gtyard

Anyone noticed that rear brake dust is excessive.
After washing car, and driving short distance (10 miles or so), you can see the rear wheels have accumulated a lot more dust than the fronts. And it gets progressively worse. The fronts almost have no accumulation.

Sportstick

Many W204 owners have successfully used Akebono EUR brake pads for great performance with essentially no dust. I've put them on 4 cars and all have been excellent! I don't know if the part numbers would be the same, but you can start by looking for EUR 1340 and 1341 for the full front/rear set. They are available on Amazon.com.

u257993

I'm experiencing the same thing. Never had a car do this before. I'm assuming it's normal? It is annoying to see this.

Energybiz

Drive a BMW for a few years and you will appreciate how little brake dust the Merc. has comparatively. I get very little now. BMW wheels would be black after a few days.

Showa

Same here!

MercZ

Weird, in my Coupe the front wheels accumulate much more than the rear ones...

Jav_A

Same here. Front w/ the larger calipers accumulates a lot more for me than the rears.

yukikaze203

I heard mercs like to use really soft brake pads compared to others, which aids in stopping power but also wears down faster hence the excessive brake dust.

newyorktoLA

For those of you that have bought aftermarket brand pads, did your dealer install them for you, did you have an indy do it, or did you DIY?

Sportstick

Our indy shop did it, but a cooperative dealer might also. They'll likely just give you the usual warranty comments about aftermarket parts. But, I would definitely stay with Akebono EUR pads after having tried them on a few cars for performance and being extremely low dust. I have stopped needing to buy wheel cleaner!

nomoremustang

I don't know what the factory installed, but I can tell you that I notice very little dust front or rear. So far so good

Breitling65

Same on mine 2012/c350 coupe, no dust issue.

johnny--2k

same here as well. My dad's 2012 CLS also makes almost NO dust compared to his 08 E550W4. That thing was horrible on dust, esp the fronts.

jkyriakou

Clean your wheels and then apply some good quality car polish. Nu finish works really well.

You will be surprised with the difference.

jctevere

This is fairly common on the prior w204's I've had (and now on our C204's). Since brake dust is comparative, everyone has a different opinion on the "normal" amount of brake dust, depending on what cars you have had earlier.

As for the reason the rears have more brake dust than the front, I believe this is because Mercs use more braking power on the rear wheels, rather than the front, allowing for better stability and handling under braking.

The solution would be to install aftermarket "ceramic" brake pads. Ones like Akebono as suggested above are relatively cheap (as far as ceramic pads go), yet produce virtually no brake dust and are very quiet and work very well.