Main thing is don’t cleam rotors and pads until you really have to. When they are working well, leave em alone.Other than a basic spray wash, you are just courting disaster to get degreaser or other products anywhere near them.
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I wrote about this leaking piston issue some time ago and was roundly flamed for it. If you’ve had the brakes less than 2 years, take the bike to your LBS and ask them to make a Shimano warranty claim for you. But if the brakes are more than 2 years old, even by a week (ask me how I know!) Shimano will tell you to pound sand.
If a leaking piston is at fault, you basically have to replace the brakes. The piston seals are not serviceable and they will forever leak and forever squeal like Ned Beatty in Deliverance. I replaced mine with Hope… I would be damned if I was going to give Shimano more money for their crap product, although I’ve been told the problem is less prevalent on 8100 than 8000.
Just tried this on SRAM metallic pads. Used isopropyl alcohol on a small metal dish. Lovely blue flame. After cooling, sanded on a flat sharpening stone. Squeals are gone! Thanks for the great tip!
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You know, this is really interesting. I have had issues with squeaky brakes on and off, and I’ve tried everything mentioned here, and spent chunks of change in the process. Recently, I’ve noticed my brakes squeaking only at the beginning of a ride, and usually only at full stops. I wonder if the pads have been getting moist between rides, and using them a few times heats them and dries them out. Hmm.
I also get squeeks on rainy days and if the rain stops i can reduce the squeeking with some hard braking (supporting your theory). It works quite well, but was not the source of my problem i posted about as that didnt reduce with use.
Imagine if there was a braking solution that didn’t require this much effort to maintain and just worked. And was lighter. And was cheaper. It’s ridiculous the lengths we have to go to these days in order to have functional, quiet brakes. The bike industry needs to improve the engineering of disc brakes so they aren’t so time consuming to use.
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If I lived somewhere dry and flat I’d be right there with you on the retrogrouch train but sadly, I like to be able to ride carbon wheels year round.
They’re not, though. I went over to disk brakes last year, took a bit of time to learn. Rim brakes have maintenance issues too.
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