E350 Premature Brake Wear?
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Newbie
Joined: Feb 2009
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330i
E350 Premature Brake Wear?
I am looking to buy an E350 wagon. On a couple of the CPO models available for sale with low miles (less than 25K-30K), I was surprised to see records on the Carfax indicating that front and/or rear pads and rotors were already replaced. That would seem quite premature to me. Is this common to the E350 (and E500) models? I guess it could also simply be a coincidence of finding 2 wagons with prior heavy brake usage owners. Any thoughts?
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Mar 2006
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From: Louisiana
03 E500 and Corvette
Not a suprise. The wear indicator trips at about those miles on factory pads. They probably played cya on the rotors. My E500 had the same issues and I let the dealer do the work. Then second time I did it and found that when the brake wear sensor ($4.00/part) triggers you have almost 1/2 of the pad left and well above the replace minimum spec by MB. So many are replaced too early IMO.
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E350
I got quoted needing replacement pads and rotors on my 2006 E350 with 25K miles. I was told by the dealer I had 5% left on the front and 10% left on the back. They told me that it would be $650 parts and labor for the front and $650 parts and labor for the rear. Before I stopped laughing, I asked the service manager if he was not even going to use a gun to rob me. It made me even madder when I got home and decided to follow up myself on what they said. I used a micrometer on the rotors and they were all perfect. the Brake pads had 30% left on the front and 50% left on the rear. How many people have they pulled this trick on becuase 90% of mercedes owners do none of their own maintenance.
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,254
Likes: 15
From: Louisiana
03 E500 and Corvette
I got quoted needing replacement pads and rotors on my 2006 E350 with 25K miles. I was told by the dealer I had 5% left on the front and 10% left on the back. They told me that it would be $650 parts and labor for the front and $650 parts and labor for the rear. Before I stopped laughing, I asked the service manager if he was not even going to use a gun to rob me. It made me even madder when I got home and decided to follow up myself on what they said. I used a micrometer on the rotors and they were all perfect. the Brake pads had 30% left on the front and 50% left on the rear. How many people have they pulled this trick on becuase 90% of mercedes owners do none of their own maintenance.
I changed my front pads shortly after the + came on. I also measured the pad thickness. Then based on the mileage to get the + on calculated the theoritical mileage I could get on a set of pads safely. This calculation came in at about 70,000 miles. The dealer however was recommending change at 30,000 miles and the first change I let them do, pads only, $450.
When I do pads and new sensors it is about $70.00 total.
But we have to consider the maintenance frequency. If a person who knows nothing about mechanics gets the car serviced and the + is not on. They drive 5 miles from the dealer and then the + comes on. They can safely drive the full time 13,000 or so miles and not have a brake issue. So perhaps this was designed to insure safety to those who don't know technical babble.
I just put new plugs in my E500 this week. Went back with OE BOSCH plugs I bought at about $4.00 each. The car has 83,000 miles. After changing the plugs I measured the gap on the ones removed. Dead on .040 showing no wear but some black from compustion. So even the plugs will go longer, but I don't feel bad about changing at 83,000 miles eventhough the owners manual claims 5 yrs and mine is over 5 years. Never figured out how years could wear out a plug.
