My BYD Seal brake discs got ruined in just 19 months (repair bill 1300€) - Regen or material defect?

Having test driven a BYD coming from other cars with proper regeneration and one pedal driving, I don’t think the “not using friction brakes” excuse works here! How do you not use the friction brakes??

Indeed. The regen is quite mild even with the stronger setting. Sure, it is ”blended” regen (at least in the Seal) meaning that pressing the brake pedal will first just increase the regen power before the friction brakes come in, but still - I drive the car on a daily basis and definitely not only with regen.

I think it tracks. You’re not using the friction brakes frequently enough to clear the rotor off before it gets worse. Gentle driving has punished you. I agree from the video the corrosion is fairly bad and probably justifies replacement (or machining), but you need to remember brake rotors are pretty much cast iron and there’s not heaps of variance between brands. Mostly you’re dealing with a metal problem here, nothing to do with BYD. You’re just not driving it hard enough to maintain the surface. Just like a handrail in a public place, it’s shiny and polished where the most contact is, and dull and corroded in places where there is none.

Inner side of the brake discs are corroded and the outer side is fine? Explanation given is the regen? That's a lot of BS from the service centre. Anyways, I dropped by to say, the intro for your video was epic !!. Much better than whatever garbage Disney has made over the last 2 decades. (I will finish watching your video and then post a reply to this comment if I find anything worthy to comment).

That’s a good analogy that handrail. And I agree with what you said in general - just wondering how my other EVs in the past six years made it through without any brake issues, but now with the Seal suddenly I have this heavy corrosion. My driving style and driving profile have been the same.

The regen claim isn’t too convincing, is it? Good to hear I’m not the only one thinking that.. Thanks for watching the video, glad you enjoyed that one😄

Because they likely run algorithms or some logic to the regen braking for exactly this reason. Every x stops apply x amount of friction brake blend. BYD seems a bit rough around the edges

As far as I'm aware there's no way to choose to use the friction brake under normal driving conditions, apart from the last 5 or 4 km/hr when slowing down when it takes over on its own. If one side of a rotor is rusting this would indicate poor slide pin lubrication, which is on the service department to check.

Big fan of your youyube videos man! I have black byd seal excellence in Norway myself. I’m young and i kind of «race» the car with my friends, therefore i brake very hard frequently. By doing this i had to replace my pads on the 30.000km service :( but this was cheap and only because i’ve raced. I saw your video and i wanted to check for myself and i have almost zero rust on my brakes :) The regeneration claim is a bit wierd, but if you watch the active charging indication on the dashboard. You will se that almost the first 40% of the gas pedal is only using regeneration. Therefore you wil almost never use the brakes. You would think it has slower regeneration, i’ve had Kia niro before with full one pedal drive, so i understand that this feels alot more regeneration. But the seal has powerful regeneration it is just controlled by the brake pedal. I think😂 only from my own experience. I love the car! And for rust/paint. The paint is not good enough for norway salty roads in my opinion. Hade a small chip after 3 months. The dealership fixed it. And i took PPF over the whole car 4500

Hey, any news on 2.1 ota video? Same, do you have working obd port on seal? Mine is not working anymore (locked) after 2.1 update... Few users here and on forums report the same...

Thanks for the insights. I can definitely see how the racing keeps the rust away, and while I haven't done that type of racing, I think I'm not driving like a grandma either... 😃 Always on sport mode, doing pretty fast accelerations, having cleared normal surface rust by hard braking, etc. But your point on the blended regen characteristics is a very good one - even though the Seal is far from one-pedal drive, there is a lot of that "hidden" under the hood, so to say.

Still waiting for 2.1 OTA to arrive here. They seemed to start from Southern Europe this time with the roll-out, let's see when it arrives here. Concerned about that obd reader incompatibility....need that for monitoring battery temps

Would less regeneration recover set in Settings partially or completely solve this problem?

As already stated in comments under the previous "brake video" you could have obtained the parts for way cheaper online: Brake pads front - $68: https://www.teslgo.com/product-detail/BYD-SEAL-Front-Brake-Pad-Set_413590.html Brake pads back - $38: https://www.teslgo.com/product-detail/BYD-SEAL-Rear-Brake-Pad-Set_413401.html Front brake disc - $64: https://www.teslgo.com/product-detail/BYD-SEAL-Front-Brake-Disc-EKEB-3501111C-D1_413583.html As other Seal drivers with more mileage/older cars are reporting no problems with their brakes, your's seems to be an "unfortunate isolated incident".

Yes, thanks for providing those links already earlier. I wanted get the issue fixed soon so I went with what service center had available, but perhaps someone else will benefit from this info you provided. I seem to be an UII, which is a kind of silver lining here - good for the community. But surely I'm not the only one, so it's good to have this info and links also here in the discussion. 👍

Very entertaining video production, you have some impressive skills. I got a little impatient because I wanted to cut to the technical aspects but I stayed with it for the quality... well done. Looking at your discs, I think the reasoning given by your service centre is faulty. You're clearly braking hard enough because your discs are scored... those scoring lines ON THE BRAKING SURFACE are a worry, the disc is degrading. I'd like to see your brake pads... is there some irregularity in their surfaces that could explain this? So, your braking effort is clearly exhibited. The rust surrounding the actual braking surface is a bit worrying... I don't live in an area that salts the roads so I don't have experience with underbody rust caused by salting but some of those images of the internal hub part of the discs looks quite bad. As for the venting holes in the discs, while the rust residue coming from them looks quite bad I think overall venting holes are a good thing, remember they help prevent disc warping from heat which could be an issue way back in the day with solid discs. Viewing this has me wondering... people living in cold climates dealing with road salting through winter might benefit from some sort of fresh water wash of the underside of the vehicle. My worksite has a freshwater wash bay on the exit road as many of the work vehicles used outside need to clear mud etc before leaving site. Something like that would be easy enough to set up as a commercial enterprise or as an addition to a car wash. Anyway... I think your service centre is full of it and I wouldn't be happy. I think you should approach BYD directly, through your dealer distributor.

Very good points and reasoning, thanks for sharing. The scoring on braking surface is indeed contradicting the regen explanation. I have filed a claim to BYD Finland / BYD Europe, the service center and the dealer. Let's see..

Who's charging you this fee? Surely the warranty would stand with BYD, and they aren't going to use the excuse "but you didn't use your brakes enough"??

The excuse by service center is BS. BYD engages friction brake early (by design). And even if that wasn’t the case still you’d expect that to be considered in design and not be an issue. I would push back on them. However, i wonder why it had premature corrosion! What’s YOUR best guess?

They don't really kick in until about halfway down the brake pedal. Someone had a leak and lost their brake fluid pressure on a Shark and they commented that once they pushed in far enough there was basically no braking at all.

i’m about 90% sure that the regeneration setting is only for when you take your foot off of the throttle and how much ‘engine braking’ you feel. when you start using the brake pedal it increases the regeneration until it can’t anymore and uses the actual brakes

Great video, way too long for me, but lovely work.  Those disks are a mess, so badly scored it makes me think there was an issue with the pads as well, however the level of rust on the inside rim where it fixes to the hub is ridiculous for an 18 month old car.  If they really kick up a fuss against your warranty claim, I suggest employing all expert witness and just keep going, simply not acceptable with high value new cars to have an issue like that, good luck.

Thanks! Yes, the amount of rust in the hub especially is pretty staggering. Will definitely keep pushing...

I didnt watch the video yet so sorry in advance if you touch on this subject overe there! I have a Seal U EV with 38000km driven in little over a year. I just had my first 30k service, where they pointed out that Adaptive Cruise Control mainly breaks with rear wheels. Thats why my rear brake pads were in worse shape compared to the front brake pads. And i use a lot of ACC. Could this have something to do with your case as well? Im gonna book a time for a brake job next to get some fresh pads before the disks get damaged..

Yes, my rear pads are also much worse than the front pads.

https://preview.redd.it/78eb55qlqc6g1.jpeg?width=3742&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=770262939af8d1ab1e11e6e585b3003d725426af Front brake pads have plenty of thickness left, rear pads are clearly worse.

Once a week i do a hard braking from 80 km/h - 0 km/h ... with regen off = you can do that by shifting to neutral while driving. If you don't change to neutral then regen takes a lot of "braking" so the "cleaning discs" process isn't efficient enough.

Yep, that's a good advice. I've been doing hard braking occasionally, but not on a weekly basis and not in neutral. So that's two things I'm going to change; more frequently and more often in N, trying to make the new brakes last longer. But that said, even when I haven't switched to neutral before, I think the condition of my 19-month old brakes is not justified in any way.... so going to continue to seek justice 😤

Authorized service center is charging the fee, and they have discussed this issue with BYD Finland. I don't know what they have discussed, but the only explanation for the rust given by the service was "regen"; not enough use of friction brakes. Also I have been in contact with BYD, but haven't received a direct answer. Hence the current status is still "out of warranty scope".

I think your calipers are faulty. Surely a warranty case.

One Pedal Driving - should I be worried now ?!! Thinking about getting a BYD but don't have any experience with EVs yet. Do they have only one pedal ? How .. why .. whaa.. huh ?

Therefore it won’t thanks

I've had mine for 6 months and all my breaks are entirely corroded

no they have 2 like any other car, but most EVs brake when you stop pressing on the gas. Regenerative Braking also charges the batter everytime you brake, the byd doesnt have this tho, at least not the seal design