Hi, have just e-mailed EBC with the code number and bar code from the packaging. EBCdirect said already that they sound suspect. I know forgeries are widespread and this applies more to brake pads which could be more dangerous. Lindsay.

Trading standards ?

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'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Modern stainless discs will rust eventually, but in my experience it usually takes a couple of weeks in the open before there is a trace of rust on the braking surfaces. Rusting overnight is what my old Moto Guzzi's discs used to do - and they were cast iron! The disc material is clearly not the grade of s/s it should be.

I've dealt a lot with Wemoto and always found them to be fine. But as I have never had a problem, I haven't had cause to test their approach to a problem. Their attitude, as reported, doesn't give much confidence. Having worked a lot in customer service, I would have responded as follows:

We are very sorry you have had a problem with the product.
Please return the disc for a full refund.
We will then investigate the matter with EBC and report back to you.
And then do what you say you will do.

It costs a bit more to operate in this way, but it maintains customer confidence. With safety-critical items like brake discs, that is a vital element of trading.

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/

I could understand if you bought them off Ebay or some other auction site then the seller could just tell you to go away and there would be little recourse.
However when you are dealing with an established company like Wemoto which is a big enough player in the parts game then the game changes.
They need to be on top of this perceived issue or word will start to spread and thats the last thing that any company needs these days.
I am looking for a new front disc right now, and what are the chances that I will buy an EBC from Wemoto while this is unresolved?

I'm exactly in the same situation, but just confirmed I'm going to order it from KEDO (EBC cheaper there as well).

Anyway, I think some factors got together in the case to make things go wrong. Someone there had a bad day or similar. I don't think Wemoto would get to be that big with such bad customer service.

Esteban

Maybe someone had a bad day, but in the profession of sales, you don't laugh at customers. EVER.
Thats a surefire way to piss people off and then they bitch and moan on an 'ternet forum and.....

Another rule of customer service: for every good experience, a customer will tell, on average, three people. For every bad experience, they will tell twenty.

On in the days of the interwebs, twenty million.

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/

Totally agree, I hope nothing in my comment looked like a justification of Wemoto's attitude. I used to work in (olive oil) export, so had to be especially aware of that because big cultural differences and business approaches are involved in a distant commercial relation, so very tricky.

I would more than probably have reacted as Lindsey, but truth to be said, the EBC was not a counterfeit, but a defective original one. If the guy felt offended for the question, he should have hidden the feeling, since that's often life in customer service, dealing with people who are pissed due to a problem, otherwise, change job. Take it easy and try to solve it the best way you can. As Lindsay said, they should remove the guy who smiled (not laughed) from customer service if they do not want to damage more their image. He should have handled it much much better.

EBC aknowledged their fault (thumbs up for that) and took the right measures: they just followed TonyP's guidelines, way to go. Even if they made it wrong, any of us will still buy their products (I still plan to do it). By contrast, at least Linzi and maybe others as well, won't be very happy to deal with Wemoto, even if it was not their fault that the disc was defective.

Nonetheless, I'm still sure that Wemoto's general attitude towards customer cannot be like that, otherwise they wouldn't have grown that much.

EDIT: EBC could also track the defective discs and replace them... but that's another story.

I'm following this with great interest and looking forward to the later responses of both EBC and Wemoto.

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Dave

Hi, EBC replied and they're great. It seems likely that the disc is an old type of low grade stainless steel that should have been gold finished but slipped by. The new type are higher grade stainless steel. They offered to swap it. The codes are correct. The MOT is due in ten days so the bike'll have to be off the road for a while. The disc rusted as fast as the cast steel discs on my 1970's Guzzi, definitely too rapidly.

So, I'd say EBC are a great company. No-one's perfect. But I'll deal direct with them in future if I need to. I'll not use Wemoto again despite them being so close. I had phoned them the day before and agreed to bring the disc in. It was on the bike parked outside to be viewed but the guy there was not agreeable at all.

So, this was an unusual slip up and not a forgery. Lindsay.

Yea, there are various grades of stainless steel and they are not all rust resistant in the wrong, aggressive conditions such as chlorides i.e. salt.
Which begs the question of why were the discs manuf of that material in the first place.
It sounds like you have given up with Wemoto for this subject.

