Product Image:
Product name: Hayes Dominion 4 pot brakes
Price paid: €425 including Hayes Typd-D 203 mm brake disks
Score (out of 10): Braking characteristics 11/10 - Installation 5/10 - Support -1/10
Review: This is a initial Review including a brief installation guide of the highly praised Hayes Dominion 4 pot brakes that have been chosen as MTB brakes of the year(2018) by some of the biggest online MTB blogs. Let me just state right away that I have never ridden a bike with as powerful brakes as the Dominion and compared to the Guide RE's I took off my Levo, they are so much better. Basically there are no dead stroke in the lever and just a warning, I did a ride where I was holding 1 finger on the front brake lever while hitting a small bump a bit unconsentrated and squesed my finger as a reflex. I got instant payback and the next thing I found myself flying over the bar head first........... Stupid me but they ARE powerfull! As I do not ride that much gravity type of trails(Denmark is flat as a pancake) I was interested in a consistent set of brakes that are easily set up without rubbing and good modulation/stopping power. I was initially looking at the new 4 pot XTR's(expensive) as well as the proven Saint's(less modulation) but in my search I came around a test on "Pinkbike"(Hayes Dominion) and got curious. When I found out that @Al Boneta also liked the brakes I decided to give it a go.
Initial installation:
As seen in the top picture they come assembled together with a few bits and pieces and most importantly, a kit to shorten the brake lines. That you will all need unless you ride a tandem or have a XXXL frame, anyway most rear brakes are internally routed so you will have to cut it anyway to feed the brake line inside the frame. Installation itself is like any other brakes and not that complicated at all. Here is a few random pictures from my 2018 Turbo Levo FSR
Routing the brake line for the rear brake is quite easy but you will have to cut both old and new brake line to get it through the holes in the frame - Taking the non-drive side motor cover off is a must in order to route the line over the motor:
Another challenge was the rear adapter for the calliper, based on another thread here I found a Shimano part number for the Levo but it did not fit perfectly as calliper was sitting 1.5 mm too low. Also, The Dominion calliper is very big so I had to modify the adapter with a Dremel in order to avoid contact. this will do for now but I will try to find a Hayes specific adapter:
This is the front adapter I used and it fits perfectly on a 2018 Pike fork:
Bleeding:
Now to the bleeding part and that is a bit different to most of the other brakes that I have had, Hayes have a good video here and I strongly recommend to follow it closely or you will not get all air out - Compared to Shimano and SRAM it is a bit more complicated. Regarding bleeding tools you can either use the Hayes bleeding kit that cost €45 or buy a cheep Avid bleeding kit from Ebay. The fitting you will need is a metric 5 mm and that is the same as the older SRAM/Avid.
Here is the Hayes Bleeding guide: Hayes Bleeding guide
The front brake is not that difficult as you can do it away from the bike but the rear brake is different if you have internal routing - Here is a few random pictures from my bleeding process and it is not very smart to design a bleed port on the master that demands a dual 45 degrees angle and I found out the hard way during the initial bleed, that it is indeed necessary:
After a couple of bleeds I got a very good firm feel in the levers and off to the final task of centering the calliper over the disk and now it got ugly.........No matter what I did the pads would not clear the disks and it was rubbing a LOT, furthermore the disks I got were quite warped out of the box too. Did a few more bleeds but still the same, absolutely no clearance between pad and disk. by studying the pistons in the calliper they did basically not retract when I let go of the lever and the best I could get was as in this video:
Youtube vid rubbing brake pads
I decided to take the bike out for a few shorter rides to see if I could free the pistons a bit but about 80 km later and 1 more bleed, the exact same issue was still there. One of the very reasons I bought them in the first place was their small adjustment screws in order to set them up rub free and they were about the worst I have ever tried - Bullocks
Next step was to try and contact Hayes support and you can either do it via Facebook or a support form on the homepage. I tried their homepage first and it took them 8 days to respond..... In the meantime I asked the same question on Facebook and here I got a very quick response as it only took 4 days..... A guy came forward and asked a few technical questions just to disappear for another couple of days. Finally last Thursday i was connected to a Danish service support that suggested that I should send it all in to him so he could repair them. No way I first pay €425 and send stuff out of the box for repair, I kindly asked him to send me 2 new callipers and then I would return the defective ones. No way that was possible and he basically said that I could take his offer or return everything to where I bought them(Bike24).
Just home from work last night I today decided to give it a last try as I got an Idea that the callipers could have been assembled dry and lying for a long time before they were made into a kit with brake lines etc.
