avid juicy 3 vs avid juicy 5 (where's the difference?)

the levers are slightly different. they have a lever breakaway function. other than that they are the same.

having owned both, in my opinion, there is no real difference. the 5 has a split clamp but i cant remember there being any difference in performance

the biggest difference (aside from lever clamp / lever return safety as mentioned) is the stock brake pads

Juicy 3 have DOT 4 as standard, more recent Juicy 5 and 7 have DOT 5.1 but there is practically no performance difference unless doing repeated high speed descents, and DOT 5.1 absorbs water more quickly so DOT 4 is somewhat better for the maintainance shy!

Juicy 3's come with organic pads - which often make the brake feel "soft" (which many riders assume means the Juicy 3 is somehow a "weak" brake compared to the 5 and 7

Juicy 5 and 7 come with metal sintered pads - which give a much more "grabby", positive braking force

with Juicy 3's, burn out the brake pads and upgrade to metal sintered and the brakes will feel 100% better

also pay attention to the reach adjuster as all the brakes (both OE on complete bikes) and aftermarket boxed brakes come with the reach adjuster wound very far in, which means the leverage is poor and makes the brake feels weak

with the Juicy lever geometry being different to other manufacturers brakes - the Juicy pivot point and lever angle is very different which improves the ergonomics, and also means you can run the brake lever far inboard (often inside the shifter pod)

this means you can setup the Juicy with the reach adjuster quite wound out, which makes the brake feel much more powerful as there is more leverage on the lever master cylinder, whilst still being able to maintain a great 1/ 2 finger braking setup

The pads will have quite a big difference.

But the internals of the lever are different also. I had to strip and rebulid the lever of my 3's and looking at the servicing manual, the assembly for the 5's contained an extra piston. This would probably seal the lever better, preventing mud from getting in and wrecking the system (which happened to mine!)

bigbenj_08 wrote:

3's and 5's should be about the same..... terrible.

better than the similar level shimano ones though.

bigbenj_08 wrote:

Hmm... we put lx hyrdo brakes on my younger bro's bike and they're brilliant compared to what my 3's were like!

In what terms?
I have the old saint 2-pots on one bike, and juicy 3s on another, both 203mm discs, and the lever feel is very similar, although the Saint can cause your eyeballs to come out of their sockets if you use their full stopping potential.

i don't like the juicy's used a couple of sets of varying quality. The elixirs on the other hand, are AMAZING... Bit like my previous set of mono minis, the current set aren't as nice, they could probably do with a bleed and some decent pads :roll: