t3404eo

My 2004 S500 has sliding front calipers vs. the 4 piston fixed brembo brakes. Not sure why. What is required other than changing the calipers and rotors to upgrade to the standard 4 piston fixed brembos?

Welwynnick

I'm sure Mercedes would standardize the brakes if they could. The 4matic suspension uprights are definitely different to the RWD, and I guess (but I'm pretty sure) that the caliper mounts are different, too.

FWD and AWD cars tend to have less front scrub radius than RWD cars, to minimise torque steer. This tends to push the brakes outboard, leaving no room for 4 piston calipers.

Nick

t3404eo

Thanks Nick. Makes sense. I've just never seen an W220 without the front brembos Strange

Welwynnick

Me neither, but BMW and Audi seem to use floating calipers on some of their very up-range models without issue. I just did a quick search on mbpartsworld.com:

Mercedes > 2004 > S500 > 4Matic > Brakes

and came up with this picture. Do your brakes look like this:

t3404eo

Roughly yes. I haven't taken off a wheel yet, so I'm not exactly sure. I'm now even more surprised that they would be only single piston calipers. Looks like the ones on my 2005 Chrysler 300!

t3404eo

After some research it appears that the 4matic cars come with 2 piston sliding calipers. Thanks

lganski

My 2006 4Matic has two pistons.