Brake Pads what does all the terminology mean?

I am looking for brake pads for a 2009 R1200R. I find many different things. I see sintered, semi sintered, HH, semi metallic, ceramic, carbon kevlar. What do all these things mean. What are the stock pads from BMW. Too many choices not enough knowledge. Not necessarily looking for recommendations I just want to educate myself so I can make the right choice.

The only thing I can offer is that, in very general terms, the more "metallic" they are, you might see a slight delay in braking as they warm up. There seems to be a magic ratio where you might not see that little delay, but I don't know what it is.

I am looking for brake pads for a 2009 R1200R. I find many different things. I see sintered, semi sintered, HH, semi metallic, ceramic, carbon kevlar. What do all these things mean. What are the stock pads from BMW. Too many choices not enough knowledge. Not necessarily looking for recommendations I just want to educate myself so I can make the right choice.

Morning ltljohn

Your question is somewhat easy to answer & somewhat difficult to fully explain.

sintered, semi sintered, semi metallic, ceramic, carbon kevlar. What do all these things mean. -Those are all materials or combination of materials that the brake pad friction surface is constructed of.

The "HH" is basically a friction rating of the brake pad with HH being a very high friction rating.

Picking a replacement brake pad is easy but is also difficult if you want top performance in all categories.

It sounds easy-- just pick the brake pad with the highest friction rating. Problem is that high friction rating might come at the expense of accelerated brake rotor wear, or lots of nasty black corrosive brake dust, or poor cold braking performance, or excessive heat transfer back into the brake caliper pistons (especially bad if your caliper has plastic pistons).

For most street type brake pads the terms (sintered, semi sintered, semi metallic) overlap quite a bit & are mostly the same.

Problem is; sintered in one brake pad line might not be anywhere close to the sintered in another brake pad line.

The other important thing here is that brake pad friction coefficient should be in line with factory braking friction coefficient, initial bite, friction gain, release frictions, etc as your ABS system calibration is based on those traits.

The BMW 1200RT comes with sintered pads on both front a rear with brake rotor material that works fairly decent with the sintered brake pad material.

On your 1200R bike it's not so easy-- Your 1200R bike comes with organic rear brake pads. Those are less aggressive & transfer less heat back into the caliper pistons. I'm not sure exactly why BMW specifies organic for the rear of the 1200R bike (might be a braking balance thing or maybe the rear calipers have plastic pistons). Some of the older oilhead R (not RT) bikes used plastic caliper pistons & they needed organic pads for heat transfer reasons. I used to use the organic R bike pads on the rear of my 1150RT as it tamed the rear brake aggressiveness & made for better balanced braking.

Now on the front brakes on your 1200R bike I have no idea-- The 1200R bike specifies a different front brake pad than the 1200RT bike & BMW doesn't tell us what the 1200R bike front pad is made of (the 1200RT is specifies as sintered) but for some reason BMW doesn't give us the front brake pad material for the 1200R bike.

I have no idea on what to tell or recommend for you on your 1200R bike other then to say you probably should stick to low metallic or no metallic (organic) rear pads due to the possibility of rear brake heat damage to a caliper piston (if you can determine that your rear calipers do NOT use plastic pistons or plastic piston inserts then a rear semi metallic or sintered should work just fine other than some brake dust issues)

For the front brake pads I just don't know but see no real reason that you can't use sintered or semi-metallic as either should both work OK with your factory brake rotors & factory calipers.

Now we have the ceramic & carbon Kevlar-- these have their place in the braking hierarchy but they can also cause problems if not matched to brake rotor materials & brake apply pressures. They both WILL stop your bike but if the ceramic & carbon Kevlar doesn't match your brake apply pressures as you normally apply them you can end up with grabby brakes or need excessive brake apply pressures to stop the darn thing. If a rider has a set of ceramic or carbon kevlar pads that have been working OK or gets lucky & finds a set that performs to their satisfaction then all is good & keep using them. I'm just saying it is kind of a crap shoot when switching to those brake pad materials (especially with most stainless steel brake rotors).

I know that I basically didn't answer your question of WHAT to get & use-- This is mainly due to the fact that I pretty well stick to factory materials as those are proven to get along with the ABS system under very low traction conditions, don't make a lot of brake dust, & don't tear up expensive brake rotors, & have nice smooth linear apply traits.

When ceramic pads first came on the market I tried a set on my Ducati & they worked OK for most normal braking (no ABS on that bike) but riding fast in the rain I had absolutely no braking power for about a second on first cold apply when wet (I mean almost none). Any idea on how far a bike travels at 70 mph during a second waiting to get some braking power back?

If someone is operating a 1200R bike with aftermarket pads & is happy with all the braking traits/ brake dust/ wet brake first apply/ low traction ABS control then they can probably guide you better on this than I can.

Following on the complexities pointed out by DR, on my motorcycles I tend to stick with the OEM pads as that assures compatibility and retains the braking performance you would be familiar with on that bike.

That may not address your question if you are not satisfied with the current brake performance, or have aftermarket rotors installed on that bike. If the rotors are not OEM get a P/N off them and make call to the rotor manufacturer for some input on the right pads to install.

I remember how much easier it was picking brakes. You could pretty much figure none of them would work very well.

I remember how much easier it was picking brakes. You could pretty much figure none of them would work very well.

Haha. My '71 R75/5 has leading shoe brakes....I always figured that meant you led with your shoes Fred Flintstone style when trying to stop.

I ended up getting brake pads from beemer boneyard, Everything I needed was there. Carbone Lorraine 2960A3 front and EBC FA363 Rear. Thanks for all of the input.

DR your information gave me the info I needed to make an educated decision..

Can you provide a review on the new pads after you put a few miles on them? I used EBC HH pads on my previous bike, an RT. But DR's comments on the R's mystery pads gives me pause on replacements for my R1200R.