Hi all. I am new here and searched around but did not find the answers to my questions. I have a 2014 e350 with 58,000 miles. A warning light just appeared stating to check the brake pads. However, the car's brakes operate fine.

1)Is this warning simply triggered around this mileage to get me to go swap out the pads or is it really sensing something? I'm really not a fan of the computerized warnings in cars these days as so many of the warnings seem to be sales pitches. I'm also sure the dealership would charge me (likely $100+) to diagnose my brakes.

2)I told the dealership that if the pads needed changing (even if it was only 1 pad) I would just do all 4 pads so I don't have to go back in the near future.

3)The dealership stated that they really don't do just pads...I have to also replace the rotors. I have heard of this predicament before with recent Mercedes vehicles but that just makes every brake job 2x as expensive. Any truth to this replace-the-pads-AND-rotors story? Especially with this being the first brake job.

4)The cost for replacing all 4 pads and rotors is $1500...does that sound right? They also quoted me $750 for just replacing the 4 pads.

5)How far has your e350 gone before it's first brake job? As long as the e350 doesn't have any actual brake problems, I would obviously prefer to drive it another X miles before plunking down $1500 on a brake job. I'm not going to just rush over to the dealer because of a light when nothing feels wrong.

My hope (since the car works fine braking) is that I can delay this work for several months until I actually feel something different with the brakes. It would delay the large bill and would also get me another 2k-8k miles on the old brakes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much in advance!

 

or change them yourself by looking at some of the DIY here for pad replacement. It is a very easy job. No, you don't always need to replace rotors in sync with pads, but MB recommends it. When you get the warning I would replace them. Don't wait or certainly drive another 8,000 miles. You will find that some pads(inboard) will wear faster. You need to inspect them first hand or as Plutoe said get an independent shop to do this for you if you are uncomfortable getting dirty.

 

Any mechanic who attended more than Sunday school should give you actual pad measurements.
Same with rotors.
With modern ceramic pads, I calculated I can make 300,000 miles on pads, but never kept the car for that long. Rotors have always been lifetime item for me.
But different people use brakes differently, so don't take my sample as standard.
Rotors replacements are forced by mechanic as considering price mark up and very small additional job, the job makes them hundreds of dollars for just few minutes of work.

 

Which dealership did you take it to? I'd never do brakes at the dealer, any indy will do it for much less. I did the rears myself, MB just uses Torx bolts, but it's basically the same as any other brake job on any other make. You'd have to measure the brake rotor to see if they need replacing. When they just tell you to replace the rotors without measuring them, they're getting lazy and I'd avoid that shop. I believe MB does have certain metrics which says they should replace the rotors when it's some many MM from minimum thickness. You can usually get away with one pad slap without replacing the rotors. I'd do the brakes now before the pads eat into the rotors and destroy them. I believe the wear sensor is supposed to go off when the pad hits about 25%. But when I did mine, the worse pad was actually the one with the sensor and that was the inside pad, the outside one had much more pad than the inside one.

The brakes have a sensor that gets triggered once it wears away. There's only one for the front and the rear so it's either your front or rears that need replacing. You always do all 4 pads when doing brakes, you just buy the brake pads. I like the Akebono which have less dust. That's the other reason I wouldn't go to the dealer, they'd just put the MB OEM pads on there which creates lots of break dust. Akebono pads online are in the $60-75 range for a set of 4 pads. I'd hesitate to name a price, but because it's just the same a regular brake job, an indy should just charge an hour or two for changing the pads. Not sure if you're keeping up with normal maintenance, but the brake fluid should also be flushed every 2 years and if you're doing pads, now would be a good time do it so I'm guessing anywhere from $100-$200 for labor. Way cheaper than $1500. Call around, any indy garage can do it, there's nothing special about it. They should be using a caliper to measure the thickness of the rotor instead of just automatically telling you that you need new rotors. It's somewhat true on other car brands that make them pretty thin, but MB ones seem to last a bit longer. You can also just order rotors on rockauto.com or any other site, they're usually in the $100 range for each rotor.

 

I called the Mercedes Benz of Danbury, CT. I'm not confident enough to change brake pads/rotors. I don't want to re-enact the Cary Grant scene in North by Northwest. Extra credit if you know what kind of car he's driving.

I called a local shop and they are quoting me just under $800 (before tax) for all pads and rotors. That's a price I expect for a full brake job. Our Hondas and Acuras hovered around $600 for a full job or around $400 for just 4 pads...maybe cheaper but I really don't recall.

To me, taking care of cars has always been about the simple maintenance like regular oil changes, air filters, tire rotations, and brake work every 60-100k depending on what brake work needs to be done. We don't typically keep cars over 100k miles simply because our usage is only about 12k-15k miles a year which would mean we trade our cars in every 7-8 years simply because we would like a newer car or our needs change (kids). Our old cars get top dollar on the street. I'm a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" person so I don't proactively go probing around changing random fluids, fiddling with belts, changing spark plugs, etc. Yes, I'm sure if I kept cars far longer than 100k, those items and things like timing belts and pumps may need to be proactively replaced.

