Just a quick PSA: for 2002-2012 Vees, the rotors are 5mm thick from the factory, and the wear limit is 4.5mm.

At 116,000 miles, mine were 3.4mm.

A few days later, a nice set of rotors from a dearly departed 2012 measuring 4.9mm landed on my doorstep, courtesy of fleaBay.

With a nice new set of Galfer pads, the Vee's stoppers are stopping quite nicely now.


Also, let this be a reminder that there's no such thing as cheap brake pads. Stick with and pay for a major brand name like Galfer, EBC, etc. The cheapo generic Chinese pads sold under a zillion goofy names including BikeMaster, Pyramid, Volar, etc. are no bueno. Dangerous garbage.

I let a set of rotors go on my R65LS BMW to 217K miles. I'd change pads every 50K or so. They were well grooved but once the new pads bedded in they work OK.
I paid a huge price, like $200, for the single disk on my sidecar rig, R80/7 and after 2-3 thousand miles it had started to wear noticeably.
May your new rotors wear better than that.

I let my rear rotor go as well, to 124,000, it was pretty thin. Same deal, got a working pull from ebay and back in business.

Good advice on thickness, but I completely disagree regarding chinese brake pads. I've been running Volar, Sixity, Catric organic pads on my bike for over 120k miles and have never had an issue with them. If you've had a different experience I'd love to hear it, otherwise I think paying four times as much is foolish. The only thing I've found that really matters is keeping the sliding parts greased.

Brake pads and oil can be an endless debate . Whatever works for you is fine with me . I learned while roadracing if you like to go fast you are better off putting money into your brakes than your motor . For the last 20yrs I've only used EBC (mostly HH ) in all my bikes . Love their rotors too!

Premium pads may be better for go-fast performance, I'm not contesting that since I don't ride on the track. I'm only debating the claim that cheap pads are somehow dangerous. I've seen a lot of FUD on message boards but I can't find a single report of them actually failing or causing a safety issue.

I've seen enough good reviews of Volar and Sixity brake pads that I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand.

Front EBC HH pads on my 650 were on for 122,000 mi. They were at 60% when it was sold. They were scuffed up at each tire change.
The rotors were at 4.6 and all was working great.
The rear rotor was at 4.2 and grooved from a worn out pad at under 50K. Replaced with a Chinese rotor($30) and EBC HH pads. The rotor was only 4.8mm new, but was still in spec at 122K. The HH on the rear were terrible. Poor feel and to easy to lock up. Lasted 30K-. Went to a EBC semi-sinstered pad and all was well for 50K more . Replaced with the same sometime before selling.

FWIW, the SAE equivalents are 0.197" and 0.177".

I've been thinking about getting a dial caliper marked in mm, or else an electronic one that does both units, just to keep from having to convert constantly. They're cheap enough.

I need to check my rotors.

You're better off with a micrometer. If you use a caliper to measure rotor thickness, and there's a lip on the rotor, you aren't going to be able to get an accurate measurement (the lip will prevent the arms of the caliper from touching the lower part of the rotor surface). A micrometer will let you take a measurement at any point on the rotor, as long as the throat on the micrometer is deep enough.

You can get a digital micrometer on Amazon or Harbor Freight that'll convert from fractions to decimals to metric.

I do use a caliper to measure all kinds of stuff; they do come in handy. This is the one I got from Harbor Freight. I think it was $19.00, but it's been a while and I don't remember. For my purposes, it works great.



This is what I use to measure my brake rotors. It's also good for measuring things like pad thickness, and lots of other stuff. It was also a Harbor Freight purchase. I bought the small one; it's deep enough to reach anywhere on the rotors on my Yamaha.

Something to keep in mind. The above by bwringer is indeed accurate. However....

The minimum rotor thickness is a function of the remaining pad thickness. If you run the pads to the min and the rotor to the min also, you could have a caliper piston over extend.

I have had bikes that finding replacement discs was about impossible and very expensive. I just changed out the pads at the 50% remaining thickness point and felt perfectly safe.