Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech More front disk worries...

Noticed recently that my front disk has started to warp again, only about 1500 mile ridden since it was last replaced under warranty. Manufacturers warranty has expired now so dealer is checking with Triumph to see whether they’ll still honour the replacement. I hope so or I’ll be looking at around £170 to get it sorted and then of course I would feel the need to complain, I might be calling on your help...
I know quite a few members have had similar problems. If I remember correctly didn’t Adey’s bike go back for an assessment? I would like to know why this is happening, did we get any reason in the end? I’m wondering if it is due to poor disk quality, why isn’t everyone developing problems? It does seem to be largely America specific, presumably due to it having only the single disk. Nevertheless it should still be able to cope. Mechanic reckons it’s due to excessive heat build up, I agree but there doesn’t appear to be any signs of excessive wear on the disk which would show up with over binding? There was talk of floating callipers being a better idea...
I was thinking that they might try and blame it on riding style but I do not thrash around, well OK, maybe occasionally anyway I tend to rely on using the gears/ engine to provide the bulk of the braking, brakes to only provide supplementary braking.
If it is becoming a common problem then Triumph should possibly consider a recall to change the system or at least look at changing disk manufacturers? If not then some of us are just going to end up unlucky I suppose..

I think the Rotors Brent sells are better than stock and probably cheaper.

http://www.newspeedmaster.com/html/ebc_brakes.html

The one Brent has comes with new pads for about 130.46 GBP at the present exchange rate. add the postage and it will probably cost about the same as the stock disk, plus you get a set of sintered copper pads.

Hiya Daffyd
DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRONT DISCS !!!



A long and boring story reduced to a short and boring story:
I had four new discs and two replacement callipers!!!

In the end, I called the dealer who contacted Triumph warranty department thingy.
They 'sort of' admited a problem and were waiting for a machine to come up and have it back to test.
My discs were going (what seemed like!) every other week so it was only a matter of time before my bike flagged up again.

They had the bike back for what turned out to be around 5 weeks while I was in Arizona in Jan/Feb this year.

They apparently had the bike on all sorts of jigs and rigs - tested forks, alignments, wheel trueness, hub trueness ... they supposidly had the wheel apart and tested the tollerence of EACH SPOKE!! - if you can believe that!!

The long and short of it was they found NOTHING!
They put a new front wheel in and sent it back.

Now, touch wood (and if it goes now, I'll kick someones a$$!) it has been OK.
Based on previous failures, it should have 'gone' a couple of thousand miles ago!!

Good luck getting it sorted - I told my dealer in no uncertain terms that if it keeps going after the warranty runs out, I'll not buy the Triumph disc : not while I've got an hole in my arse!!!

I've had a front warp, but I believe it was due to one specific weather event on one ride. Riding on an interstate in the mountains of W Va and VA during the hours-long driving rain from the tail end of a hurricane. The road situation called for repeated long, hard braking, with driving cold rain continually pouring on the rotor. In essence, it would go very cold-very hot-very cold. This went on for about 4-5 hours or so. The rotor was obviously warped badly at the end. Warranty replaced with no issue since.
Maybe the joke about riding in the fog isn't far from true. If you're riding keeps you in somewhat cold/wet, with a bit of aggressive riding thrown in... but again, there are many instances documented here of warped rotors with little more than the routine ride-around-the-block.
I wonder if other single-front rotor machines that get as much riding time have similar issues with stock parts that just aren't well known to us because we tend not to cross-communicate?

Took mine in - warped rotor - wound up with new brake pads (warranty). The rotor problem's still there - wish I wasn't 5 hours away from a dealer!

Did I mention that this is the first bike I've ever had this problem with?

My Speedmaster also had front disc problems. It is a 2003, had it into the dealer twice and they couldn't see anything wrong, and no pulse in the brake lever. Most noticable was it would do the rocking horse thing slowing down at low speeds. I took it back before warranty ran out and told them again one of the discs seemed to have a fat spot in it. This time they took the calipers to it and sure enough, one had a thick spot in it, something different. They installed the new disc that has the 5.0 minimum stamped on it, no problems since.

I found out yesterday that my Speedy has a warped rotor. I took my bike in for an oil change (glad I didnt do it myself). The service manager test rides all the bikes after any service and told me he noticed it and is going to get both of them replaced under warranty. Those are some great people at my dealer.

Soren

I bought my bike new in 02 and 34000km later I've had no problem.I've changed pads once on the front and twice on the rear with the one pad on the rear down to the metal(whoops)but I've had no problem with the discs and where I live this summer has done nothing but rain.I've managed to get in 8000km this rainy season(summer)and no warped disc so maybe it was a bad batch of discs or different peoples riding styles but the discs can't take more punishment than we give them in Sweden

‘I suggest warpage may be due to excessive humidity (FOG). Try a dryer climate...’

. Dryer climate? Ha ha, wot’s that then? Think our only hope this year is the Indian Summer… Think I’ll move to Bradford, they have an Indian Summer, autumn, winter and spring!
Could be driving habits I suppose but I don’t tend to ride aggressively as a rule, I prefer to cruise and admire the scenery. I try to brake with a good combination of gears/engine/brakes.

jj - ‘If you're riding keeps you in somewhat cold/wet, with a bit of aggressive riding thrown in...’

Try not to ride out too much in the cold/ wet but needs must, I’d not get out otherwise!. Unfortunately our climate seems to be on the whole rather damp!
Bike hasn’t had to cope with anything like your experience, I can understand the warpage in that extreme situation.

‘I wonder if other single-front rotor machines that get as much riding time have similar issues with stock parts that just aren't well known to us because we tend not to cross-communicate?’

Good point...be nice know how common a problem Triumph think it is with the America’s also. I’m hoping they’ll honour the replacement but I suppose it depends on whether they think and would admit that it’s an issue or whether they know it’s an issue and try and dodge it...I hope it’s not the latter.

Jake - I first noticed it about three weeks ago, mild ‘grabbing’ when coming to a stop. No pulsing in the lever and no problem at speed. Went out on a 200 mile round trip to Morcambe with the local RATs last Sunday and it started getting noticeably worse. There’s now the rocking horse and slight pulse thing going on. At dealers they measured disc run-out but not the thickness, it wasn’t badly warped but needs replacing. First MOT’s due next month so I’m keen to get it sorted before that. I asked mechanic about binding a possible cause, he said you always get a small amount of binding with these brakes hence the scraping you hear wheeling bike out the garage etc, shouldn’t normally be a worry.

Roadie – ‘Did I mention that this is the first bike I've ever had this problem with?’,‘wish I wasn't 5 hours away from a dealer!’. That’s a bad situation to be in, 5 hours..?! You could travel most the length of England in 5 hours! Must be very difficult to sort the warranty work out. I do hope they weren’t fobbing you off with the brake pads and you get sorted.

Adey, Fishercat and Greybeard – ‘They apparently had the bike on all sorts of jigs and rigs - tested forks, alignments, wheel trueness, hub trueness ... they supposidly had the wheel apart and tested the tollerence of EACH SPOKE!! - if you can believe that!!

Sounds like a ‘bench rest’ mate!

Who knows…? Maybe it’s a combination of things...my bet’s on disc quality. I hope Triumph sees it fit to grant another disc but if not I’ll probably be ordering some of Brent's, better quality disc/ pads and probably cheaper to import and fit... Mad init?!

My bike does the same pulsing horse thing....i was using my back brake most of the time...til im on my third set of pads...so i started using my front more....it rocks pretty bad...glad im not the only one...