jprescott

http://www.autospies.com/article/ind...4&categoryId=1

Sorry 2manytoys, I had to steal your thread title. I love visiting this sore subject every once in a while. Now that I got rid of my E500 for a juiced up VW I can throw a few flames. I always felt SBC was the weak spot of the w211 driving experience. Actually it's my favorite part of not driving it anymore. I do miss most everything else though. I hope to be back with an MB in 2 years when the kinks (and SBC) are worked out of the new S.

KosherBenz

Where did you get this info? Is it proven? where is the documentation? I want to see how you can prove its crap!
:p

AJU_E350

Seriously, this is the first I have read of this. Am I gonna rear end someone if this thing fails?

guitarplayer

I read it as well in Motor Trend, talking about the new 09 Eclass.

CE750

LOL... sounds like you've been hanging out with our Lawyer friend a bit too much!

CE750

On the topic..

I LOVE SBC... I THINK THE TECHNOLOGY IS COOL, THE FEEL IS GREAT, AND THE PERFORMANCE.. Can't say enough about SBC..

Just know that if it fails, you have back up for the fronts via mechanical link.. just stomp hard and it will stop..

HELL ONA HARLEY

Are you serious????? If so, then I read your complaint with my cyber space grain of salt and also, good luck with your new ride..... I love my brakes, but then I can only speak for my own driving experiences....


So lets see here......... Mmmm, rjm, lig and now theres three.....

jprescott

Bouncy, unpredictable and I had to bring mine in for bleeding and software.

CE750

maybe it was a first generation thing... my CDI and E350 brakes are AWESOME! I can't say enough about how great the work.
I can bet you they went out due to cost cutting, nothing more... just like the way the 4-pot brake calipers when out on the newer E350's.. I got lucky with the one I got my mom... had the same brakes as the E500.

ATS

My SBC brakes are AMAZING.. Way better then the brakes in my other cars.

VBlaster_W211

SBC is NOT crap. The brakes on my E Class is way better than most cars I've owned/driven. I am so used to SBC's grip that when I got my Integra (known as RSX in US), the first thing I had to do was to change to a 6-pot brake kit!

The convenience of stepping it once to put the brakes on hold is great, especially in the start/stop traffic lights prone city driving.

GearHead

Just a level set here ...

The SBC system works great and it does a great job braking a 2 ton piece of metal (our beloved W211) .... BUT when it fails, the 'so call' backup system DOES NOT work.

Mine failed 1 month after I had bought my car. The big guy upstairs was looking after my family and myself when the brakes failed. On that fateful day, I had actually visited FletcherJones in Newport Beach for warranty work and I normally would have taken the freeway to go home. But on that particular day, I decided to take a sight seeing drive since I had the family with me. Just left the dealership on Jamboree going towards the harbor area when suddenly my dash lit up like Christmas tree lights. Failure warnings everywhere and no matter how much stomping, the car will NOT slow down. I relied completely on my engine to slow down. Can't believe I still had the sense of mind to engage my gears during that harrowing experience.

To this day, my wife refused to drive my car alone because of this experience.

I hope you guys out there never have to experience what I went thru.

AJU_E350

What about the emergency brake? Isn't that still cable driven? I would think any US car would require a cable driven emergency brake.

vraa

The Jaguar (I have no idea what kind of car.. the S-Class competitor) has an electronic parking brake.

AJU_E350

This is what I found:

http://mira.atalink.co.uk/articles/110

http://www.jaguar.co.uk/uk/en/_glossary/epb_2.htm

Here's a recall notice:
http://www.automotive.com/2004/49/ja...lls/56012.html

I just couldn't imagine an "electronic" emergency brake. I would think an emergency would require "back to the basics"... when all power an electronics fail, the cable still works.

amge63

I thought I heard the SBC was going out as early as the 07 refresh?

Mercedes made an effort to eliminate features the customers didn't appreciate/notice. Part of it was cost cutting, the other part was to simplify the car for more reliability.

sosh

Firs of all who are you to make it "official"?? Secondly my 05 E Class has experienced no SBC problems and I find the brakes excellent. Seeing what you traded down to sounds to me like you have experienced a financial reversal and are using anything to justify your trading down!

