A very general way of looking at it is:
Organic - best in dry conditions, dusty but low wear on your discs. Not great in the wet, so generally not a great choice for all weather riders.
Sorry matey but no, organic are the old traditional pre sintered material give or take they are cheaper and perform well below sintered pads in all and any conditions. They are fitted to rear brakes and sold for commuting, everyday stuff, big users are despatch riders using mainly mid size lower powered workhorse bikes, some use higher powered and larger bikes but still fit organic for cost reason, as they go through them at a rate. One bike I looked after would go through 9 sets a year, most bikes used in this way will go through about 4 sets depending on mileage and riders. Of course they work, before the introduction of sintered material in the mid 80's all bikes had them as OE it was pretty much all you could get. This type of material is not suitable for most road bikes now sold, especially sports and bikes with mono block or radial calipers, plus sintered material is so much better why would you fit organic. It's just price.
Sintered, not as good from cold but good once warm and much better in the wet than organic. Higher wear rate on discs.
No, sintered will work in all conditions out performing any other material in road applications especially from cold. Yes compared to organic material they will wear a discs faster due to higher fraction rates but the brake performance is hugely increased for slightly increased wear. Some manufactures sintered pad compounds (EBC for one) do wear the discs faster than others and they don't perform as well but that's just how it is, they still out perform organic. Also not all sintered pads are the same they are rated eg FF, GG or HH etc as OE the pads in mono block Fazers are GG.
ceramic designed for higher temperatures (higher speeds or track use).
Yes and no.
Yes, ceramic material can take more heat but not in pad material application i.e. ceramic pads that are sold in this guise they are designed for low dust, noise, wear, with polished or decorated discs and where they are to stop heavy but low performance bikes say older Harleys.
No, a true ceramic pad will not out perform a sintered marital in a road application on most bikes.
But when ceramic is mixed with sintered material you get race pads these are designed to work at constant extreme temperatures with steal discs only experienced in tack applications. The sintered material gives you the bite as the brake is applied and the ceramic hold it all together as the heat builds up during prolonged and constant brake applications. These pads come in different grades to suit different types of track, long, short or some short road circuits, long road circuits (IofM) sintered are fitted due to the lengths between corners and brake application plus the potential constant changes in road/weather conditions, but on all circuits if it's a wet race they fit....................... yep you guessed sintered.
These type of pads are not suitable for any road application regardless the type of bike, to work they require constant heat road will not give you these levels of heat. You grab a handful and there's nothing there
I kid you not!
What you need to be careful of is manufactures calling mixed material just ceramic most ceramic pads sold in the UK have a level of either organic or sinter material in them Bendix for one. Or where they give a type it's own name
Just so happens I have ceramic SBS on the rear, and Galfer semi metallic on the front, so you missed me out completely!
SBS ceramic outside the US is a mix of sintered or organic, Galfer is just using their word for sintered as sintered is a metallic mix.
There is 4 main types of pad organic, ceramic/mix, sintered and sintered/ceramic/carbon, there are many more for particular applications such as mud/water etc but they are all a combination of the the main 4.
Then of course there's carbon carbon but at 6k plus for a disc and 3k plus for a set of pads don’t confuse these with ceramic mixtrix compound types you can get form some specialist race suppliers. I don't think will be seeing carbon carbon on road bikes anytime soon, most race teams this side of GP's can't afford them.
so it's almost a case of trying them out to find what you like.
To a point yes, except what I've said above certain material does work better than others, the choice is who's do you want to use.
In my experience brake performance is like eyesight you slowly loose it and it's not until you get it checked you realise just how much they can deteriorate. Over the years I've serviced 1000's of bike brakes many of the old members of this forum (we are all getting older lol) some of the bikes I've ridden before I worked on the brakes were frightening. I often got owners to ride mine for comparison those that did didn't realise just how good the Fazer brake can be.
The clue with pads is what did the manufacturer if as OE? In the Fazer and most bikes these days it's...............sintered some like the Fazer have organic rears.
But like you say Fazafou it's your choice.
Topic: Brake Pad Replacement (Read 13677 times)
