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I changed the brakes the brakes on my 2012 E550 last week. Thanks to Shardul for the parts, definitely a top notch vendor. I got Zimmerman coated rotors on the front and brembo rotors on rear with Hudson ceramic pads all around. Although my indicator light wasn't on my fronts pads had 20% life left and the rotors has some grooves, the car had a slight vibration with light braking. Of course the dealer had been telling me for over a year I needed to change the fronts. The rears had less than half life left and I could have probalby held off, but wanted everything new.
I'm somewhat mechanically inclined but this was my first time doing a brake job. I watched a few youtube videos, read the a couple tech bulletins, and even though the examples weren't the exact brakes I had I felt I could get the job done - and I did. Total I spent probably 5 hours doing the whole thing, but could get it done in half that time now that I've done it and learned a few lessons. The fronts were easier than the rear. The rear were mostly difficult due to a stabilizer link from the suspension obscuring the bottom bolt holding the carrier bracket on, and the bolt being very tightly secured. The rear passenger was particularly difficult since the suspension would move up as I wrenched on the bolt. I ended up using a second jack to push the wrench up and eventually got it off.
Here are some pics of my old rotors. The rears weren't in that bad of condition. The fronts however - the side of the front rotors I could see had some minor grooves, but the inside were grooved and had a ton of pad material stuck to them, making serious grooves. What causes this? .
I bedded the pads by driving around for 15 min doing some harder than normal braking on my way to the interstate, and then did 90-40 MPH full force braking ~8 times and some 70-30 full force down a big hill. I avoided fully stopping and when I had to engaged the parking break to avoid pad contact with the rotor. I parked the car for about an hour (I could definitely smell the brakes). The coating was fully removed from the front although I was a bit concerned it was plugging the cross drilled holes. After 4 days with the new brakes I'm pleased with the results. Much smoother than before. Saved over $850 from what the dealer was charging for the job. Only negative is that the emergency brake requires a little more effort to engage.
Even though a 350, I also found a lot of pad debris in the drilled rotors. Wondered if the softer pads get scoured at the holes and leave stuff in there. The caliper pistons are back there too and maybe as time goes by they may not retract enough? Net result is the rotors get useless for any gains from the holes. Completely plugged.
For me I have no use for cross drilled rotors for my driving needs. I replaced them with solid blanks in my case.
Zimmerman are oem rotors , i had 2 pair but they still were giving me headaches aftet maybe a month , so i went with after market rotors , With not so great impression about zimmerman. Been over a year now and all is well.
great job on doing your first brake job...and happy braking lol
After scouring through many threads on how bad the OEM brakes are on the E550, I decided on the Centrc Premium rotors part 128.35118 on the front with Centric ceramic pads part 301.16340
I found that the Centric Premium rotors are the same part (number and everything) as the Stoptech drilled rotors, but quite a bit cheaper.
My existing front brakes were OEM and had LOTS of meat left on the Brembo pads when I removed them. The rotors were definitely warped and causing a front-back pulsing sensation when stopping, not so much vibration in the steering wheel as one would expect. I've only put about 12K miles on the car, and the front brakes looked basically new when I bought it. The Centric replacement parts are running super smooth, as they should be, for a couple of months now. I'm very happy with them. Hopefully the last much longer than the junk OEM rotors. I paid less than $250 for the full front set of rotors and pads. About 2 hours in the driveway to replace them, taking my time to clean the hubs, inside of wheels, and grease everything.
On the rear I used parts from Advance Auto, standard rotors and top level pads, because I had some store credits and discounts, it was very cheap. I knew the standard rotors would rust on the non-contact areas, but now I wish I would have just paid the extra to have the Centric premium rotors with black E-coating. It looks nice up front. The front pads listed for my E550 4matic at Advance Auto were completely wrong. They don't sell a compatible pad or rotor for the front.
Has anyone ever seen rotors with buildup like this?
That is a first for me. I have never seen rotors gummed up like this. It makes you wonder what other issues are happening here and how this car was able to stop.
Was the wear of the "inside" front pads the same as the outside? It is almost as if the interior caliper pistons were not working at all and the inside pads were simply along for the ride. The outside pads were doing all of the work and the dust from those pads were being deposited on a very hot rotor(inside surface) and being fused. I would make sure everything is working properly before counting too much on this new brake job. Something is not right here.
