OEM brake pad or aftermarket ?

thomas63 · Jun 7, 2017

Hello ST riders,

My Honda garage told me that Honda OEM brake pads are the best for my ST1300 (longevity and brake power).
A bike parts provider told me that there are aftermarket pads for half the price with the same quality.

What do you think about that ? I have changed mine recently for OEM pads and they are quite expensive.

Thanks

Thomas

Uncle Phil · Jun 7, 2017

On my three ST1100s, I've always used the OEM pads. Two of them have over 100,000 miles and one has 90,000 miles and they all still have the original discs. I don't think it is a matter of 'stopping' with which one you use as it is disc wear. And discs are very expensive to replace. ;-)

dduelin · Jun 7, 2017

OEM all the way for me too.

MaxPete · Jun 7, 2017

In general OEM parts are best. The engineers who design our bikes (and cars) try hard to strike the best balance among factors such as safety, performance, durability and cost. They don't always get it right - but more often than not, they do.

The key issue is sometimes that the cost police get involved too deeply and mess up an otherwise good piece of engineering.

Pete

SMSW · Jun 7, 2017

Uh oh, another brake pad thread. OEM for me. But then, like Pete (#4) I lean toward OEM for most parts - not all, but most. There are other brake pad threads you can search for more opinions, but like oil, filters, etc. it is a personal decision.

Good rule of thumb is "Follow the money". Were I selling brake pads, I'd tell you the same thing (well, probably not). If you really want to compare apples to apples, you need an independent long term test comparing braking force, price, wear to the pad, wear to the rotor, dusting, wet performance, and a few more parameters before you will realize there is no simple answer. Everything is a compromise. What does 'same quality' mean? Same braking force? Same resistance to heat? Same wear? Same abrasion of the rotor? Same wet braking force? Same warranty? Honda chose the criteria they think is best for most riders - an aggressive rider might favor different aspects as being most important. Someone on a tight budget might go for the cheapest (does anyone out there think this way? Walmart and Amazon sure think so).

In the end, what a few guys here think is not as meaningful as doing hard research (aka due diligence) yourself.

Dave.David · Jun 7, 2017

SMSW said:
Uh oh, another brake pad thread. OEM for me. But then, like Pete (#4) I lean toward OEM for most parts - not all, but most. There are other brake pad threads you can search for more opinions, but like oil, filters, etc. it is a personal decision.

Good rule of thumb is "Follow the money". Were I selling brake pads, I'd tell you the same thing (well, probably not). If you really want to compare apples to apples, you need an independent long term test comparing braking force, price, wear to the pad, wear to the rotor, dusting, wet performance, and a few more parameters before you will realize there is no simple answer. Everything is a compromise. What does 'same quality' mean? Same braking force? Same resistance to heat? Same wear? Same abrasion of the rotor? Same wet braking force? Same warranty? Honda chose the criteria they think is best for most riders - an aggressive rider might favor different aspects as being most important. Someone on a tight budget might go for the cheapest (does anyone out there think this way? Walmart and Amazon sure think so).

In the end, what a few guys here think is not as meaningful as doing hard research (aka due diligence) yourself.

Completely agree with you. Easiest is just finding out who makes the pad material of OEM and who uses it. Then check thickness of pad.
Same material, at least as thick as stock, same pad to me.

T_C · Jun 7, 2017

MaxPete said:
The engineers who design our bikes (and cars) try hard to strike the best balance among factors such as safety, performance, durability and cost. They don't always get it right - but more often than not, they do.
The key issue is sometimes that the cost police get involved too deeply and mess up an otherwise good piece of engineering.

Sometimes they just use what is available and sufficient. Other times they farm it out to a sub and then verify that what the sub recommends is capable. These aren;'t cutting edge Grand Prix race track machins being sponsored by Honda. Nor are they mega million dollar contract vehicles that Honda will spend a year and small fortune to find the absolute best part. Engineering deadline, production schedules, cost control all play into the environment that the designers have to live in while trying to design the perfect machine we can afford.

Honda is a large company that does quite a few things, not a company specializing in brakes. They probably tried a few different formulas and found one they liked that met their requirements. That was also something that happened almost 20 years ago. Friction materials have gotten more grip and less abrasive since then.

Al st1100 · Jun 7, 2017

MaxPete said:
In general OEM parts are best. The engineers who design our bikes (and cars) try hard to strike the best balance among factors such as safety, performance, durability and cost. They don't always get it right - but more often than not, they do.

The key issue is sometimes that the cost police get involved too deeply and mess up an otherwise good piece of engineering.

Pete

If I had a Dodge and went to Dodge to get pads I would pay a lot more than If I went to the parts store and bought Bendix pads. By the way Bendix, when I was working for Dodge was the supplier for their brake parts. Dodge put them in their box and charged about double. I am pretty sure that Honda does not make their brake pads, it could be Nissin or even EBC. Ebc states they have the oe pad formula, sintered pads. I have used the Kevlar pads that were $10 a set. Worked great, stopped as good or better but lasted as long as the tire, 8-10k. Ebc make a quality pad and are as good as OE, imo.

tenny80 · Jun 7, 2017

I went with the EBC brakes for the ST but as a rule I don't use the hard compound "race" brake pads, they may stop a little better, and have a little better feel but they will eat up the rotor and they are not cheap!

jfheath · Jun 8, 2017

I prefer the OEM pads.
On non 3rd party pads, you have to be careful that the backing plate is the correct one (the slotted / non-slotted tab fro the 1300 is sometimes ignored).
The brake pad thickness for the rear is sometimes provided with only 6mm of thickness rather than 9mm (approx.)
Limited experience, but I found the sintered HH EBC pads to be much noisier than OEM pads - a harsh scraping noise.
The number of pad surfaces is sometimes different - the OEM have 4 individual pads front and rear. A few times I have been supplied with pads with only 2 friction surfaces to pads and these seem to be much worse for getting score marks and road grime. (The extra gaps provide more escape routes for such stuff).

