Hi all. Nearly new E 53 with the enhanced brakes with the red calipers and it just started making a truly horrific squealing noise when coming to a stop at low speeds. Does not do it if you slam on the brakes. Only seems to do it when you come to a normal, slow, stop. Is this common? Will it go away on its own? It seems to have started after the car sat unused for about 2 weeks. Thanks!

 

It's common. Both of mine have done it, at lower speeds. The squeaking tends to go away when the discs are warmer. I've found bedding them with firmer braking from speed helps to alleviate it.

 

Mine squeak as I'm pulling out of the garage and up to the the stop at the end of my road. I hadn't thought much about it, as it's common for performance brake pads to squeak a bit until they're warmed up. If you're hearing it more that at the very beginning of a drive, it makes me wonder what effect the regenerative brakes are having an effect on letting the physical pads drop below operating temperature.

 

In my second week of owning my E53 I brought it back to the service dept for this. The head tech drove with me (windows open) and said it shouldn't sound like that. Then for 3 days (I have it all on dashcam) they proceeded to drive, adjust, drive, and then test other E53s (I saw them drive them past mine via dashcam) and talk to Germany - all this to eventually determine what others have said above. I'm at about 900 miles now (with some aggressive braking about 10 times inside that) and don't hear much of a peep out of those brakes now. No permanent adjustment was made (Germany told them to reset after their changes). This is how long the performance brakes take to settle in.

 

This sounds like the classic AMG “high-performance brake squeal” + light-use/regen combo, not necessarily a defect.

On the W214 E53, the “enhanced brakes with red calipers” are the AMG high‑performance compound/composite setup (aggressive pad compound + 2‑piece steel/compound rotors) — not carbon‑ceramic rotors. Those pads are built to handle high temps/loads, but the tradeoff is they can be noisy when they’re cold and/or when you’re using very light pedal pressure right as you roll to a stop.

Two things make it worse on the E53:
1) It’s a plug‑in hybrid, so a lot of normal decel is handled by recuperation (regen). That means the friction brakes can stay cooler and see less “work.”
2) If the car is driven gently, the pad/rotor interface can end up with an uneven transfer film or a lightly “glazed” pad surface. That creates frictional vibration (squeal), especially at low speed and light brake pressure.

Mercedes actually has internal guidance acknowledging AMG brakes can make noises under certain operating conditions (speed/brake pressure/temperature/humidity). So some level of squeal can be a “characteristic,” not automatically a failure.

What usually helps:
- Make sure it’s not something physical (small stone, bent dust shield, etc.)
- Re-bed / deglaze them: in a safe, empty area do a series of medium‑firm decels (NOT panic stops / not ABS), then drive a few minutes with minimal braking to cool. This re-establishes an even transfer layer.
- Avoid sitting stopped with hard pedal pressure immediately after heavy braking (can imprint material and worsen noise).

If it’s truly “horrific,” persists when fully warm, or you feel vibration/pulsation, have the dealer inspect. There are specific dealer-level fixes (pad chamfer/contact-point treatment + formal bedding procedure) if it’s beyond normal.

 

No break noise what so ever on my E53 sedan. I do a lot of highway and I wonder if that helps reduce this as I break from high speed most of the time.

 

are you somewhere cold?

 

Kansas City.

 

I have not experienced any brake squealing after 22K miles with base W214 E53 brakes (silver calipers).

 

I'm taking mine in next week for it's one year service. I have 8,000 miles on it and my brakes have been screaming since day one! It's embarrassing when people look whose brakes are screaming and they see a gorgeous car, expecting to see something much different

 

had same thing happen yesterday lol.

 

I have the Dynamics package with AMG brake squeal. The car has about 500 miles on the car. I first noticed it in the recent cold weather and when slowly coming to a stop.

There is a TSB which says the solution is to apply heaving braking just below the threshold of ABS. My car hasn't passed the break-in period yet so I'm going to wait before getting some speed and doing some threshold braking.

Now when we come to a stop, my whole family makes the noise, "SQWEEEEEEEEEEK!" Then we all ask ourselves if that was annoying. It takes the edge off if you make a game of AMG brake squeal. In addition, multiple humans saying "SQWEEEEEEK!" loudly in unison drowns out the much more grading actual AMG brake squeal.

 

Thanks for the write-up.

Is the formal bedding procedure doing threshold braking just below ABS kick-in? I think "panic stops" below ABS kick-in is one officially approved method the service technicians are given to fix the issue. My local sales manager says he has gone on a few of those rides.

 

I don't know if it's "formal" but yes, 3-5 hard stops just under ABS from 50-55 to stop, then driving gently for 10 minutes to let them cool is how i've bedded performance/race compound brake pads for 30 years. It works.

 

Our 212 AMG did this too when cold.

When I hear brake squeal on a nice car I think "oh somebody actually has performance pads in their performance car"

Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of people who only brake hard when they look up from their phone too late

 

Once it warmed up to 30 degrees my brake squeal went away. They were squealing away at 9 degrees F.