brakes Bedding In?

Viracocha

I am returning to cycling after a 12 year abscence and have after reading many threads and reviews here and elsewhere purchased a Carrera Fury.

I understand from the sales guy at Halfords (who was very helpful and seemingly knowledgable) that the disc brakes need to bed in and so will rub for couple of weeks or so. My last bike had cantilever brakes so never had this issue before.

After reading some horror stories regarding Halfords and the staff knowledge and customer service I thought I had better ask people who will definitely know if this is indeed correct or if it just means they have not been set up correctly.

I could (and would) of course consult the manual, if only I had been given the correct one by said Halfords staff.

Fuzzyboy

He told you wrong I'm afraid.

Bedding in means that the brakes need to be used a bit before the surfaces of the pads / rotors are working at their best. You can easily do this by riding at speed and braking hard.. a nearby hill should help. about 10 or so good slow down's on both front and rear should do it.

The pads should not be rubbing, I think he may have been trying to get out of the fact that he hasn't managed to get the set up quite right. Eventually they will stop of their own accord (when the offending bit of pad is worn away), but to properly fix this issue, go to Tektro's website and download a manual, adjusting the gap between the pad and the rotor is fairly straightforward, but a bit fiddly. It's worth getting to know how things work.

I too have just got a Fury (great bike), and the pads don't rub.

Viracocha

I was afraid of this as you probably guessed from the request, thank you for answering and helping me out. I am glad to hear that yours is a better put together bike.

Typical, buy something that is supposed to be checked and sorted out for you and end up having to do it all yourself. You are right of course it is good to find out how things work, hence me wanting the manual.

I have looked at the Tektro website and cannot find any area of it to download a manual from. This makes me wonder what other little things are wrong with the bike too. Only other problem I have noticed is that when I push hard to go up a hill, somtimes the chain seems to jump or something, feels like its gonna break, now this happened when test riding and the guy said it was a tight link or something and seemed to clear it up then today it happened much worse and the chain seemed to jump off the middle front cog. Don't suppose you know what may be causing that by any chance?

ADDITIONAL:
I have been to the Tektro site 3 times last few days for some help and found nothing, since writing my initial response here 10 minutes I have returned to it on your advice and unbelievably found the manuals within a minute!!

Once again thank you very much, I shall print that off and look at sorting out the problem tomorrow. I think I shall also return to the store and get a refund on the servicing policy I naively purchased!

nicklouse

Viracocha a few sugestions for you parktools webby link in sig, has many good info and how toos.

Re the brakes yes they can rub for a short time while bedding in, ie they have edges that need to be lost...BUT within a few aplications the rubbing should have gone if the brake has been set up right.

Now one thing to consider do not play with the brakes TOO much as in that every time you move the caliper the pads need to bed in again.

the setting up of all brakes is fairly similar and park tools will help. but DO NOT forget to take the bike back for fixing the little probs.

Viracocha

Thanks for the advice Nicklouse.

I went to another local bike shop to see if a mechanic there would look at it for me so I could have some other eyes on the actual problem rather than just info from here but they wouldn't do it without me paying £50 due to warranty issues so I returned to Halfords as I intended anyway.

I said that I wasn't happy that the brakes were set up quite right and again was told that they have to rub while bedding in, after explaining that others had told me this is correct but that it shouldn't involve the constant rubbing of one pad on one side of the rotor they looked at it and adjusted it and now amazingly it doesn't rub. Job done you'd think.

Except I then get accused of questioning their intelligence because I listened to other riders over someone who services bikes! This was even after me pointing out that I didn't just come back and accuse them of not knowing what there talking about but came back informing myself with knowledge of the brakes and simply said I didn't think they had been set up quite right.

I would appear to have been correct as now they don't rub constantly. So they do know what they are doing when they put their minds to it and the effort in but I am not convinced that they can always be bothered.

I just thought I would put this on here to say that although they do seem to know what they are doing the customer service at Halfords is one of the worst I have ever come across and I would reccomend that people look at all alternatives before venturing to Halfords.

stevebrock

Avoid Halfords like the plague!

I lost one half of my powerlink and didnt have a spare (doh) and the idiot at my local Halfords in lincoln didnt even know what one was!

How pathetic!

z000m

if you give the pads a light rub with sand paper they will be bedded in