I'm sure EBC are excellent, but I prefer OEM.

When considering expense, I often relate the cost of a replacement part to the cost of replacing the fuel . A complete set of replacement fuel costs about Â£35 over here. I open up the filler cap to check the depth and it seems to wear out very quickly - I reckon about 1cm every 10 miles. Do 280 miles and it has almost completely worn out again. I can't get the OEM refills over here, but I'm choosy - I don't like the newer replacements with bits of ethanol added . It is supposed to wear down at a slower rate, but I find that it is too noisy. It makes the engine 'pink'.

ST Gui · Jun 8, 2017

I stick with OEM pads on all my Hondas because I didn't have to worry about fit. I tried EBCs years ago and was steered towards the sintered compound because of the improved stopping ability. That never materialized for me and I deeply chewed up the rotors.

While I'm not one to believe the engineers always have all the answers and nothing they do can't be improved or faulted OEM pads keep things simple and keep confidence high. So that's how I roll. And don't.

Blrfl · Jun 8, 2017

T_C said:
These aren;'t cutting edge Grand Prix race track machins being sponsored by Honda. Nor are they mega million dollar contract vehicles that Honda will spend a year and small fortune to find the absolute best part.

All true, but the pad and rotor selection isn't done in a vacuum. Honda still draws on that experience plus what it's learned on everything else and whatever the pad manufacturer can contribute then filters that through the constraints to pick the final product. In the more-specific case of the 1300, there's 15 years and millions of miles of our own experience on the OEM pads that say they're a good choice. If the brakes follow the same pattern as many other things on the ST, they're over-engineered enough that different pads may not matter as much.

--Mark

wjbertrand · Jun 8, 2017

After decades of doing my own brakes on all my vehicles, I've learned to stick with OEM most of the time. Unless the OEM brakes are causing some kind of issue or are nose-bleed expensive, I'll stick with them. I've had noise, rotor damage, short life durability and most scarily, really poor wet weather braking with some "quality" aftermarket pads.

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Igofar · Jun 8, 2017

wjbertrand said:
After decades of doing my own brakes on all my vehicles, I've learned to stick with OEM most of the time. Unless the OEM brakes are causing some kind of issue or are nose-bleed expensive, I'll stick with them. I've had noise, rotor damage, short life durability and most scarily, really poor wet weather braking with some "quality" aftermarket pads.

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dwalby · Jun 8, 2017

thomas63 said:
A bike parts provider told me that there are aftermarket pads for half the price with the same quality.

I have changed mine recently for OEM pads and they are quite expensive.

Back in the brick and mortar days my experience was that the OEM pads were always about 2x as expensive, as you say. But in the Internet era, a quick web search shows the OEM pads at $37, which is within a few bucks of the EBC alternative, so it seems that cost is no longer a difference. Just curious where you bought your OEM pads, and what you paid for them?

As far as stopping power goes, I'm going to assume that any HH friction rated pad is going to be relatively close, if not identical to any other HH pad in stopping power. I don't know how precise the FF/GG/HH rating system is, so I can't be sure about that, but I have no reason to doubt it either. I've never noticed any stopping power difference going from OEM pads to aftermarket pads.

For rotor wear, that's way too subjective to call. I ride 8 miles each way to work, other people here tour thousand mile days. The number of brake applications per thousand miles is dramatically different in those two usage models, so my rotors are likely to wear out faster than somebody who does a lot of touring regardless of which pads I use. Even with my short trip riding style, and EBC pads, I got 100k miles out of my front rotors, and found a pair of used rotors that were about 1/3 worn for $50-60 (forgot the exact amount). Based on my old cost model for the OEM pads, what I saved on pads paid for the replacement rotors.

Now that I know I can get OEM pads for $37 (maybe less, I didn't search around) I'm going to give them a try next time.

wjbertrand · Jun 8, 2017

I've noticed, with my cars at least, that OEM prices were more competitive where a lot alternative aftermarket parts were readily available, even in the brick and mortar days.

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ViperRally · Jul 16, 2023

Where is everyone buying the oem pads from? I find it is more difficult then I thought. Do most veedores sell a set meaning all 4 or just 2. What is the total cost? TIA for your help!

jfheath · Jul 17, 2023

This will kick a 6 year old thread back into life - but it's a relevant question, so I'll bite !

Welcome to the forum from West Yorkshire, UK.

Over here there was a legal case (link) - the upshot of which seems to have been that no one can sell parts under the recognised trademark name for anything other then the official price. You'll have to read the link to try to make sense of it. But I seem to remember that it was something like that. I have found it impossible to find any parts for Honda that are anything but a few pence different from anywhere else. But those fixed prices seem to be different on the other side of the pond.

So if I want something - I'll either use Fowlers (a large UK firm) because they have access to a lot of information, can source the items quickly and send them out pronto. They also have access to the stock in Eurpoean warehouses and if they don't have it, can get it within a day or two - unless it has to come from Japan. Alternatively, I'll ask the local dealer to get it. They get boxes of kit delivered every day, so they do not charge me delivery.

The situation may be very different in the USA. The prices certainly are.

OEM brake pad or aftermarket ?

thomas63

Uncle Phil

dduelin

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

MaxPete

SMSW

Dave.David

Rider

T_C

Al st1100

tenny80

jfheath

John Heath

ST Gui

240Robert

Blrfl

Natural Rider Enhancement

wjbertrand

Ventura Highway

Igofar

dwalby

wjbertrand

Ventura Highway

ViperRally

jfheath

John Heath