Found this brake in a shop
Are these brakes good?
Some were saying it had a lot of problems
some were saying it worked fine
Btw i don't do downhills and extreme rides
Should i buy it or not?
Pls let me know
by Last_Football2873
Found this brake in a shop
Are these brakes good?
Some were saying it had a lot of problems
some were saying it worked fine
Btw i don't do downhills and extreme rides
Should i buy it or not?
Pls let me know
by Last_Football2873
14 Comments
They were good when they were new. I have had nothing but issues with them now that they age. The dot fluid over time eats them from the inside out. Buy shimano mt200 and be done.
They are old and not that well regarded, and as a rule, as a home mechanic, I’ve always avoided SRAM brakes (Avid was a SRAM brand) because of the toxic, nasty fluid they use. There’s little advantage to it for bicycles, and Shimano/Tektro/Magura made the right call going with nontoxic mineral oil.
Basic modern Shimano hydraulics are so dirt cheap right now there’s not reason to buy problematic ancient brakes. Search for Shimano MT200 on eBay and you’ll find bargains. Fakes can be an issue with some parts on eBay but these, best as I can tell, are just a result of a glut of OEM parts finding their way on the gray market due to the bike industry crash.
Nope, absolutely not. Buy a cheap set of Shimano brakes, easier to maintain, pads are available everywhere etc.
I actually really struggled to find any local shops that some a set of pads for a set of these.
The parts bin at my bike shop is filled with them get Shimano mt-200 and mt-201 there like $50 each.
Had a set of Juicy 7s on my Trek Liquid about 13 years ago. They were fine then but still had issues and spare parts are going to be very hard to find if you need any.
New Shimano Deore brakes are going to be your best bang for your buck.
Don’t worry! If they still work, they’ll seize up in no time!
Avid hydraulic brakes were so bad for so long that Sram killed the entire line and rebranded them as Sram for later generations.
Those things were not good 15 years ago, and time hasn’t done them any favours. They’re famous for corrosion issues that lock them up inside, I wouldn’t use those if they were given to me for free. A new set of Shimano MT200’s wil be cheap, reliable and easy to service, there’s no reason to waste your money on old Avids.
It’s kind of amazing you found a functional set tbh.. dot fluid gets squishy after a few years due to water absorption and those are 10-15 years old. What makes it impressive is that they are notoriously difficult to bleed and the bleeding process would blow the seal in the master cylinder 50% of the time.
If you want to try other brands outside of Shimano and SRAM you’re either into boutique ($$$) or cheap and sketchy..
as a bike shop mechanic, we all hated those brakes! sometimes the really high-end Juicys were OK, but they were generally a huge hassle to maintain. considering their age, they probably need to be completely rebuilt with new seals.
I’ll sing nothing but praise for the old avid bb mechanical brakes, but after having elixirs, juicys and the Sram Guide Rs, I wouldn’t recommend their hydraulic brakes, unless you’re racing.
Day to day, it’d be better with Shimano or Tektro brakes. Cheap, cheerful and easy to get bits for
These are garbage and a nightmare to bleed. I had them on a 2013 fuel ex, and they were the first thing I upgraded.
The shop would have to pay you to take this off their hands
They actually work really well, they are just an absolute sonofabitch to bleed properly, especially if you have to rebuild them, which you likely will at that age. Basically once they are opened up at all it is extremely difficult to get them to feel like they did from the factory.
you can buy sram level 1 something like that it will works good. Or tektro… Shimano brakes sometimes leaking thru brake caliper pistons.