Why does this happen then? Pads seperate from plate.

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Rear pads fell apart. They look original fitment, bike has just done 5100 miles it's 2.5 years old...

Fella at parts counter says "sometimes they do fail".

Is that true?? Only had these been the front I could have had a very bad day, seems odd to think this sort of thing is considered fine.

Any else experience this? These look badly corroded but the bike has clearly had an easy life.

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Mental. Still seems a bit st to me. If I wasn't so lazy I'd complain to the manufacturer.

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Private Pile said:

Flog them on eBay as spares or repair.

"Some assembly required".

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tvrolet said:

Seen it a few times on bike rear brakes and car handbrake shoes. I'm assuming it's down to moisture creeping in between the pad and the backing, on the basis that every time I've seen it there's some corrosion on the plate, and the pad has some bits of rusty plate stuck to it. It's never been a 'clean' parting of the ways with a shiny metal plate/shoe left behind.

So I'm guessing where the brakes are used regularly the heat will keep any moisture at bay, and constantly keep things dry. But I'm assuming if the brake isn't used then the moisture is just going to continue to wick in between the pad and the plate over time. And obviously cars with separate handbrake-only shoes are never going to get the shoes hot...and EVERY car I've had like that had has the friction material separate from the shoe over time - so Cerbera, Jeep and Masser. Never a problem on front brakes on bikes or cars, or car rears when it's the 'main' (or shared') pad and not a handbrake only.

Yeah, that was what I reasoned. I don't really use my rear brake but I do try and keep it moving every now and again. I guess the previous owner didn't bother.

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It's funny though, same as all the above I thought corrosion, but the blurb sates these pads are made from sintered copper, not iron. So in theory they shouldn't corrode in the same manner.

But then again, here we are.

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Not disagreeing, but the backing plates are definitely some sort of alloy with a copper content, and its almost as new. In this case they definitely didn't fail because of corrosion to the plate. It is the pad itself which has crumbled away from the adhesive.

Iron isn't the only thing that fails because of moisture of course, but I'm happy to leave it there for now.

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Mr2Mike said:

That seems very unlikely, every pad I have seen has been steel but often plated with a copper finish. Try a magnet on it.

The sintered material refers to the pad itself rather than the backing which are invariably stamped from sheet steel. A backing plate made using a sintering process would be too brittle and very expensive to make.

Ah fair enough, I was going off finish. I'll take your word for it.

Yeah I know a bit about "sintering", not much but I realise it's only appropriate for the pads. Makes me wonder if organic pads have this problem...