front brake buzz
 

:confused: Looking for help. My front brakes "buzz" when I apply them. Not REAL loud, but I can hear it lightly with my full face helmet on. Sounds like it is coming from the caliper, but not 100% sure. Doesn't seem to impact the brake operation at all. Only makes the noise while moving, and not much when going slow (under 15 mph). I put new pads on at the beginning of the season and bled the lines. I just noticed this noise about 3 days ago. I am going to take the calipers off for inspection, but was wondering if anyone has dealt with this sort of thing before? Thanks in advance.

Some buzz is normal, I have noticed it on a number of my bikes... I was told it has to do with the holes in the rotors but I can't say for sure.

mine makes a little noise when applied too. you could try removing, cleaning, and checking everything just to be sure all is working fine. You are probably ok though.

mine sounds like a real faint cicada when i apply mine

ebc pads do it pretty loud too. its normal

thanks for the responses. I feel a little better, but I am still going to take them apart and clean/inspect/etc to make sure all is well. I did put new EBC pads on this year.

trust me its fine, the ebc pads are loud. you can even hear it on my track videos, even over all the wind and engine noise.

yeah, but you're probably running stock exhaust and going really slow though! ;););)

well its a f4i with a full tbr system, but i am slow... so... idk where that falls

It's normal. Brakes work by turning rotational energy into heat energy. Drilled rotors have a spot for air to get trapped with the heat build up. Most pads also expel a small amount of gasses when they heat up. When that hole opens up from the rotor moving past the hole, the heated and expanded air/gasses escape make a popping noise, but because you are traveling at a high rate of speed the popping noise sounds like a buzzing noise. If you had solid rotors, you wouldn't hear anything. This is also why under light braking, you don't hear much, but under heavy braking it get's much louder.

EBC HH pads this = normal. Mine do it too. (OEM pads don't)

First time I heard that kind of noise was on a used Suzuki 800 Marauder. It sounded kinda cool and funny. I know my Zephyr does it. No explanation, just know rotors with a bunch of holes tend to do it.

Kawasaki did some rotors with semi-random hole spacing to take it away, some companies I think use the slotting for the same reason. It might work since the KLX doesn't make any sort of cicada type noise with the pattern it has.

I run EBC pads with ProLite rotors and a hard slow down from near a hundred (speed trap) they scream. It's like a jet engine powering down. My policy around rotors and calipers is keep everything around them clean but disassembling is likely to cause other problems.

What he said...

Interesting...

I needed to ask this same question myself.

Brake noise
 

If it sounds like a fishing reel when the line is being spooled, nice catch. It's OK. Beware of grinding sounds - you could have some debris between the pad and rotor - or worn pads - check the rotors for grooving.
I never use my brakes though...