I did search the forum without success (maybe I missed it). I own a 2014 E350 Sport Package. I need to replace the front brake pads and rotors. A couple of clarifying questions.

First - Is there anything Special I need to consider when changing the front pads and rotors (in my search I came across the rear caliper issues on some cars and releasing the parking brake)?
And is it necessary to remove, clean and lubricate the Caliper slide pins and if so what is the recommended lubricant?
And for the brake pads is an anti-squeal brake grease necessary. The dealer said no for OEM (never heard of that)?
In the past I have used ATE Plastilube (for my older Audi. If the caliper slide pins should be lubed can I use that again or is the Permatex 24125 Ceramic Extreme better or something else.

Thank you in advance for the assistance.

 

How did you figure out you need rotors?
What is your car condition?
I live in dry climate, so have no rust on my vehicles and several years I put my brake pads with no lube, no silencer. Just keep it clean and let the Stainless Steel shims do the job.

 

I had to bring it into the dealership for something and they said the pads were near to where the sensor would activate (around 4mm). They said the rotors were glazed - I did not ask the thickness. It was a crazy week and I had a lot going on and on my mind. The front brakes have not been done since we bought the car with about 9000 miles on it (61000 miles now). So this seems reasonable. Car condition is excellent. It is properly and regularly maintained. I like in a dry climate too, Arizona. So you did not remove clean and re-lube the caliper slide pins?

 

WIS for brake replacement is posted multiple times on this site. Search @konigstiger 's posts.

Replace the caliper bolts, they are single use.

 

Will search again. I think I remember seeing that on the bots, just didn't see any info about lubing the inside of the boot.

 

any time you take a floating brake apart to change the pads, you should clean and lube the slider pins with the proper high temp brake grease. Thats just standard operating procedure.

 

Thank you

 

Dealers are know to scam customers for the unnecessary jobs, so I would double check the rotors.
4mm on pads is about 40% of total thickness, but it is recommended to replace ,when it drops to 2 mm.
Still if 5 mm (about) gave you 61k miles, the 2 mm should give you at least 20,000 miles. before you really need new brakes. Worse come to worst, you do have sensors who will pop the light when it become 2 mm.

 

61K miles and you need pads and rotors? Wow

Mine 2014 E350 @92K miles on the original pads and rotors. Rotors look good still, and indy highlighted it may need pads when it comes in for oil change in @5K.

unfortunately it may not make it to 100K exactly.

I would get a 2nd opinion. You maybe leaving more than 20K on the table. For me that is 2 years

 

When someone surfaces the WIS, it will be seen that MB does not specify to lubricate the caliper pins.

 

@kajtek1 @juanmor40 @chassis thank you for the information. I will def take measurements myself. And I will wait until the measurements warranted changing them or if the sensor is activated. As you said no reason to give up potentially that many miles.

 

If you want to save a little money and have excellent results, check out fcpeuro.com.

I’ve got a 2014 sport as well. Went through two sets of MB fronts before the wobble/warp/noise hassle finally pushed me away and into the hands of the attached from them. Has been perfect ever since. Little dust, 0% warp/wobble/noise, and stops on a dime. Fells much better and performs equally well.

I basically converted the front rotors to the normal solid rotors, no drilled. what you see on the “luxury” version of the car instead of the sport. Ceramic instead of semi metallic. Backs are MB originals.

 

x2 on Akebono pads.
I don't drive W212 much, so 5 years into ownership I still drive on pads it come with, but I put Akebono pads on our W210 in the past, when we drove more.
Sold the car with 150,000 on new pads and still over 60% remining.
Calculated pad life would exceed 400,000 miles.
Rotors for me are lifetime item, but I do grind the lips when they become too big.
Rotors do have min thickness stamped on them, although hard to find under corrosion.
Micrometer cost about $20, so easy check for DIYer who knows how to turn lug wrench.

 

@Kajtek and @nc211 will look at those when the time comes. Appreciate the help. As a side note - I do my own work on our older Audi - just now getting into the Mercedes and so I need to learn about it and it's nuances, since I have not had to up to this point.

 

brake wear is *heavily* dependent on how you drive. if you spend your miles on rural highways going long distances, you hardly use your brakes, they will last forever. if you drive moderately aggressively on mountain roads where you're accelerating and braking on every turn, its entirely a different scenario. so is urban surface street driving, where there's a stop every block or two, especially if you're a bit aggressive accelerating and braking (in places like SF, if you're not a bit aggressive, you'll get run around and cut off repeatedly.

 

@Left Coast Geek So true. I have driven the streets of SF many times as well as LA.

 

Some people have hard time to understand the difference.
It become easy to understand the difference in driving habits within my family.
When I was making over 100k miles on brake pads even 25 years ago, my step mom would hardly make 30k on pads.
One time we took family vacations with 2 car and my father, driving with me complain that he could not teach my stepmom easy driving. For some reasons, she pick up the habit of driving with her right foot on the gas pedal and left foot on brake pedal.
She would swear that she is not pushing the brake in normal driving, yet driving behind her I could see brake light coming every minute.
30k miles is satisfying pad wear for most of the people, but when my pads wear before 100k miles, I start checking. ....

 

Some places may still turn rotors for ya. I knkow napa use to but not sure any more with modern society. As long as thickness is still good enough it was cheap to get them turned and end up like new just thinner.

 

Does Sport Package means you get the 4 piston Brembo calipers for front ?

 

Without having looked at them yet I am almost positive that the calipers are not the 4 piston Brembo

 

No Surya, just drilled rotors and Semi-metallic pads instead of solid rotors and ceramic pads, at least on my '12 and '13

 

Thanks MP and Pierre.... got it.

 

This past weekend I replaced the sway bar links on the car. While doing so I checked the brakes (pads and rotors) since as I mentioned in a post above the dealership said they were 4mm. And with the responses I thankfully received here I checked to confirm. Aside from glazing on the rotors which does not seem to affect anything I measured them at the midpoint if the rotor at four different spots around the rotor and they measured between 31.70-31.89 mm. The outside pads were around 8mm (passenger) 6+ (maybe 7mm) drivers side. Question. I could not see a way to measure the inside pads. It seemed the caliper and mounting bracket completely hid them. Is there a way to measure them without removing anything. Hopefully I am not embarrassingly missing something here.

The reason I ask about the inside pads are that after I measured them I called the dealership and complained that I was being told something that was not true. Their response was that the measurement may have been the inside pad. Personally I seriously doubt the inside pad is half the size of the outer pad.

 

Are you trying to tell your friendly SA that his mechanics lie?
Don't you think he knows that 1st hand?

 

It is a requirement I think.