Originally Posted by
bragi
I recently bought a new bike with disc brakes. In fact, I bought it just for the disc brakes. I wanted to avoid having to buy rims every 12-18 months, and I also got tired of squealing rim brakes in this wet climate. (And I wanted a new bike just because I was feeling self-indulgent.) I'm pretty happy with the disc brakes overall: they require much less cleaning/maintenance, and they have great stopping power even when soaking wet. However, they still make noise. They make faint scraping sounds when totally dry, and they do make a squeaking noise when wet or when I'm riding at low speeds. It's an improvement over rim brakes, but they're not the totally silent brakes I was hoping for when I bought this fairly expensive bike. Is this normal for disc brakes? Is there something wrong with them? Am I being unrealistic?
You're being unrealistic, particularly when they're wet. After all, you have two objects intentionally rubbing against each other under force at relatively high speeds. The level of noise can vary depending on the pad compound, the amount of grit on the rotor, etc, but in general you can expect at least some noise.