mpetry912 

one reason this happens (other than assymetry in the return spring tension) is that the pads are not square to the disk.

Last thing I do after replacing pads, bleeding, etc is - loosen the caliper mount bolts a little bit so the caliper rattles. Quarter turn or so..

Squeeze the lever, and while holding pressure on the disk - tighten the mounting bolts to specified torque.

this little procedure gives nice solid lever feel and even wear. Little trick from the race car.

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA

Sorcerer

My wife and I mountain bike a lot and there's a lot of descending going on. I too am appalled by the rapidity with which we go through pads. It's expensive.

There is not much to do except buy a bunch of them when I find a good price. I also try other brands and have been satisfied with non-Shimano. Yes we prefer Shank brakes.

Also, rotors, are gone through regularly and I am pretty sure that worn rotors wear pads down faster, which compounds the problem.

My wife is much more timid than I am and she drags the brakes at time. I can't do anything to stop her ( pun). I tend to bomb and brake late.

Sometimes the pistons get sticky and one side doesn't actuate symmetrically and that can contribute to uneven wear.

My wife gets uppity if her brakes howl. This became an issue on her 2015 Santa Cruz original XT brakes. After this year of riding I recently decided to change her entire brake system for the new XT double piston brakes. These are really good. But now I'm wondering about the cost of replacement brake pads.

I'm certain that the old XT brakes are fine and my nefarious plan is to service them and install them on oney bikes which has poor preforming SRAM Level brakes on it.

When we started riding with hydraulic disc brakes around the turn of the century we soon learned how important it was to constantly inspect the pads.

We could also see how our riding styles varied with me wearing down the front pads twice a a fast as the rear , while my rear brake dragging wife would wear out the rears before the fronts.

We prefer the organic resin pads. I believe the trade off of wearing through the rotor faster with metal pads .might be about the same cost as buying more resin pads. The resin pads seem to modulate better and they are usually more quiet.

At times I switch to metal pads.

Anyway, it does seem like we may expect scarcity of brake pads. I always try to maintain a supply of spares. This is a bit disconcerting.

We also have disc brakes on some around town bikes. These bikes do not eat pads up because they don't bomb downhills. I think they last for 5 years or so.

Well I have a commuter bike with disc brakes, an XT up front, which I ride a lot, and I think the pads on it last almost 2 years, which seems reasonable - hardly any downhills, but lots of redlights.

djb

I liked that, thanks for the good early morning smile.

mtb is a whole other thing isn't it?
and as you brought up, a bunch of factors come into play.
good post