I'm sure I'll get flamed but I bought my 16 year old son a motobecane turino from bikes direct. The disc brakes that came with it were impossible to get working without massive rubbing, both the rear, that were preinstalled and the front which I installed myself. The manual is crap as I think these mech. disc brakes are.
Am I wrong or are they lousy? Can I get an opinion on decent mech. Brakes to replace them with. Thanks

I have TRP Spyre high performance mechanical disc brakes on my bike and I just love them.
For my money, they are the mechanical disc brake perfected.

TRP

Now that I've spent $500 on a bike without proper brakes., was wondering if I can swap out the brakes for another brand. Its a road bike with shifters integrated into brake levers. Wifes already pissed i bought the kid the bike, now I gotta drop more money. F me. Truly a get what you pay for world.
Link to bike
https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/motobecane/disc-brake-roadbikes/turinocomp-discbrake-roadbike.htm

No experience with Tektro disc brakes, but overall positive experience with their other products.
It's possible the mounts were not milled true before assembly. if this is the case, it's not the fault of the brake.
A well equipped bike shop will have a disc mount milling tool to correct this issue.

I can second the TRP Spyre brand of brakes.

I have TRP Spyre-C twin piston on my Fuji and don't even notice they're there. I've been a disc hater since the day I got discs on my old Crossrip around 2014 (avid bb7's)...when I picked this Fuji, I specificially picked something that had good reviews on upgraded discs...and I'm happy with them. I wanted to hate them, so I went into it with preconceived notion too.

Just out of curiosity, have you loosened the mounting bolts, squeezed the brake lever, and then re-tightened them with the brake lever still squeezed? I used to have to center my bb7's like every week or so...and that kept them quiet for a while each time.

Use a business card on both sides of the brake pads to help center the pads.

Before you go replacing parts, how did you go about trying to eliminate the rubbing? First, have you confirmed that the wheels are seated firmly in the dropouts? Have you already been through the basic set up procedure for aligning the caliper to the rotor? Have you checked that the rotors are true? Have you checked that the brake cable isn't binding anywhere and that the caliper arm is fully returning after releasing the brake lever?

You get more precise alignment, better feel, and easier adjustment with better disc brakes, but cheap disc brakes can be made to work with a bit of effort. And on the plus side, once set up, you'll basically never have to touch those adjustments again.

Why in the world would you be recentering your BB7s after the initial setting? Neither the caliper nor the rotor should be moving. You do need to adjust the inner pad on occasion to reduce the clearance to the rotor as it wears, and same for the outer pad, but that's it, at least in my ~25,000 mile experience with BB7s.

And with BB7s, you can use the pad adjustment knobs to lock the caliper onto the rotor. No need to squeeze the lever.

Clearly because they made noise and performing that technique stopped the noise.

I have Tektro Lyra brakes on my Gravity, and I had a real hard time adjusting them when I first got it. The rotors were warped, and I couldn't get the twist out of them. I took it to a bike shop, and they adjusted them for me. I haven't had any problems since.

They are part of the cost cutting that made the selling price of your BD Bike Attractive.

TEKTRO BRAKE SYSTEMS

Note where it says Download Manual as a PDF

Nothing is standing in your way of spending More money and Buying a new brake caliper set, Yourself.

TRP Spyre were on the build of a $2000 + Co Motion touring bike left @ LBS for shipping home..

Loosen the mounting bolts for the caliper, slip a baseball/business card between the outer (moving) pad, and the rotor, and then snug the adjustable piston up. Not tight, just snug. Tighten the mounting bolts, back off the adjustable piston, remove the card.

At this point, you fine-tune the brake. The adjustable pad should be just not touching when the bike is loaded, while the opposite side should be adjusted until you get good bite at the lever (usually with the straight portion of the lever blade parallel with the grip, as it is pulled). Adjust to your tastes.

Assuming the rotor is straight, you're done. But don't assume the rotor is straight. It is not awful to true a rotor, but it may be significantly more frustrating than adjusting the caliper, if you haven't done it before. Using the caliper as a gap gauge, watch as the rotor passes through. Slight bends may be gently coerced out with the use of an adjustable wrench, fingers, purpose built tool, etc....

Bicycle owner's manuals have very rarely contained any useful information for setting up/maintaining the equipment on the bicycle. Some bikes come with parts manuals, which may be passed on to the purchaser, but many shops, in my experience, simply throw them out with the rest of the recyclable packaging.

I have found very few truly bad mechanical disc brakes, though they are out there (like most poor performing parts, found on *mart bikes...). 80% of them can be set up acceptably as above--of the remaining 20%, 19% might be brakes that have two adjustable pistons (easier to setup), while only 1% are truly beyond any saving. Remember that, for any braking system, everything works as a team. You must have low compression housing, smooth running cables, attached to a decent lever (the requirements here are not that high...), and of course, a properly setup caliper. Any one of those parts being out of sync can cause poor performance.

Even the LBS couldn't make them not rub. Less, but still unacceptable. I bought bb7 roads and all is well, easy installation and setup. Thanks all.