Brake pad abuse is shocking
Stourbridge Motorcycles’ John Birchill reveals MT-07’s serious disc issues
‘The rear brake pads had worn down to the metal’
When a new customer arrives for the first time, John Birchill at Stourbridge Motorcycles always chats to them to get a feel for the bike’s history. So when a 2016 Yamaha MT-07 rolled in with 16,500 miles on the clock for a routine oil and filter change, he wasn’t expecting any great surprises.
The bike had only just come out of its warranty period and would have been franchised Yamaha dealernew serviced up to then, right? Wrong. “When I spoke to the bloke who owned it, he told me that it hadn’t had a service since its initial 600mile check-up,” says John. “I should have been more surprised than I was, but I’ve seen quite a few riders like him; an older rider who has done Direct Access and then bought himself a shiny, bike. He was completely oblivious to this yawning gap in the bike’s service life, so he’d obviously never read the owner’s manual.”
So, it was put up on the ramp for John and his budding mechanic Jake CooperMackenzie (pictured) to check it out. Despite the neglect, the bike’s serviceable items like the chain and sprockets and the front pads were, perhaps surprisingly, still within limits. But when Jake checked the rear brake it was a different matter. Possibly because he had been ‘riding’ the rear brake pedal, or as a novice biker he was using the rear heavily, there was significant damage. “Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. The rear brake pads had worn down to the metal and the pad backing plates had been eating into the disc long enough for the disc to have a lip on it. Luckily there hadn’t been a build-up of heat that could have warped the disc or even melted the protective rubber boots for the caliper pins so that the caliper seized up,” says John.