Hi everyone!
I don't know if you looked at the new bikes as of late
but if you do you're going to see how they've tried to keep the price down,
and in doing so they ended up cutting quite a few corners.
Looks like one of the preferred spots is the brakes, and not too long ago I looked at the mt500 brakes
that come on some of these builds and I consider these cheap brakes.
Well the MT400s that you see here are even cheaper, let's check them out!
First of all these brakes are made to be used with two fingers which is something that I don't really like
because if you are going on rough terrain you want to have a good grip on the handlebar
and you would most probably use one finger braking.
This is a fairly long lever which pushes your brakes quite inwards.
That wouldn't be a big deal again but I prefer the one finger breaking for anything serious off-road.
The main reason why I believe they made this a two-finger braking
is because this master cylinder doesn't have Servo Wave in it, meaning weaker overall for raw brake power.
When I looked at the cheap Shimano brakes I showed you this Deore MT500 or MT501 master cylinder
and you can see the two-piece bar clamp that disappeared for the MT400.
In here it would say Shimano mineral oil, obviously the part number,
manufactured in Malaysia and 22.2 mm bar clamp.
This MT400 or 401 shows you Shimano mineral oil, and the part number,
I don't know where it's made, I assume in Malaysia as well.
From the front you can see how much longer this lever is, the lever shape is quite dramatically different
and this is supposed to be entry level MTB brakes. they look like so.
Again the one-piece bar clamp versus a two-piece.
Obviously this is I-SPEC II so you can attach other accessories to it.
That's not possible with the MT400 so you would need separate bar clamps for your other shifters or remotes.
And even though this master cylinder shape is quite similar,
the MT400 does not have Servo Wave as opposed to any of the Deore or more expensive brakes from Shimano.
That means that there is no ramp up in power as you pull on your lever,
maybe that's the reason why they made this lever so much longer and they made it a two finger brake.
The only adjustment on these levers is the Reach adjust.
It is done with a HEX key here in the case of the MT500, and in here for the MT400.
These are supposed to be tuned for entry level MTB and the reach is supposed to be spectacularly short.
I don't see how that is better than something like this.
And what does an entry-level MTB have to do with a $3000 carbon bike?
You tell me because I couldn't figure it out!
With this 2-piston caliper, they use the SH-BH59 brake hose
and in the video that I'm going to link up in the corner
you will see the difference between BH59 and BH90 used with the more expensive brakes.
And just like the MT500, the cheaper Deore, you have a direct hose connection to the caliper and this is made in Malaysia.
I assume the lever is made in Malaysia as well, that's the part number.
The bike came with these discs, they're even cheaper,
they are still Shimano, they are made in China and they are the SM-RT26 rotors.
Somewhere in here says RESIN only, just like the SM-RT56 Deores that I mentioned with the MT500s,
but these are made in Malaysia.
When I looked at the MT500 one of my recommendations was
at least to install better discs that accept metallic pads as well.
And you see an RT86 XT here, RT66 SLX would be fine as well.
Some of you commented that the braking surface here is not wide enough for this type of brakes.
The width of the braking surface is 14.5 mm.
As opposed to that, this RT26 disc is not exactly round,
you can see that the braking surface varies from narrow to wider over here
and if I measure this narrower surface area you will see that it measures 14.3 mm,
while the width of the RT86 this was 14.5 mm.
So I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use a disc like this with these cheaper brakes.
The MT400 caliper it's a bit smaller than the MT500,
they both provide the one-way bleeding which is supposed to allow for better bleed, but you see the bleed port is in a different spot.
They use the same cotter pin or split pin to retain the pads into position
and just like the MT500 you cannot remove the pads from the top
so you have to push them out at the bottom just like this.
The pads recommended by Shimano are the B01s, the RESIN pads,
some of you mentioned that you can find even a Shimano metallic pad in this shape
but remember you would need to replace that disc if you do so.
Our discussion about discs actually came from comparing the two pads,
the Deore pad M6000 and this MT400 or 500,
and you can see how this braking pad surface is definitely taller.
But if you put them side by side, that one is slightly longer, so from a surface area standpoint this is probably about the same.
How much taller is this?
The B01s pad is 15.5mm tall and I assume this one would be about 14.
It's 13.5mm so we're talking 2mm difference in height between the B01s and the Deore or XTor SLX pads.
And that's the reason why some of you mentioned
that you can't really use a disk like this with these entry level brakes
because you don't have enough surface area here on the disc.
I would love to hear your guys opinion if you've used these for longer periods of time,
I've only used this briefly like that and they worked fine.
Inside the caliper you can see the 22mm resin pistons,
again the more expensive brakes have the white ones made of ceramic.
Weight of this MT500 is 273 grams, which was a bit heavier than the regular Deore M6000.
And surprisingly this MT400 with that full bar clamp and slightly longer hose is 255g
so they're 20 grams lighter.
I mentioned that manufacturing is not specified here on the lever, it is actually stamped on the back,
you can see Malaysia 22.2.
You can see the shape of the lever one more time next to something more serious,
the biggest problem with this being braking power, the lack of Servo Wave
might make these really weak for heavier riders or any serious mountain biking.
So in conclusion these are cheap Shimano brakes that I wouldn't recommend even compared to the MT500.
Yes, they do have a four piston variant of this, maybe that one might be half decent
but for me the shape of the lever would be a deterrent for sure.
Do you use brakes like this for anything but a cruiser or a winter beater bike?
I would love to hear your opinion.
If you have any questions about this let me know below.
If you found this useful don't forget to like, subscribe, keep an eye on social media,
and until next time, I hope to see you folks on the trails,
hopefully riding better brakes than the MT400.
Cheers guys, cheers!