Jakpro1

SBC IS CONFIRMED TOAST starting with the summer 07 models starting with the E Class, the model that has had so many problems.

Yes, the SBC was a great system, when she worked. No, I would not have liked to been the one who pressed down on the pedal and had it go soft to the floor with ZERO braking like several on the forum already, including one W211 who PLOWED several cars with only a few thousand on it......as my Progressive big wig brother in law put it, "That lady is gonna get sued harder than about any other person driving on the road today, cause she's driving an Benz....she's a target"

Sorry, I don't like dishing cash out left and right to scumbags who aren't hurt AND some that are.....ALL because I have a new braking system that hasn't worked out all the kinks yet. Get the system down solid and let's try it again, but don't make us human Guinea Pigs for crying out loud.

jprescott

First of all, as an MBworld fanatic you must know by now that we all think we know everything around here. Second of all and most important, I traded up to an Audi A8L (I was afraid to go with a first year S class). Finally, as a fanatic, go do a search and find how dissapointed many of us are with SBC.

GearHead

Mine you, the SBC works great when it is working to stop the 4000lb of W211. But the backup system, may work but it is definitely not adequate in stopping that kind of momentum built on the moving W211.

On that day, zooming down on Jamboree at 40+ mph towards FashionIsland and encountering this, I sincerely didn't feel my backup emergency brake working (while it may be trying to do something). It was when I started shifting my gears into lower speed when I could feel the car slowing down.

Didn't think of stepping on my foot brake but looking back, it would have been a bad idea as I had traffic behind me going down the same slope at high speed. If my parking brake had worked, the braking will be alot abrupt and I may have been rear ended.

I am known as a car nut and used to drive pretty agressively but no longer; especially in my W211. I leave alot of room in front of me whenever I drive.

Therefore, I still think the SBC is still a great system when it works but it has to go. This is more evident when the built-in backup system is inadequate.

I like to keep my W211 for a long time (as I like most of the car) and am willing to pay MB to have the SBC rip out and replace with something more traditional that works all the time.

CE750

Look folks.. it's REAL SIMPLE

SBC is a superior braking system, that costs a lot more than a old fashioned vacuum assist found on most other cars.. BUT The backup system sucks, and THAT should be what we/you all complain about.. SBC itself is IMHO nothing shore of a major selling point for the W211.

lig

You DID tell us to go buy something else j/k

I hated those SBC brakes more than anything else on my E. They worked just fine but they felt terrible and sounded even worse when the system recharged.

I haven't given up completely on M-B - but now the 997 C4S is calling me. I'm trying to resist the urge

Good thing my current goal is to pay off the house - otherwise that looks like the ultimate daily driver/track day/auto-x ride all wrapped up in one car.

HELL ONA HARLEY

No offence lig.... just having fun.

Here is a "neutral" artical about the sysytem and how it works and the various kinds of systems being developed...

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2004/bf110412.htm

B.T.W... My first test drive was in a 03 model and must say it did feel different then my 04... I think the only reason I even noticed it was because I was reading here in this forum for a while and was just to damned educated for my own good.

lig

You know I love you guys... I do like hanging around because this is a lively forum. No offense taken at all.

In the spirit of full disclosure - the '04 E55 I drove had better brake feel than my '03 E320. Not great - but definitely more linear programming.

ruykava

haha, it's strange because after driving my '03, i never got used to any other car's braking system. partly because i had not really driven much before that, and to me, a car that brakes normally means a car that brakes like my E - even the S isn't quite powerful enough for me - got so used to the instant bite of SBC that i don't slow down quickly enough when there's a car in front :p

the only "problem" i've ever had is a squeeking noise when braking - it came about 4 months into ownership and was gone permanently within a week without any work being done - still not sure why though i've read much about others with similar complaints

to me, perhaps it's a good idea to have it gone if only for the small proportion of defects which admittedly have occurred - and a brake failure is much more serious than accelerator failure, unless the backup is equally strong. btw gearhad: you think FJ might have had something to do with it? several failures have been due to botched service jobs.

the brakes on my earlier car once failed: reason? later found that a mouse chewed through the brake lines. there was no warning whatsoever - just completely no brakes. but i survived (to the chagrin of some, i'm sure lol!) =)