Guys, over the weekend the "check brake pads" light came up on my 2018 C63 S. I took it to the dealer thinking this might cost me 4-500 to handle and given how much I have going on it would be worth it to pay someone to handle it. Keep in mind I have been working on cars since I was a kid, so brake jobs are a total cake walk, this was about time for me.

However, I just got the call from the dealer saying I needed new pads and rotors at a cost....get ready for this....of $1,795.00!!!!! To say I had to pick myself off the floor is an understatement. 1) I am really surprised that I would need new rotors (car has 26K miles) and 2) Even if I did how in the world would this cost nearly 1800? I jumped on FCP Euro and found the following kit:

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mer...230212#fitment

so my questions are 1) Have other people ever heard of such an outrageous price for a brake job 2) is the above linked FCP euro kit the appropriate part for my car? I know I could easily go with zimmerman or a another non-oem brand, but given it is a lease my preference is for OEM parts.

let me know your thoughts.

 

Dealerships will always pretty much insist to change pads and rotors together. Very common practice, because they don't want to be liable if the rotors go below minimum thickness if you just change pads. To know if you really need new rotors, you have to measure their current thickness and make sure they have less than 50% wear, so that there is enough on them for a second set of pads. The minimum thickness is usually stamped on the hat. Generally the rears may last for two sets of pads. I changed my rear pads at 18k miles a few months ago, and shortly after that the fronts were done as well and I replaced them with the Brembo kit from FCP Euro. They are better than OEM and I really love them. Yes, the kit you linked to is the one for the rears. They must have just put this together, because after buying the Brembo kit I inquired if they had a kit for the rears and at that point they didn't but pointed me to the individual parts that are included in this kit now. They must have thought it was a good idea to sell it as a kit. You will always pay a premium at a dealership and buying the parts yourself and install them yourself or have an indy do it will save you some money. Dealership quoted me almost $4000 for a front brake job. I did it for about $1500 all in with the FCP Euro kit and having my indy install it. Car stops and drives much better with the full-floating Brembo rotors than it would have with another set of the OEM rotors. I'm guessing your fronts will need to be replaced soon as well, so below is the link to the Brembo kit. These are the C63 Black Series rotors by the way. BTW, FCP Euro offers free lifetime replacements on every part they sell, so buy these once and you'll get free replacements for as long as you own the car.

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mer...mbo-0004206600

 

Thanks Superswiss for the quick response/confirmation.

I just ordered the FCP Euro kit for the rear. I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend now.

I'm hoping the front lasts a few more months as my lease is up late summer. After that I'm looking into buying a new C63 S, the last of the V8.

 

I assume you are aware that you need to put the rear brakes in service mode to retract the electronic parking brake. You can do it from the workshop menu which you can get to by pressing a combination of buttons on the steering wheel. Don't quite remember the sequence for the PFL but you can find it if you google. I had to show my indy how to do it. They were trying to do it via the OBD port, but it wouldn't work and they weren't aware of the workshop menu.

 

Thanks for the tip I was just googling the procedure and came across a mention about this. appreciate the heads up for sure.

 

So same thing happened to me. My car has 17k miles and is a 2017. My dealership recommended just changing the brake pads this time at a cost of $645 for the rears.

 

My 2017 is on the second set of rear brake pads at 29k miles. Still original rotors. I had the front brake pads and rotors replaced at the same time along with the 30k service. All told that cost me over $3k at the dealership. I think brake jobs on the S model are more costly than the non S model though.

These cars use the rear brakes to control wheel spin so if you drive aggressively you will wear out your rear brakes quickly.

Be glad you don’t have the carbon ceramic brakes.

 

Same for me. I also got a 18' C63S but in coupe form, with ~ 26k miles on it. Last month I went to dealership for fixing something else and they told me the rear brake/disc is about to used up and offered $1600 for replacement.

I was going to wait until any of the lights come up in the dash and find a indie shop to replace them. But they also mentioned about the current thickness of disc being 24.7mm, and the limit was 24.5mm or something. I'm not a hands-on car guy, so do you happen to know anything about this thickness of the disc, like what's the thickness of a new rear disc on our car, and is 24.7mm due for replacement?

 

And if you use features like lane keep/assist, it uses the brakes + steering to keep you in the lane, and that will eat up you brakes (esp the rears) very quickly.

Why? The MB ceramics should practically last you the life if your car if you're not tracking it. They're incredibly durable. And even if you do some insane driving (and braking) and they need replacement, there are a few (2-3) vendors that can actually refurbish them for you at a very reasonable cost. https://www.rebrake.de/en/

 

I just changed my rear discs and pads for less than £200 ($275) on my C63S.

I Bought Brembo rear rotors and Textar pads

The Mercedes pads are made by Textar and have the same Textar code on them (T 4431) and have a friction rating of GG. The ref if you want to buy some is 2516301. They have the same 3m tape on the back as the originals along with screws and spring clips, but I bought mine for less than a 1/3rd of the price I could buy the MB branded version for.

Note that when you look at the original MB pads they say TRW and Textar. This is because the calliper is made by TRW. If you look at MB front pads, they have Brembo and Textar printed on them, this is because the calliper is made by Brembo. Get the idea?

Unfortunately, although the MB front pads are also Textar, Textar do not yet sell them, however they are listed on their website as under development (ref 2445503) so will hopefully be made available soon. I suspect that as part of their manufacturing deal with MB, they are have restrictions imposed on them for a time period.

