Vladds

So with my wife's car (not a Mercedes) we experienced this about brake pads:
The warranty for that car reads that the car will be put back in as new conditions with some consumable exclusions, brake pads are not clearly excluded.


They lasted a good amount of time until out of warranty, clearly the factory calculated how long they will last. They were also VERY thick, more than half inch.


So the time to replace them came. SO my calculation was to buy OEM Original, Genuine, From The Dealer pads, because this will give me another 40K miles of quality braking and not eat the rotors either.


So we get the pads and........ surprise: they are:
1. not as thick as the Factory ones, those I guess would put less money in their pocket but allows them to not change the pads under the initial warranty. So the spare part does not match the factory part in this case. Not profitable.
2. The spare pads come with the "high tech chamfer", where they steal 15% of the braking compound by chamfering the sides of the pad.




Anything like this sounds familiar to you guys in the Mercedes world?


Once again, I am calculating that 50K miles is sufficient miles for me to buy OEM pads, but the ones on my car are factory pads, so I'm nervous.


Already in the previous thread where I posted about pads, someone gave an answer about factory pad thickness, which does not seem to match what I am seeing in pictures of genuine spares (Thicker than genuine spares).

Vladds

So the dealer replacement brake pads, are thickness of friction material new condition 10 millimeters, for a total thickness including backing plate of 15.
The new ones are made by Jurid, model number 263 66.
As was posted by others, the factory shim from the factory pads does not fit over the new ones and it is believed that the strip of adhesive on the back is the new shim.
The balancing weights look bigger and different.
They don't come with sensors in the kit, for the part number, but the dealer is supposed to hand over for free a set of instructions, which my dealer had to order, upon me pointing this out.


The new pads have the "high tech chamfer", they take from you 10% of wear material.
It's difficult to tell, but I think that the old ones did not have the chamfer.
The old ones begin to wear the sensor without exposing the contact and turning on the light at about 4 millimeters of material thickness. They would probably turn on at 3, which makes it a good indicator that a third of pad material is left and therefore if the light is not on, you should be able to pass state inspection in NY with them.
Having the replacement pads inside the caliper there definitely is wiggle room with the pistons pushed in superficially, "kinda" all the way.
I would say room for 1-2 mm of extra material thickness on each side.
It could also be that the factory stainless shim IS that extra thickness.
The factory pad is also made by Jurid, but is model 631 33

zcct04

I installed pads from a different supplier which, like the Jurid, did not have the factory shim and would not allow the factory shim to be reused. Both the original and the replacement pads had backing plates that were the same length, but the shim wrapped around the ends of the factory pad and made it a little longer. As a result, the replacement pads had some 'wiggle room" - they could rotate along with the rotor for a fraction of an inch each time you changed from forward to reverse. Mine made an audible 'clunk' when I initially applied the brakes after changing from R to D or back again. It really bothered me, so much that I took them off.

Vladds

I had to replace the front pads at this point. The only unusual thing is the center top caliper bolt, it has threadlocker on it.
However interestingly, while the front pads seem to have lasted 50,000 miles, at this point the front rotors are at minimum thickness too. That's an average performance for the rotors, although in other cars they warp before getting to minimum and get replaced because of that. The minimum is 34mm, it's written on the rotor hub section.
The free part number that the parts guy is supposed to hand with purchase of pads is a sheet of instructions.
Next, I'm going to check the thickness of the rear rotors. It would be weird if those are at minimum too.