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Dave

Call it a clash of personalities. I personally will not deal with them again. I really don't like arguments which is what a conversation with them would be. I'll put the bike over a pile of small pallets and remove the disc in that position. There's a company yard where I'm sure they'll say yes to doing that. That way there's no further cost in removal and refitting. I have to do these things cheaply as I'm definitely not well off.

I shouldn't have been so fast to say forgeries but I was certain that was the case.

Lastly, of some interest perhaps: I had damaged the original disc by forgetting the disc lock was there. The bike had been unused for about five months and it was my first ride. My memory is these days a real liability. I had paid for and ordered a new EBC disc which had to be ordered. So I set off for Ripley with the need to apply the front brake four times to get any pressure. I could see the pads being pushed out each time after applying the brake. This is perhaps seen as foolhardy, perhaps illegal but I rode safely knowing that the braking distance was a lot, like a veteran bike no doubt.

After a couple of hours the disc began to straighten and was nearly normal by the time I arrived at Ripley. The heating up and pressure were repairing it! As the caliper is floating, the disc would never straighten completely. I think it could have been repaired with a lathe. On the ride back home the brake activated as normal with just a bit of vibration due to the caliper moving in and out. Clearly it needs a replacement to get an MOT and be sensible to use. The pads have taken a hammering though and new ones have been ordered. All experience. Lindsay.

I have a China made front disc brake rotor bought on ebay and I've had no problems with it nor any rust pick up on it even if when I let the bike outside for weeks..

:S

My area of expertise is the electronics and testing side of brake systems (and on trucks at that), but I'll have a go at answering.

The near perfect brake material is cast iron. The cast surface is rough so gives higher friction. The porosity and structure gives contaminants somewhere to go and it wears to leave a similar surface. It has few issues with heat. It is also cheap and easy to produce. The downside is that if not used it is cosmetically poor, it's heavy and as a structural material likes simple shapes.

Motorcycle fashion makes the last three serious. If manufacturer A offers a shiney, foil thin, flower shaped, collander style design and manufacturer B bolts on a rusty man hole cover guess who sells most. Everyone except racers would be better off with B but want A for the bling value of looking like the racers.

The manufacturers therefore had to find a middle ground. Surface coatings varied from annoying oil sprays which the dealer hopefully remembered to clean off through to lethal attempts to chrome and zinc plate. The former lubricant burns off by the time the bike is run in, the latter remains lethal. The coatings ruin the micro-structure the brake material wants to work against. Plan B was sticking with a homogenous material but adding anti-corrosion agents. The lower the grade of stainless the more like steel/iron it is, the more chrome/zinc/copper/iridium/unobtanium etc. you add the more it acts like it's chrome lubed.

The balance on cars and bikes is to use a low to mid grade disc specific stainless and make the disc bigger on the diameter. This ticks all the fashion boxes and the performance is still close enough not to attract attention. You get basic cast iron or machined steel disks disappearing in the 1980's and the current materials fully established by about 2000. There are 20-plus years worth of vehicles out there from the changeover period with odd sizes and varying materials, so for some the manufacturers simply can't afford to keep the semi-experimental OE materials going. If you are lucky they switched to plain steel and you live with the rust, if you are unlucky someone finds a failed experiment in adding chromed teflon or old scrap as we had in this case and flogs you a set.

Trucks BTW went to discs in 1995-2010 but are still cast iron, they get enough use to clear the rubbing surface the the rest is painted.

Andy

Thanks for that Andy. Yep, my old Guzzi has cast discs. They rust within 15 minutes of getting wet but are really effective. I value them so much that I have made sure I have two complete spare sets rather than having to replace with stainless steel discs. I wipe them off if wet and even search out the water from the calper after washing the bike. I keep the spares coated in oil. It is getting difficult to find matching soft pads too as harder pads match the newer stainless steel discs. So I have a large box of suitable pads. I'd hoped the Yamaha, being Japanese, would mean I didn't have to collect a mass of spares. Running an old bike is a love affair. It's interesting to learn a bit about the developement over time of the materials. Finally, the front brake of the Yamaha is very effective with the correct disc and pads so they got a good balance there apart from the thin, 4mm, delicacy of it. My fault in the first place with this affair. Lindsay.