I am pretty sure that the MB rotors are made by Brembo, but have no real evidence of this. The rotors I bought are ref 09.B879.11 these are coated rotors whilst the MB items are uncoated. The Brembo rotors use pillars and not vanes - Brembo PVT - and comparing the disc internals to the MB disks, they do look the same. Also, I know that Brembo do make the front fully floating option 09.9313.33 for MB so that lends a little bit of weight to my theory.

If you change the pads before the wear sensor makes contact and are gentle removing it, you can reuse it.

The original discs are 26mm think and the wear limit is 24mm. My discs were down to 24mm and my pads had about 5mm left. The discs were original to the car and had covered 36,000 miles and were on the second set of pads, they looked a bit scruffy too, so although I could have left them a bit longer, thought it was time to replace them. I also wanted to get my car ready as I plan on a trip to the 'Ring later this year.

Hope this helps...

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I picked the car up from the dealer yesterday and ordered the full replacement kit (rotors, pads and sensors) from FCP Euro. I plan on doing the work myself tomorrow.

 

Document your experience please! youtube it so I can like and subscribe!! :-D

 

The rear discs are 26mm new and the wear limit is 24mm. Generally, you would get two sets of pads to a rotor so if I was in your position I would replace just the pads and just keep an eye on the rotor wear.

If the have clocked 26k miles already, you could look to replace the rotors along with new pads in 20k miles.

You can buy Textar pads for less than a third of the price of MB branded Textar.

 

Really appreciate that information! It sounds like the dealers were again, exaggerating the conditions.

 

$645 for a set of brake pads? Jesus I hate dealerships

 

I agree, I can buy genuine MB pads for £228 (rebranded Textar) or Textar 2516301 for £60.
These are GG friction rated too.

Changing the pads yourself is so easy, with just a few tools required, or maybe pay an indie to do them with the kit you supply if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself.

 

Just wanted to follow-up on this as I completed the maintenance this past weekend.
1) There are a few videos that talk about the pad maintenance sequence you have to enable in the car. However, I did not find them to be 100% complete, so follow this (2018 car)
sit in car with door shoot
foot off brake, press the start button
change the dash display to the mileage screen
foot off brake, press the start button a 2nd time
press the parking brake release switch on lower left of dash
press the ok and telephone pickup button
then navigate to brake pad replace.

*Note: if you don't disengage the parking brake before you begin you will get a message saying the car is not ready for service or something to that effect.

2) If you are planning to replace the rotors, as soon as you pull the wheel off start soaking the inner hub/axel mating flange with WD40. These get rusted up a bit and tend to "bond" themselves together. I had to use my rubber mallet in addition to WD40 to get the rotor to break free

3) Do yourself a favor, once the rotors are free take a piece of emry cloth or very very fine sandpaper (3K) and clean up the rust off the flange

4) The rear caliper "inner" bolts have to be held in place in order to loosen the bolts themselves. This requires either a very narrow wrench, which your standard craftsman and husky are not, or use a set of small needle nose vice grips. That worked well for me.

5) The rear brake caliper bracket bolts require a fair bit of force to break loose and one of them is a bit hard to get to straight on. I had to use a wrench a rubber mallet on the wrench to get them to break

last thing to note, as others have said you can probably get 2 sets of pads out of a single set of rotors. I checked my rotors and there right at 24.5mm thickness. Since they were close and I had the rotors already I swapped mine out.

I hope this helps.

 

Probably the right thing to do at 24.5mm. I have read conflicting information, one version suggests the wear limit being the thickness at the point at which you put new pads in, or additionally I have read of a wear limit of 24mm and a service limit of something less than that.

My discs were down to 24mm which meant a decent lip plus they looked scruffy having been on the car for 4 years +. The Brembo rotors were not expensive too.

I had to try the brake release procedure a couple of times to get it right, but there’s some interesting stuff like charging voltage in the workshop menu.

I used an open ended spanner on the calliper sliders to hold them whilst undoing the bolts.

With regard the rotors, you don’t have to take off the calliper bracket. It’s mm perfect but with a steady hand they come off. I was fortunate, mine weren’t stuck on at all and after cleaning up the hubs, put a very thin smear of ceratec grease on the hubs, to hopefully make sure they don’t stick in the future.

 

I replaced stock with PLATZ , and love them !!!

 

DWK_c63, good to know on the rotors and the caliper bracket. I did not even think to try and remove the rotor with the bracket still on the car.

 

This kit is for the front

 

reviving an older thread here but i was wondering in your case when you say your rotors went through two sets of pads before replacing, was that only for the rear or both front and rear?

I just got a check brake pad wear warning on my dash after only 25k KMs of changing both pads and rotors all around. upon a visual inspection it looks like the rear brake pads are done. I still ordered Porterfields R4-S for all four corners but really hoping i dont have to change rotors again because brand new rotors after 25k km will be ridiculous.

I remember 25k KMs ago when i changed both pads and rotors, my indy shop mechanic said the rotors looks fine and didnt have to be replaced so hoping its the same case this time too

 

FYI, nearly all more recent AMG rotors (and others) have wear-indicator divots. When a divot disappears (or there's excessive cracking), the rotors should be replaced (always in pairs):