I'll ask about doing the brake fluid flush. Thanks!

 

Your pads have wears sensors in them that are triggering the alarm. It's time to change the pads. Do you know if it's front or rear that's worn out?

On my E550 dealer wanted 875 for front pads and rotors, and 613 for rear pads and rotors. I bought them from Shardul on here for about 800 and installed them myself one morning. It's not that hard of a job.

 

I don't know which pads need replacing...I simply don't have the time to take it to someone and have it checked (and likely not for free) and spend 1-2 hours of my time doing the check and then go back another day for the actual work. I'm just going to replace all 4 pads and 4 rotors for under $800 at a local shop. I will do it within a few hundred miles since a)nothing feels wrong with the brakes and b)I'm replacing pads and rotors so even if there was some minimal damage done within the next ~300 miles, it's all getting replaced anyway. I'm not made of money but I'd rather spend the $800 for pads and rotors vs. $400 for just pads and not have to worry about rotors sometime in the next 1-2 years. My guess is we will sell this car (58k miles now) before it hits 100k miles so this should be our only brake job before selling.

I don't know exactly how pads and rotors work...but my understanding is that even if I replaced pads every single day, eventually the rotors would need to be replaced. Therefore, if all I did was replace pads at my upcoming repair, it's possible (not sure how likely) that my rotors would/could need replacing in 5k or 10k or 20k miles and at that point I may be forced/convinced to ALSO replace the pads, too. Am I right about these thought process?

 

It's likely your fronts. Autopart stores will scan your car for free and tell you what codes they find. That said I changed all 4 corners pads and rotors when mine was due.

Brakes are a critical component, and a failure can be catastrophic. There is 1 sensor in one of the 4 pads in the front, and 1 sensor in one of the 4 pads on the rear. The pads should wear about the same, but sometimes the inside wear faster or slower than the outside (the outside you may be able to see thru your wheels). My point is one pad is at the end of it's life. . . hopefully it's the most worn pad, but there is a good chance (75%) that another pad is more worn.

Since this is likely the only brake job this car will have while you own it getting it done sooner is in your benefit as taking a risk with your brakes to let the next owner have more pad/rotor isn't in your interest. You're paying for it, might as well get the most use out of it.

 

Yes, as I said, I'm going to replace all 4 pads and all 4 rotors soon. Not 5 miles from now...more like 100-300 miles (mostly highway) from now unless something feels wrong with the brakes. I feel that a lot of these car sensors deliberately give warnings much sooner than they truly need fixing. Again, I'm not going to ignore any weird sounds/vibrations in the upcoming driving, but I don't feel it's right for me to just run out the day after a warning light comes on and plunk down $800 when nothing feels wrong yet a "sensor" is telling me to "check" the pads. People have been driving cars for almost 100 years without brake sensors and had to use common sense figuring out when to go in for brake work.

 

You'd have to call around to see which ones will do a brake check for free, lots of chain stores do it. Typically dealers don't do anything for free but some do offer a basic check for free which would include checking the brakes. All they do is take the wheels off and then they can see how much pad is left. Brakes are pretty simple, especially disc brakes. Drum brakes are more complicated but we have 4 wheel disc brakes. There's 2 pads per rotor so if you didn't know that, it's probably wise to have someone else do it. For me, it only took 1.5 hours to do the rears and that's because I only had hand tools and was doing it in the driveway without a lift. A pad slap just involves jacking the car up, taking off the tires, taking off 2 bolts/glide pins that hold the caliper to the car, taking off the old pads, push the piston back with a C clamp, putting on new pads with the new sensor. $400 is high for just pads unless that's for both front and rear. There's some mark up there on the pads. The E350 pads/rotors are cheaper than the E550. If the rotors are thick enough, you should be fine til the next set of pads. If you're not fine, you'll notice vibrations from the brakes as they'd warp when they're too thin. That's the whole point of getting 2 sets of pads out of one set of rotors. Most other cars make the rotors too thin to even put a second set of pads on them. You're probably fine for 300 miles, as mentioned earlier, sensor goes when you have about 25% pad left, but one of the other 3 could be worse, but not by that much. When all the pad material is gone, you just have metal on metal grinding the rotor and you don't have as much braking as you no longer have any brake pad material. Most people don't let it go that long, they'd notice the noise from braking. Although I've seen some cars on the road where the wheels were covered in rusty metal particles and it made a lot of noise when they were braking.

