I finally decided to order a C63s. I do plan on taking the car to a few track days, is it worth it to get the ceramic composite breaks? I was reading one test on them and it said even with the ceramic composite breaks they were experiencing brake fade after a few laps! Does anyone have any experience with either of these systems at the track? Do they last longer? Do the rotors ever need replaced? Do they help with resale value? Sorry, lot of questions. Years ago I did a lot of track days and was into spec miata racing, I thought I remembered everyone saying all you need is good pads/brake fluid. But we weren't driving cars that weighed this much and had 500hp.

 

Hopefully all the guys that have been to the AMG driving academy will chime in. I have been to the Academy twice, and almost all of the vehicles they use, roughly 50 or more, have the carbon ceramic brakes. Multiple days of dozens and dozens of drivers riding them on the track as hard as they know how, I noticed no fade whatsoever.

 

I'd like to know more about the AMG Ceramic Brakes for the AMG C63s as well if anyone has experience with them.

 

Personally, no I don't think they are worth it. For starters, only the fronts are CCBs, the rears are the standard iron rotors. These cars do use the rear brakes quite a lot for traction and torque vectoring, so you may not experience fade in the front brakes, but the rears could eventually cook. The main benefit of the CCBs is slightly reduced weight and higher fade resistance, but work less efficiently when they are cold and can be quite noisy for regular driving. For just a few track days, it doesn't seem worth putting up with the downsides every day. The standard brakes in the C63S are no slouch, but it all depends on how hard the track is on the brakes. You can even cook CCBs on the track. The rotors last a long time with regular driving, but not with hard track driving. The life of them is significantly reduced on the track and they are expensive to replace. Many frequent track warriors recommend steel brakes for the track if you go often, because they are cheaper to replace and with a good set of race pads and high temp fluid they can perform just as well.

 

Thank you! That's pretty much what I was thinking.

 

I keep getting confused at these replies. The AMG driving academy uses them daily week after week and I don't believe they are turning through them like some posters would have Everyone believe. Also don't understand the reference to the daily driver downside? They stop far superior than the large performance brakes on my previous body style AMG 507 even when you cold. They look amazing, they are much lighter, not just a little bit, and for those that do not track the car they will outlast the life of the vehicle. Now let's add to that zero brake dust. Yes, they cost more, but if that particular objection is not a factor for a buyer then I see no other downside. If your daily driving and track use happens to ever wear them out, you could always put the iron rotors on then

 

Have you personally driven an AMG with the CCBs? If so, what was your personal experience with them compared to the standard ones?

 

Yes, been on my car since day one. 8200 miles later I wouldn't hesitate to buy the rear carbon ceramic brakes and install those as well. I like them that much. Possibly for the no brake dust alone I would do it.

 

Nice, what is the difference in brake dust between the front and rear with your car?

 

Please report back if you still think it worth it
when you have to replace them. 😄 How much are those rotor each? $4-$5k ea. ?

 

I have them on MY2019 coupe, they are not noisy, slow speed performance is actually excellent and when needed higher speed performance is phenomenal. Brake pedal feel is no different. A lot of posters regurgitate what they read, but have not experienced them hence the negativity associated with them.

There is a significant difference in brake dust from front and rears but buying them for this alone is a VERY expensive trade off.

When it comes time to replace them, it will hit hard, but not something i anticipate anytime soon, but who knows, its the price you pay for a premium product that works well.

As to whether you can justify the cost, only you will know.
See if you can get into a car that has them and take it for a spin and judge yourself.

 

Let me expand on my post above a little more. Generally, on these threads folks who have them chime in positively. That's not surprising, they've already made the commitment and we don't know how they drive their cars. Often, their cars have fairly low mileage as in the two posters here that speak positive about them. 8200 miles is no mileage and somebody with a MY19 has no long term experience with them yet. Let's talk again when these cars have 20k, 30k or 40k miles on them, and have experienced a few winters. There are always folks for whom the CCB's work. I'm trying to keep it more general and speak from experience. There are few folks who have had serious behind the wheel time of the same exact car with and w/o CCBs on the same roads and with their typical driving, so the opinions are generally always one sided as opposed to a fair side-by-side experience. As for the AMG Driving Academy, it makes sense for them to use the CCBs. Those cars are essentially exclusively driven on the track, and they also have Cup tires, I'll get to that. We don't know how often they have to replace them, and they probably get them at cost and it's a business for them. They charge good money for those sessions, so going through CCBs and tires is just part of the cost of running a business.