Sure enough, the pistons were sticking so much in the calliper housing that I had to apply 8 bars with my compressor in order to get them out, after some cleaning and some special brake piston pasta I now have a new brake set that works perfectly:
Bottom line, fantastic brake performance - A bit bitchy to bleed - Hayes Support is shitty - Hayes quality control is shitty
Happy braking
Product name: Hayes Dominion 4 pot brakes
Price paid: €425 including Hayes Typd-D 203 mm brake disks
Score (out of 10): Braking characteristics 11/10 - Installation 5/10 - Support -1/10
Review: This is a initial Review including a brief installation guide of the highly praised Hayes Dominion 4 pot brakes that have been chosen as MTB brakes of the year(2018) by some of the biggest online MTB blogs. Let me just state right away that I have never ridden a bike with as powerful brakes as the Dominion and compared to the Guide RE's I took off my Levo, they are so much better. Basically there are no dead stroke in the lever and just a warning, I did a ride where I was holding 1 finger on the front brake lever while hitting a small bump a bit unconsentrated and squesed my finger as a reflex. I got instant payback and the next thing I found myself flying over the bar head first........... Stupid me but they ARE powerfull! As I do not ride that much gravity type of trails(Denmark is flat as a pancake) I was interested in a consistent set of brakes that are easily set up without rubbing and good modulation/stopping power. I was initially looking at the new 4 pot XTR's(expensive) as well as the proven Saint's(less modulation) but in my search I came around a test on "Pinkbike"(Hayes Dominion) and got curious. When I found out that @Al Boneta also liked the brakes I decided to give it a go.
Initial installation:
As seen in the top picture they come assembled together with a few bits and pieces and most importantly, a kit to shorten the brake lines. That you will all need unless you ride a tandem or have a XXXL frame, anyway most rear brakes are internally routed so you will have to cut it anyway to feed the brake line inside the frame. Installation itself is like any other brakes and not that complicated at all. Here is a few random pictures from my 2018 Turbo Levo FSR
Routing the brake line for the rear brake is quite easy but you will have to cut both old and new brake line to get it through the holes in the frame - Taking the non-drive side motor cover off is a must in order to route the line over the motor:
Another challenge was the rear adapter for the calliper, based on another thread here I found a Shimano part number for the Levo but it did not fit perfectly as calliper was sitting 1.5 mm too low. Also, The Dominion calliper is very big so I had to modify the adapter with a Dremel in order to avoid contact. this will do for now but I will try to find a Hayes specific adapter:
This is the front adapter I used and it fits perfectly on a 2018 Pike fork:
Bleeding:
Now to the bleeding part and that is a bit different to most of the other brakes that I have had, Hayes have a good video here and I strongly recommend to follow it closely or you will not get all air out - Compared to Shimano and SRAM it is a bit more complicated. Regarding bleeding tools you can either use the Hayes bleeding kit that cost €45 or buy a cheep Avid bleeding kit from Ebay. The fitting you will need is a metric 5 mm and that is the same as the older SRAM/Avid.
Here is the Hayes Bleeding guide: Hayes Bleeding guide
The front brake is not that difficult as you can do it away from the bike but the rear brake is different if you have internal routing - Here is a few random pictures from my bleeding process and it is not very smart to design a bleed port on the master that demands a dual 45 degrees angle and I found out the hard way during the initial bleed, that it is indeed necessary:
After a couple of bleeds I got a very good firm feel in the levers and off to the final task of centering the calliper over the disk and now it got ugly.........No matter what I did the pads would not clear the disks and it was rubbing a LOT, furthermore the disks I got were quite warped out of the box too. Did a few more bleeds but still the same, absolutely no clearance between pad and disk. by studying the pistons in the calliper they did basically not retract when I let go of the lever and the best I could get was as in this video:
Youtube vid rubbing brake pads
I decided to take the bike out for a few shorter rides to see if I could free the pistons a bit but about 80 km later and 1 more bleed, the exact same issue was still there. One of the very reasons I bought them in the first place was their small adjustment screws in order to set them up rub free and they were about the worst I have ever tried - Bullocks
Next step was to try and contact Hayes support and you can either do it via Facebook or a support form on the homepage. I tried their homepage first and it took them 8 days to respond..... In the meantime I asked the same question on Facebook and here I got a very quick response as it only took 4 days..... A guy came forward and asked a few technical questions just to disappear for another couple of days. Finally last Thursday i was connected to a Danish service support that suggested that I should send it all in to him so he could repair them. No way I first pay €425 and send stuff out of the box for repair, I kindly asked him to send me 2 new callipers and then I would return the defective ones. No way that was possible and he basically said that I could take his offer or return everything to where I bought them(Bike24).
Just home from work last night I today decided to give it a last try as I got an Idea that the callipers could have been assembled dry and lying for a long time before they were made into a kit with brake lines etc.
Sure enough, the pistons were sticking so much in the calliper housing that I had to apply 8 bars with my compressor in order to get them out, after some cleaning and some special brake piston pasta I now have a new brake set that works perfectly:
Bottom line, fantastic brake performance - A bit bitchy to bleed - Hayes Support is shitty - Hayes quality control is shitty
Happy braking
