I am starting to get an annoying brake noise (squeal) with 7700 miles on my 2010 UC. This next weekend, I will be pulling her into the garage and giving her a good cleaning and going to check the brakes over. What is the life expectancy of OEM brakes? Anything else I should look for? I have also developed a "shimmy" in the back brakes, I feel it through the brake pedal. I really noticed it while doing some demos during a BRC class recently. As always, thanks in advance.

Cale

 

I changed the OEM pads out at 33K miles. The fronts could have gone longer, but I just changed them all at the same time.

When I had the OEM pads and they would start to make noise, I would take the bike up to 60 MPH and just brake as hard as I could to a stop a couple of times. This seemed to knock the glaze off and quite them down for a couple thousand miles.

 

It all depends on your riding style and how much you used the front brakes VS. the Rear ones or how much you engine break. But brake noise on Harley's can be a couple of different things like excessive brake dust.