I know folks who have roasted their CCBs on the track in one day. The CCBs are more heat resistant, but not the stuff around them. Challenge is to get the heat out of the wheel well. The CCB rotors are very hard and can crack if a stone finds its way in and bounces around. They chip and crack. Iron rotors don't crack or chip. Now on tires. The ability to stop a car at a certain distance comes down to tires more than the brakes. A car with CCBs and street performance tires is under-tired and as a result in any kind of hard driving, the ABS will kick in very early even on dry roads. You need track tires to match the capabilities of the brakes. I had the opportunity to take a few Audi R8s through its paces last year. I've driven some good mileage with them on my typical roads and in particular some hard canyon carving. Some of them had CCBs and the others had the iron brakes. I preferred the iron brakes, largely because as I stated above, the street performance tires couldn't keep up. I do frequent canyon carving with my cars, and occasionally go on the track and I've yet to seriously fade performance iron brakes on cars of similar weight. I've upgraded the iron brakes on previous cars with better rotors, pads and fluid for a fraction of the cost of CCBs and they performed excellent. I've been to the Nurburgring with my new 19 Coupe now, and the standard brakes had no issues, and I've done some aggressive mountain road driving and again no issues.

Essentially it comes down to this. What are you hoping to gain from the CCBs? Do you have a history of fading your brakes often? If not, then why the need for CCBs? If CCBs, have you invested in tires that can match their capabilities? The C63S for example can be spec'd with Cup tires from the factory. If you go for the CCBs, you should go for the upgraded tires as well, but expect that those tires will wear significantly faster. Are you OK with the risk of cracked and chipped rotors from the daily debris you might encounter and is that still worth it if you have to replace the rotors prematurely, and have you driven a car with CCBs through a few winters and some more nasty road conditions. Lastly, just pointing out the disclaimer that AMG puts everywhere they mention the CCBs. They point out the potential of serious noise with them under normal driving. This doesn't come from nowhere. They know this happens for many folks once the cars have some mileage on them. It's just the nature of the beast. I personally don't necessarily have that much of an issue with it. The standard iron brakes get noisy, too if you get some heat in them and until they cool down. At the end of my Nurburgring laps, they squealed quite a bit, but went back to normal once they cooled down. CCBs generally stay noisy once they get to their noisy stage.

 

Mercedes are not the only cars that have CCBs to have experienced them lol.

I am not saying one is better than the other, just providing honest personal experience.

OP good luck with which ever you choose. Go experience them for yourself. Theory is no match for experience.

 

I'll chime in as someone with actual experience with ceramics on the E63S Edition 1 and 991 GT3, as well as all the AMG Academy cars after two of those events.

At normal operating temperature under normal use, carbon ceramics don't stop the car any better than iron brakes. In fact, I think they feel worse (not actually worse) when cold, as they have a less initial bite if you don't assertively brake.

So why ceramics? Carbon ceramics are great for repeated hard braking. This is incredibly noticeable at AMG Academy. As the day progresses, cars with iron rotors have very noticeable brake fade while the carbon ceramics remain strong all day. The iron ones honestly feel like crap at the end of the day. Think about if will you be using your brakes like this.

So then why do GT3/RS track rats opt for steel rotors over the CCB's? Turns out, CCB's don't actually last very long under hard track use, despite their ability to withstand a day's worth of abuse. Needing to shell out after warping the ceramics has gotta be fking painful.

**From my observation, AMG Academy really won't abuse their cars to the point of warping ceramics. The student-driven cars drive quite slow in terms of track driving especially for the free credit event. You'll probably drive harder through a canyon run than the actual AMG Academy lead-follow track program. If you ever sit with an instructor for a ridealong, they take the course at 10x the pace. Also, the cars spend a lot of time idling after a few laps, since all the students switch between the car models and have breaks.