 

You only have to either the front or the rears. If you've owned since new, it's probably the front. I did the rears when the car had about 100k, the previous owner had done the fronts earlier but didn't do the rears. Each set of pads comes with 4 pads for either the front or rear. There's an inside pad and an outside pad on each rotor. For 300 miles, it's fine, 6-12 months might be pushing it, but they're really gone when it's the metal backing pad of the pad grinding into the rotor. I would either do just the front pads/rotors or the rear. The warning on the dash doesn't tell you whether it's the front or the rear, you'd have to inspect the brakes for that or get a scanner that can read MB specific codes and that might tell you whether it's the front or the rear.

Akebono pads for the front are EUR1342, they're EUR986 for the rear. They're $77 for the fronts and $65 for the rear on Amazon.

 

OP, my dealer quoted me about $1500 for both front and rear. Indy shops have quoted me between $800-1200 plus tax. So for $800 your doing fine. If I had access to a proper lift or jack and other tools, I might give it a go but I don't.

The shop should tell you if only one axle is needed and if the rotors need replacement in addition to the pads, so it could come out less expensive in the end. Any shop that tells you they all should be done without even checking isn't getting my business.

 

There are many makes of rotors, but the specs for the Duralast say they're 32mm new and 30mm is the minimum thickness. I think I recall reading somewhere that said that if MB measures them and sees that they're 30.5 or less, they recommend replacing them even though they're not at minimum thickness yet. So if you go to the shop and they say they're 31, they're probably still good for another set of pads. Any shop that just tells you to replace them without measuring them is just being lazy.

https://www.autozone.com/brakes-and-...733_2708_24848

It's not that hard to do them, there's many articles on how to do them and there's youtube videos out there. Just takes longer with hand tools and doing it in the driveway. Here's a set for the W211, basically the same although the torx sizes might be a little different.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/techart...eplacement.htm

https://www.pelicanparts.com/techart...eplacement.htm

 

To be clear, the dealership told me they replace rotors and pads at the same time and pushed me to do so. *I* was the one requesting all 4 pads and all 4 rotors be replaced since I knew they were going to replace either the Front or Back so my thinking was do just do them all and get them over with rather than require a 2nd trip later. The dealership is not close to home, it's a several-hour job regardless of what they promise on an appointment, and it's hard for me to schedule the time for this kind of time consuming service (again, given the distance to dealership).

I'd rather just do both front and back at the same visit rather than having to go back 3-6 months later. It's going to cost the same but I'm paying for it all in 1 shot. Oddly, Mercedes e350's, in general, prefer to have the rotors done when the pads are done...and that's fine with me albeit more expensive. If this whole work costs ~$800 and I only have to do it every ~60k miles (about 4-5 years for our driving habits), I'm fine with that.

On a side note, by doing 100% everything now, the dealership or indy doesn't have any excuse if I find braking problems days/weeks later...they can't say "well the front are new and the back are old" or "different manufacturers on the front vs. back" or other excuses. They would need to take responsibility of why the car doesn't brake correctly after a complete brake job.

 

It's 8 pads and 4 rotors. Each rotor has 2 pads. You normally go through two sets of front pads for one set of rear pads. If it's just the front, you probably won't be back for a few years before you need the rears. When you brake, most of the weight of the car shifts to the front so it's the front brakes that end up doing most of the work which is why they wear out quicker.

Normally there's no braking problems afterwards. I do them myself all the time and don't really have problems afterwards.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread and you have a lot of misconceptions about how things really work. Take the advice mentioned and save yourself several hundred dollars. Or not, it's your money.

I had an indy replace my pads for $50, bought the pads online and that even included a brake flush. Cost me a little over $100. I was feeling lazy at the time. You could probably call around to see if there are other indy garages near you that can do them, I've seen some advertise $79 brake jobs. Watch the video, it's just a few simple tools, nothing complicated about it at all. Just a little bit more difficult than changing the oil.

 

Yes, I did have some misconceptions about how the pads and rotors work and I mentioned that earlier. I honestly appreciate your help and everyone else's help here. It's cleared up my misconceptions and also given direction on pricing realities.

 

Just a reminder - The failed brake sensor will also have to be replaced.

 

My light brake pad ware light turned on two days ago. my dealer at said there is still a 20% pad lining but local dealer suggested to change brake pads and rotars for both axils. since there is slight vibration while braking at 35 to 45 mph. It was a local repair shop and invoice is attached for reference. i looked up the part numbers and they look genuine any ideas?

Today i decided to change them, i am not sure wether its due to my wheel alignment or wheel balence. But after changing it runs smooth as butter and no vibrations at lower speeds. thank god.

 

Well did you have other work done? Because the parts total is a little under $400. Plus if the sensor didn't go off for the rear, you can reuse the sensor so you go overcharged by $29. That sensor is typically about $5-$10 at an auto parts store. When buying aftermarket pads like Akebono, the front pads come with two brake pad sensors.