Newbie to Forum - Hi Guys - Recently bought a 2017 Ducati Monster 1200 (Std model) and from new it has been poor on the front brake. - Pulsing at low speed and lack of bite. - The bike has been back to the dealer and they have acknowledged there is a strange low speed brake pulse but that they did not have an immediate remedy for the problem. I told the dealer that I would try better pads (sbs sintered) and try the brakes with the ABS turned of in Sports mode. After bedding in the new pads and trying this set-up for a few weeks I have found the braking to be a lot stronger but the annoying low speed pulsing is still there. The discs themselves are both showing 0.007" run-out which seems to be well within limits and suggests that disc warp is not the problem. Has anyone else had this problem or is it just a Ducati fad - My other bike (2012 Triumph Speed Triple) has a similar front end but the brakes are amazing in comparison! - Cheers Guys
Do both of your front discs have movement on the bobbins ? You should be able to move the disc in relation to the carrier in the direction of rotation by about 1mm. I've not heard of the bobbins seizing at such low mileage before but this could be a possibility. Andy
Welcome @RaF70, please join the map linked below. I hope the dealer sorts your issue out quick sharp. No one likes fading front brakes or worries that they might not actually do their job. Have you tried practicing emergency braking? Maybe ask them to re-bleed the entire system as you feel unsafe. https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1768775
May sound odd, but try winding your span adjuster out a bit. Couple of full turns maybe. I notice that the further mine is out, the more bite. The close to the bar, the more feel and also get a little pules if I rest my hand on the brake when slowing to a stop, i.e. little brake on but not a lot.
Pulsing front brakes is not an uncommon Ducati problem. It is often put down to warped discs but I think this is seldom actually the cause. More likely in my opinion, it is down to the surface conditioning of the discs. I'm not talking about pads bedding in but rather the changes that occur during use to the microstructure of the disc surfaces .. often referred to as "tempering". This obviously affects the frictional qualities of the disc/pad interface and, if the tempering is uneven, could result in pulsing. The unevenness could possibly be caused by holding the brake on after braking hard to a standstill (rather than releasing it) eg at traffic lights etc. Another possibility is leaving the bike standing after wet riding, when the damp pads may cause local degradation (corrosion at a micro level) of the tempered surface. One further oft-quoted cause is incorrect initial "tempering" of the discs due to not giving the brake enough hard use during its early life. My own 750 monster developed a mild disc pulse (only detectable when coasting gently .. they were totally fine at normal speeds) which attracted mot advisories for about 4yrs running. This was after about 4k miles, most of which had been done by its two former lady owners (maybe not involving much hard braking and certainly involving lots of time parked up and unused). The discs were checked and found to be not in the least bit warped and the bobbins were religiously cleaned, to no avail. It wasn't a serious issue so I lived with it for a while and made a conscious effort to do some hard braking (including my one and only trackday). Upshot is that 4yrs later my front discs show no sign of pulsing whatsoever. They have now done 25k miles and are perfect. I don't fully understand the whys and wherefores of this but I'm convinced that many so-called "warped" discs are not warped at all but instead have this uneven surface conditioning thing going on. At one point I did try lightly abrading the disc surfaces with a scotchbrite pad and ultimately, 400 grade wet 'n dry and a flat block. This may have improved things a tad but I probably wasn't vigorous enough with it for fear of going too far and further unbalancing the discs. If I did it again I would be more vigorous. One thought that did occur recently was that ultrasonic cleaning of the discs may help. I'm not totally convinced of this, its just a notion, but I reckon it might be worth a try cos its relatively quick and easy. In a few weeks time I hope to have such a machine which will be big enough to (just) take a 320mm disc. I would be happy to bung them in for you, if you can get them to Leicester. Its a long shot, but might be worth trying if/when all else has failed. 0.007" of runout on the discs is not huge, but its worse than mine were (0.002/0.003" max). However, there is far more potential sideways movement (float) than that, due to the bobbins, so I'm not convinced that it would be a problem.
Welcome to the forum. 2017 you say, straight back to dealer I say and if needed, a good rant, would not even mess about
Welcome. You picked a good bike and a good forum. I have to agree with utopia. When my M1200S was new the brakes had mild pulsing when coming to a halt, sort of like there was was a section of the disks that had less bight, but it never felt dangerous and when I was going fast and really on the breaks they were absolutely superb. If your disks are warped then the faster and harder you're braking the more pronounced the judder feels, and it is judder. There's nothing subtle about it. Warped disc judder is less pronounced at low speed than when going fast and braking hard but even at low speed it's pretty grim. It sounds like it could be the same bedding-in issue that I had. I can't actually remember when it went away but sometime in the first year (10,000 miles) and there is no trace of it now.
Thanks again for all the really useful info guys - Yes I am beginning to think its a 'bedding in' issue so will give it a few more months to hopefully settle down. The SBS pads are certainly better than the OE ones although they are harder on the discs but do prevent glazing.