Other Pros:
- Less unsprung weight. Sure, but are you really pushing the car to its limits enough to need this advantage? And if you actually that much of a track rat, you're probably better off with iron rotors.
- No brake dust.
- Will last the life of the car under normal usage as long as they aren't abused and don't suffer any road hazard damage.
- Flex value. Let's be real, ceramics look cool and people notice when you roll up to cars & coffee.

Other Cons:
- Price is outrageous if you need to replace them.
- They can squeak when cold.

If you got the extra cash, go for them. They are cool and work great ripping around town. If you track or otherwise, keep the money imho. Iron rotors are both the rational choice and the hard-core track choice.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that even if I Took my daily driver, and did hard track days A couple times (2-3)a year, for let's say three or four years which is the most I think I have ever owned any car, there is no way they would be even remotely close to worn out. With how hard I have seen the carbon ceramic brakes used at the driving Academy's, I just don't believe they're prone to that. Or to say it another way those cars see more hard track time in one weekend than I would bet 99% of those of us on the forums do with their vehicle during their entire ownership. So with that, I just don't believe I will ever face the prospect of having to replace them. If a future buyer ever did, they have several choices one of which would be to go to the iron rotors at that time, put the same system back on as now, or go to racing break and use their carbon ceramic option which is slightly more cost-effective. Also regarding the brake dust question previously, there is no comparison I have zero brake dust on the front and the typical Black powder coating on the rear after just two or three short trips. Like I said before I would almost add carbon ceramic brakes to the rear just for the brake dust benefit alone

 

Does Mercedes not cover anything regarding the CCBs under warranty if they get damaged during daily driving use (not on a race track)?

 

Only if there are manufacturing defects and only for a certain amount of miles. Brakes like tires are wear&tear items. Damage due to debris and such is not a warranty item. Perhaps you could pursue an insurance claim, but no idea if that's even covered.

 

And I’m going to run on a fresh set of “regular” sc2’s. I’ve run them previously but I can’t remember the optimal pressures for the track. What are you guys running cold and hot?

 

I run the SC2 around 26psi cold which works out to about 32 psi hot .
The other day (on the ZPs) I ran about 24psi cold/30psi hot.

 

Hi everyone,

I don't want to get to a whole new thread, so I'm just going to ask here for opinions. This coming Saturday I have a track day coming up on a local track, and I'm planning to take my Honda S2000 which is slowly becoming my dedicated track car.
Thing is, I'd like to also try the GTS as well for some laps, and since my summer tires are OK but will definitely be changed after the winter season, I was thinking to take the GTS as well. A couple of friends are interested in joining for passenger laps and for the fun of it, so we can take both cars at the same time.

My question is, with stock brakes, and stock fluid (I doubt the previous owner put in anything special, so I'm going with the assumption that the last fluid service was just whatever the dealer will put in there), will the car be OK for some easy laps and maybe 1-2 laps that I could push?
I think that most of the day will not be dry, so I don't expect I'll be able to push the car anyway...

Has anyone tried to track a fully stock car?
Tires are MPSS.

Thanks!

 

You should be fine but I wouldn’t push it past that. The MPSS tires should be ok for a few fun easy laps but they aren’t really good for more than that. In terms of brake fluid I would guess as long as it’s clean and topped up maybe you could get a few laps in before it boils over. It’s going to depend on the kind of track and the experience of the driver. You should see how much brake pads you have before the event also. The less you have the more heat is transferred through as well. Have a great time!

 

I didn't realise there was no brake dust with them. It's worth it just for that, I hate the huge amounts of brake dust my car produces.

 

Agreed again, no dust is amazing! Love these brakes

 

I have them also and was wondering do your make Metalic scrathing noise at low speed slowing down?

 

Stock AMG C-series cars _love_ the track. Zero issues if you're taking it easy. Front brakes are the challenge when you start getting aggressive ... not that they'll normally fail you, just that you'll eat pads and (with good, non-gassing pads), after 5-8 aggressive laps, you may get some pedal sponginess, depending upon the quality/temp-range of your brake fluid. Engine/transmission heat management is typically stellar and normally surpasses the brakes when running on hot days.

While not like track tires, PS4S and even PSS tires are pretty amazing for street tires. If it's your first time with the GT/S on the track, it's unlikely that you'll reach their limits unless you're a very experienced driver (or just a little too "crazy"). #;-))