Bicycle Mechanics - Hydraulic Brake Maintenance - Shimano

Hi,

What maintenance will be required for the Hydraulic Brakes on my Felt QX85D ? SHIMANO BR-M445 Hydraulic Disc Brake, 160mm rotor, front and back.

Will I need to bleed them every 6 months or anything ? Or yearly. Top the fluid up ?

How long will the brake pads last under normal conditions ? Mostly road riding, distance riding on open roads generally rather than around town.

Cheers. :)

Most bike hydraulic brakes don't require any more routine maintenance than automotive brakes which is close to zero. If a fitting gets loose, or something happens to let fluid leak or air to entire the lines, then they'll need service, but otherwise there's nothing special to manage.

As for shoe wear, that probably depends on whether you live in Kansas or Colorado. Since you're not going to have the stop and go of city riding, the biggest variable is how you manage descents. Rather that try to guess you should simply monitor shoe wear the same as you would with caliper brakes.

As per FBinNY for maintenance, but if you do need to do any, the instructions can be found here http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/SI/DiskBrakeSystem/SI_8J50A/SI-8J50A-001-ENG_v1_m56577569830689046.pdf

Thanks.

Just wanted a rough guide as to the pad wear, it´s pretty flat where I ride and there are no "descents" as such, in the south area of Spain where there are for sure hills but I stay away from them.. lol. I really am a newbie, especially to Cycling Discs (had many motorbikes with discs and the parts lasted very well on all), so wondered the general time frame of wear. Like. 500 miles, 5000 miles etc... I really have no idea, realize it is different for bikes, riders, terrain, just wanted like a "ballpark figure". I will of course monitor them, just trying to sort in my head whether they are likely to last hundreds of miles or many 1000s.

PS. Good to hear they are pretty much maintenance free, assumed they would be (like motorbike brakes). What has surprised me over the past few days is seeing how long people are getting from their tires, that really is phenomonal in my opinion, seeing people get 6000 miles+ from a Schwalbe tire for instance, that´s great - Was just trying to see a ballpark figure for disc pads too.

It's just about impossible to give a good idea of how long parts will last, it all depends on how much you use them, how well you maintain them, and where you use them.

With MTB'ing; with the same maintenance, using the same part in different locations, say for a set of pads, one can last 6 months, the other 2-3 days

Been using them 3 days and still going strong. Hoping to get a 4th and then 5th.. lol

Been using them 3 days and still going strong. Hoping to get a 4th and then 5th.. lol

days are nothing. Think in terms of months, or if you're lucky, years.

As I said, depends where/ how you ride, off-road, ultra grity conditions with heavy braking, you can destroy brake pads in a few days if you are unlucky; dry conditions and minimal braking you may get several months or more