lovnlife

I have a '07 E550, rear brakes are near the end of their life, I'm tired of the brake dust. Any recommendations on good ceramic pads? Should the rotors be replaced at that time?

sosh

You will eat rotors with them. Possible squealing also. I suggest you stay with the proven OEM stuff and just clean your wheels

werewolf34

Stay OEM. The dust is a pain but the bite is awesome

Vik888

I think my detailer waxes my wheels and it makes them easy to clean between details.

health services

You guys put down the hookah.



Many if not all of the current ceramic pads, are great. Mercedes pads/rotors never really lasted much more than one set of rotors anyway.

However I just put a second set of ceramic pads on my SIL's E320 and they did not need the rotors replace! Anyone looking for a set of used front rotors and new rear rotors (both cross drilled) and local should buy the extra set I have. This car had 'Posi Quiets' (cheap) without any problems.

I'm about to put new pads on my E500 and thinking of Akebono again.

With stock pads you would be lucky to make it 10 stops without noticing the brake dust, with ceramics you can go literally days!

sosh

I have used MB OEM pads on all 9 of the MB's I have owned. In all cases I have gotten 2 and in some cases 3 sets of pads to one set of rotors. Remember the harder the pads the more life you will get out of the pads and with less dust. However rotor wear, noise will increase with a lower coefficient of friction that will in most cases lessen breaking effectivness. If as you say the aftermarket pads are so great why must you even tink about using anything else???

health services

I don't, and I won’t. I will always buy a good aftermarket ceramic for my cars. Maybe not in the past, but I'm not living in 1980 anymore either. Everyone knows what the OEMs are like they have them on the car originally if they bought their car new.

Any advantages to aftermarket pads?

• More grab?
Debatable, but yes, and I like it like that and after a couple days most people don’t notice the additional braking.

• Less dust?
Definitely and this was the number one reason for me changing.

• More noise?
Nope never, but I heard that some people who puzzyfoot around in the cars too much tend to hear some noise, this is true with the factory pads to a lesser extent too. You just have to get the brakes hot once and you don't have to worry about it for a couple thousand miles again.


The The PosiQuiets are a little cheaper than I would normally go, I don't normally recomend such a cheap ceramic, but they have proven to work well for this E320.

MBZ16V

I've always used OEM before. Then I switched to EBC brakes on our TT and SL, but on the 211 wagon, I recently replaced it with the Posi-quiet Ceramic, and I have not had any of the noise, rotor wear, or less bite, mentioned above, but I did get a lot less dust. I can go for weeks without having to clean the front wheels. The rear wheels are always black as they still have the OEM pads.