After scouring through many threads on how bad the OEM brakes are on the E550, I decided on the Centrc Premium rotors part 128.35118 on the front with Centric ceramic pads part 301.16340
I found that the Centric Premium rotors are the same part (number and everything) as the Stoptech drilled rotors, but quite a bit cheaper.
My existing front brakes were OEM and had LOTS of meat left on the Brembo pads when I removed them. The rotors were definitely warped and causing a front-back pulsing sensation when stopping, not so much vibration in the steering wheel as one would expect. I've only put about 12K miles on the car, and the front brakes looked basically new when I bought it. The Centric replacement parts are running super smooth, as they should be, for a couple of months now. I'm very happy with them. Hopefully the last much longer than the junk OEM rotors. I paid less than $250 for the full front set of rotors and pads. About 2 hours in the driveway to replace them, taking my time to clean the hubs, inside of wheels, and grease everything.
On the rear I used parts from Advance Auto, standard rotors and top level pads, because I had some store credits and discounts, it was very cheap. I knew the standard rotors would rust on the non-contact areas, but now I wish I would have just paid the extra to have the Centric premium rotors with black E-coating. It looks nice up front. The front pads listed for my E550 4matic at Advance Auto were completely wrong. They don't sell a compatible pad or rotor for the front.
ahaha im in the same boat about getting the centric premium rotors for the rear too , because that rust looks hideous. So im gonna buy some black (possibly matt instead of glossy) and paint it , i dont feel like taking apart the whole thing , so i will just mask it out as good as i can.
also got centric premium rotors in front , and for the price/quality defintely a good buy.
rediesel. Could you post the resources you used when getting ready to do this job. I'm in a similar boat, somewhat mechanically inclined but not experienced and I'd like to do this job myself too.
Issues with the front brakes on these cars is well documented on this site and others. I drive my 550 somewhat aggressively and I couldn't get through 5 or 6 months without the brakes starting to pulse. Lightly first then progressing to intolerable within 2 to 3 months.
I tried OE rotors and pads, after market rotors and OE pads, OE rotors and aftermarket ceramic pads, all with the same results. The latest combination is the above mentioned Centric premium rotors, and a set of semi metallic pads from Chrome Brakes (http://chromebrakes.com).
About 7 or 8 months now and it appears I figured out the secret sauce. I doubt the rotors are adding much here, it's all about the semi metallic pads it think; the combination of material compound and the metallic bits evidently is leaving no pad material stuck to the rotor. Brake dust is a little more than ceramic pads but still less than the OE pads. After about 8K miles there is almost no wear of the rotors and, more importantly to me, zero hint of brake pulsing.
Just wondering if any of you experiencing brake warp issues are checking the lug torque regularly, or after any service? I think my issues really ramped up after I had the tires replaced. I doubt the monkeys working at Discount Tire are torquing the lugs to spec, and I didn't think to check it at the time. I will definitely be checking the lug torque specs before I roll off any service lot in the future.
I certainly did. Except for one brake job that the dealer did under warranty (still don't know why they agreed to do it) I've done the other 3, and was very methodical with correctly torqueing the lugs.
I didn't have any issue with stopping before this job, and had very minor vibrations. I was amazed at how much crud accumulated on the inside of the front rotors. There was pretty even pad wear inside vs outside, the inside might have been a little more worn, but not much. I'm not sure if I didn't use the brakes hard frequently enough, if the heat shield on the inside is contributing, or if I somehow did this washing my car when the brakes were too hot. None of my car enthusiast friends have seen this much buildup before.
Car has been braking fine since the job. I'm a bit more aggressive in my braking since.
Originally Posted by Jabberwock
what's the OD on the front rotors? I'm seeing numbers from 330mm to 360mm. Thanks
My 2012 E550 had 360mm front rotors. I didn't know what parts I had which was why I had Shardul run my vin to get the correct pads and rotors.
LONG TERM UPDATE. Looks like I got well over 5 years and around 50-60k miles out of these pads and front rotors. I'm not sure of exact milage I'm at 103.5k now.
Pads were shot front and rear along with front rotors.
10-23-2017 | 10:32 AM
