E550 Brakes and Rotors -- Front and Back
 

What is the reasonable cost to replace front and rear brake pads and rotors at a MB dealer and at a non-dealer?

Me, too.

I was just quoted $775 for front axle and $725 for rear axle from a local dealer for MB OEM pads and rotors. Based on reading issues here and my own experience, I don't plan on going OEM for pads and rotors. Front rotors on E550 are susceptible to warping and brake dust is excessive. I plan to shop around but haven't gotten a chance yet.

I had an estimate of about $1000ish for the front rotors and pads.

I've replaced my fronts (rotors and pads) myself, parts were around 300$ (Brembo rotors and pads - since the calipers are Brembos too on the E550). Rears were around 275$ in parts for Brembos from Autozone. Add at least 2 hours of labor and that's your total. At a local shop, it shouldn't go over 800$ for all four corners. Also, don't use MB rotors because as others have stated here, they will go bad in less than 10k miles. When I bought my car it had 4k miles on the brand new rotors and pads which were replaced at MB of St Louis and they already had the brake shudder issue.

Have not done my E350 yet but just finished my Audi TT
 

Went non-OEM with EBC Red Stuff pads and EBC rotors. Very pleased with the dramatic increase in initial bite and after about 500 miles they are virtually dust free. No noise either. I shopped for EBC parts on several web sites and found the best prices on Amazon. However, the EBC site says they match Amazon prices so you are sure you will get genuine parts so that is what I did. Also, check out the EBC site for their package deals of pads and rotors which are significantly cheaper than buying pads and rotors separately. Heard a lot of good things about Brembo too but EBC was less expensive.

Oda - i am also in need to change my rotors, are the brembos stock on the e550s? I also have a 14 e550.

thanks,

Rotors for me are 1/2 million miles item, so even when I buy high-mileage car, I measure them. Even at 160k miles the measurement show the rotors had more than 60% of wearable thickness, so I grind the lips and keep using them.
When I took my W212 to dealer for sensor coding, without asking they presented me with $5200 estimate for recommended jobs, what include $720 for new pads. I measured the pads to have 6mm, or over 60% of meat on them.

The Brembo calipers are stock (on the pre facelift versions, 2009 - 2013), I think the rotors are Zimmerman (not 100% sure though). You can check by taking one of the front wheels off, the Brembo logo should be stamped on the caliper somewhere.
To be honest, I can't vouch for the Brembo rotors just yet, since they haven't been on the car for that long ( around 4k miles) and I'll have to look into them shuddering again. I recently went on a longer trip (2k miles) to the east coast and I think the shudder might be back ( either that or the roads, usually freeway exit ramps, were so uneven that the steering wheel would shake visibly when lightly braking between 60-35mph). I'll report back after more research and tests. At least I have a 2 year warranty on the rotors and pads, which is nice :hammer:

That is good that you have warranty, please keep us updated as I want to change my rotors by spring time. I bought the oem pads a few months back so now they are sitting in my house. I just need rotors.

Other threads have mentioned good results with Akebono pads and Centric rotors.

i m on Centric Posi Ceramic pads...

All i can say its amazing.....no visible brake dust.
It screams only from cold start, after that its super quiet on the road.

But i m not sure what rotors i am on, probably stock.

I'm most concerned about noise. Are you in a cold weather winter area? Here in WI it's 0*F and my stock pads squeel in the cold.

Mine squeak too, it was around 19F when I started noticing it (Brembo rotors and pads). Initially I thought I might have installed something wrong, but now I think it's happening because I used the cheapo brake lube from Autozone, the one that comes in a small packet. I'll use the Mercedes OE one next time, it's only 20$ for the 100g tube.

Update:
Front Brembo rotors and pads are not a suitable replacement for the W212 E550 since they start shaking again after awhile, in my case it was around 4k miles. We had to drive today and I could definitely feel and see the steering wheel shake under light braking, the worst feeling would be around 40 to 30 mph. I've also looked at the rotors themselves and there seems to be some sort of heat related little dots on their surface .I will be returning them to Autozone and try and figure out what to get next.

I think that's going to be my next stop. I saw that they have cross drilled (OE style) and plain rotors. Also, on summit racing, the vented Centric rotors go for 103$ and on Carid they are 43$, that seems a little weird. Is Carid.com a reliable outfit?
At this point I'm a little concerned with drilled rotors since they tend to create grooving more easily and that leads to uneven pad pressure which leads deposits and eventually to steering wheel shudder, but at the same time I don't want to upset the look of the OE cross drilled rotors. Which one would you recommend?

Well,... how do you know you need new rotors in first place?
As I indicated above, mechanic routinely lie about it as rotors for them is heavy customer milking, while not much work added to pads replacement alone.
Each rotor by the law - has min thickness stamped on it. Invest 5 bucks in the tool and you will know the truth.

https://cdn.miniphysics.com/wp-conte...micrometer.jpg

I'm pretty sure that's the issue because that was the issue last time too. In September or October I replaced the OEM rotors and pads (they only had 8k miles on them) and the problem was gone until a few days ago ( around 4k miles on the new ones that I put in) when it came back. Even if there is runout, there's nothing I can do about it but to replace them anyway. I was hoping Brembo would do a better job than whatever MB uses as OE.
There's no money to be milked here, I'm doing the job myself, always have. I don't trust other mechanics, I've seem them work

I went back via your replies here and you have strange problems.
Once again, I sold 300k miles cars and even junk couple of cars with factory rotors on them, so for me -rotors lasting for 4k means something else is wrong.
You concluded brake noise becouse of cheap grease.
For last 8 years I installed several brake pads with no grease at all and they are quiet. I figured out making clean job is crucial and it works for me. No grease needed.

I concur with your assessment, they are strange problems which shouldn't happen in the first place. I've been doing some reading of older posts too and apparently I'm not the only one with these kind of issues. I wish MBs were built like they were back in the day, when you could run a set of rotors for the life of the car, but that's not the case anymore. Apart from working in a controlled air environment, I think I've ticked all the proper workmanship boxes, but then again I can't argue against not making any mistakes while putting these pads and rotors together ( if that's what you are trying to suggest). I guess I'm no better than the MB techs who installed them last year, or, there's an issue with certain brake hardware manufacturers and/or the design of these rotors and pads ( why do they keep popping up mainly on the E550s?).
Also brake noise happens only when the car is slowing to a stop and only under very light braking in the cold weather ( it's been below 20s here lately).

On my 2011 E550. About 5yrs ago I replaced front brakes once it start shuddering at 35k miles. I used Stoptech drill rotors by Centric and AutoZone Duralast Cmax ceramic pads. I have drove it for 50k miles problem free. The original pads which I notice was Akebono had cracks in them when I remove them. I believe MB change rotor supplier because parts number did change few yrs ago

Uh no
 

Surprise - I'm in Vegas. Research I've done on EBC Red Stuff is no squeal anywhere in the US but you will likely get squeal with their Yellow Stuff pads that are more track oriented.

Lots of good pads out there
 

My son went with Akebono recently at an indy shop on his BMW but ran into an issue that the pads did not have wear sensors. So he had to find wear sensors that the shop then installed for free.