Carsy

The car has done 50,000 km & the front rotors have worn from 28mm to 27 mm . The thickness limit before change out is 26 mm.

What has baffled me is that the average pad wear on both fronts is just above 1 mm also. ie just below 12 mm from original 13 mm.

So my pads are wearing almost at the same mm rate as my rotors.

From this forum I read that we can expect 2 pad changes for one rotor change. This obviously will not happen . I will be changing my rotors with about 10.5 mm still left on my pads

I am a conservative country driver.

I would be pleased to hear any feed back & recomendations.

JC

splinter

Can’t speak definitively to your rotor and pad wear experience.
I typically replace them concurrently owing to seemingly inevitable lateral runout and thickness variations.
Brake judder drives me (and ESP/ABS) even more crazy. A 50,000-km replacement interval for each is not premature IMHO.

MBUSA specifies ridiculously soft and dusty pads for OE fitment.
They will bite a ton on the first (cold) stop of a drive.
Their other downside is that they’ll fade into oblivion after a few earnest “country driver” ;) decelerations.

My preferred aftermarket pads (e.g., Porterfield’s R4-S or Hawk’s HPS) aren’t necessarily any harder on OE-specification rotors.
Incidentally, a W203 ‘BBK’ C32/C55 rotor is only ~$100 in the U.S.
Nevertheless, our OE rotors seem to be cast from an unusually ‘soft’ blend of iron.

Perplexing you’ve worn through the rotors and pads at the same 1mm vs. 1mm rate of consumption though.

hyperion667

over tq the bolts?

Carsy

Thanks Splinter for your thoughts., The brakes are performing brilliantly. Albsolutely no judder & all the "feel" you could expect.

Anyway with our current mileage/year they will last another 4 years , totalling 8.

Interestingly our old 1979 504 Peugeot did 450,000 km on its solid rotors without change ...progress...

H667,

I would be glad to know how would over tightening the wheel bolts cause this wear?.I would have thought that distortion would be the symptom?

sammydragon3

my pads from the factory lasted 54,000 miles

Carsy

86,000 km, that is pretty good for city driving I persume.

LightDragon

mnm indeed

Glyn M Ruck

Your wear rate is about normal for a city car. Your Pug was no doubt running pads containing asbestos.

Carsy

Glyn,

I can't work out why my rotors front & rear will be below limits before my pads are half worn out.!!

sammydragon3

excessive wear....r u slamming on your brakes...

my friend has a vw passet(pretty much same material) and he can go thru brake pads in a week

and whens the last time u flushed your brake fluid?

Carsy

I'm 65 , don't need to do that any more.

[/QUOTE]my friend has a vw passet(pretty much same material) and he can go thru brake pads in a week[/QUOTE]

Not this little black duck.

[/QUOTE]and whens the last time u flushed your brake fluid? [/QUOTE]

Last week.

Thanks for the input.

Glyn M Ruck

I think some of the issue at least is the definition of pads worn out. If you are under Motorplan ( Mobilo Drive) in SA - Benz replaces the pads at their cost at +- 50% of original thickness. No one here runs pads down to triggering the sensors. My front discs on the 240 are worn about the same as yours but on the second set of pads. My rear discs show no appreciable wear (solid) & the original pads are still on at 66,000 Km. Strictly a town car.

Modern friction materials are quite hard on discs compared with their erstwhile asbestos containing ones to achieve bite. Discs might well be softer as well. Have never done a hardness test & it might be metallurgical structure rather than hardness.

Does your car have the water wiping feature on the brakes? Mine is too old to. This might accelerate wear.

I think there is also a bit of soft wearing hard in tribological terms. You have been in heavy engineering & are no doubt used to elastomer seals, as an example, wearing steel shafts.

Carsy

Yes, the car has the brake warming in wet weather feature. It's a thought . I try to avoid it by using rainex .

Thanks for your thoughts.

I will try to find softer pads next time round.

Ausmbtech on the 204 forum came up with the following :-

"Pad and rotor wear isn't a constant thing. Hard braking tends to wear the pads whilst minor pedal pressure tends to result in higher rotor wear.Not sure of the exact science behind it, it's just how it is. It's different for everyone.

Some of my cars need rotors every pad change, others get 2-3 pad changes. "


I would certainly like to know the reasons for this wear pattern. It certainly is not in the interests of longevity. I have not experienced it before .

I can only think the engineers have been thinking brake feel & shorter stopping distances
before wear & tear.

Thanks everyone .

JC

Glyn M Ruck

If Ausmbtech is right it would partially explain my wear - I don't understand the mechanism he is talking about. I tend to be a driver that anticipates what is going on & don't brake heavily. Genuine Benz discs/rotors are fortunately inexpensive.

People speak very highly of Porterfield pads. I have no experience of them but we have never found another pad other than original in SA that gives good feel if you can tolerate the damn black dust.

LILBENZ230

I use OEM Mercedes pads, but the Balo rotors I picked up for my 2005 C230 were installed at 53,000 miles and are still noise/vibration free at 123,700 on the second set of pads for them (4th set ever).

Carsy

Have noted the name . Thanks Lil Benz