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Here in the UK, my 2003 S600TT was factory fitted with the AMG 8-piston calipers and large brake rotors, like the V8 Kompressor cars have. The pedal is disappointingly soft, but they're great looking brakes.
The front rotors measure 360x26, and the rear 330x26mm. They're suitably heavy, and used to be expensive. However, lots of aftermarket companies are in the game, and competition is bringing the price down. The S65 brakes are still exorbitant, but for 55 & 600 owners, its really not bad now.
I changed the front rotors on my silver car three years ago, and decided to save some money by buying Mintex rotors and pads. Sadly, I've had a minor brake vibration ever since then, so presumed I had to learn the lesson for being cheap. I did wonder how hard can it be to turn some brakes without excessive run-out. Its not rocket science, and the problem really ought to be solved.
More recently, I took the brakes apart again, and started looking for the cause of the wobble. I cleaned up all the mating flanges of the hubs and rotors. I'm usually pretty careful when fitting brakes, but this time I really went to ground on cleaning everything, and rather than just using a wire brush, I scrubbed everything with a light abrasive paper. There were tiny bits of stubborn rust all over, and only proper abrasive got them off. I wasn't after a smooth finish - I only wanted to remove the rust, not the steel itself. When I finished, it was still dirty, but I could see all the original machining marks on the discs and hubs again.
I re-assembled the brakes, and after settling the pads, I now found that the disc had a uniform drag against the pads, rather than having the disc go tight and loose through every revolution. It felt like I had got rid of the run-out, and the brakes behaved as they should again, with the pads in uniform contact with the disc, through out its revolution.
Out on the road, the high speed wobble that used to greet every brake application was gone, and so too was that little bit of free-play. The brakes now bit at the top of the pedal travel, as they should. Of course, I wished I had got it right first time, but I was pleased to get then right eventually. The lesson learned was that its microscopic layers of rust under the hub that can cause the wobble (and I suppose that would have to apply to the wheels as well).
Having done that, I went ahead and bought the cheapest brakes I could for my black S600, whose front brakes were in terrible condition. I surveyed the market, and settled on APEC DSK2436. They're obviously cheap; the rotors are just turned, and there's no cross-hatch milling to get them flat, and help bed-in the pads. This time I cleaned the hubs properly, so I could see the turning marks all over, and the fitted fine and worked perfectly on the road. Some will argue that you should only use MB or OEM parts, but these only cost 100 pounds, and there's no apparent difference.
These days I don't search for parts by description, as online vendors OFTEN get it wrong. I go the manufacturers online catalogues and search for my car and my spec parts. Unfortunately, even the catalogues can get it wrong, and vendors and buyers are blissfully unaware. You have to find out the specs, and use those to get the part numbers. Then you search for the part numbers, and find a good vendor.
You can buy cheap parts, but you have to do your homework, and you do have to fit them right.
Part two tomorrow.
Nick
Last edited by Welwynnick; 06-22-2016 at 06:15 PM.
Hi Nick,
I replaced my S600 cross drilled front rotors with Zimmermann couple years ago, for a cost of about $200.00 CAN, i.e. about 100 pounds. The only difference to the MB was no plating on the hub surface to prevent the eventual rust there.
Before, I tried to have the old set machined, but that was a mistake, as the cross drilled passages, and, the venting spaces of the rotors remained blocked with rust and scale.
So my take on machining rotors to save money is: don't!
2001 S600 Lorinser Body Kit & W215 Front-End Conversion
Nice read. Thanks again you guys. I'm gathering some info regarding brake parts replacements. I've seen the Zimmerman brakes and I have a question regarding that and good quality aftermarkets vs. OEM. Mind you, mine is 2001 S600 and not sure about the 03 and up models as to how different they are BUT I have seen some pictures of the OEM disc brakes and pictures of the Zimmerman or even the Brembo replacement. But is it me or is there some sort of gray coating on the OEM ones that don't exist on the aftermarket ones? I assume that gray-ish coating is really just on the surface and goes away? Is there a purpose behind them compared to not being on the aftermarket ones? Take for example:
Yeah, some brakes are painted (instead of oiled) to stop corrosion. It means you don't have to clean them before fitting, and it helps keep them looking good. The paint wears off the friction surfaces pretty quickly.
I fitted new rotors and pads to my Ford last month, and they were painted. No issues there.
I'm fitting new pads and rotors to my black S600 tonight. The pad retaining pins are very stubborn!
2001 S600 Lorinser Body Kit & W215 Front-End Conversion
Originally Posted by Welwynnick
Yeah, some brakes are painted (instead of oiled) to stop corrosion. It means you don't have to clean them before fitting, and it helps keep them looking good. The paint wears off the friction surfaces pretty quickly.
I fitted new rotors and pads to my Ford last month, and they were painted. No issues there.
I'm fitting new pads and rotors to my black S600 tonight. The pad retaining pins are very stubborn!
Nick
Cool. Good to know. Let us know how it went and if there were areas which you had to struggle with (like the retaining pins). I plan on replacing the front pads soon and who knows what the conditions of rotors are untill I take pads off. Might do them all together. So I'd like to know the nitty gritty issues to watch out for.
Cool. Good to know. Let us know how it went and if there were areas which you had to struggle with (like the retaining pins).
I spent three hours hammering the pad pins out, so that's a yes.
Aluminium calipers are very light, but they can be a bit of a pain. The pads usually press against steel wear plates, and the aluminium corrodes under the plates, lifting them up, and making it difficult to get the new pads in.
If someone has previously replaced the brakes, but not put thread-lock on the bolts, these can seize. I snapped a big 10mm bolt last year, which was difficult to overcome. Thread-lock is good at protecting the thread, as well as holding it secure. This includes the rotor retaining screws, which are always vulnerable.
In fact, all this makes me think it might be a good idea to put thread lock on the pad retaining pins as well. Anybody ever done that?
Changing rear brakes is tricky because of the parking brakes. You normally have to back off the adjustment of the shoes in order to get the discs off. Then you have to re-set them, which is a bit of a pain. The adjustment nut is difficult to see, but is always diagonally opposite where the brake cable goes into the backing plate.
If the parking brake shoes need replacement, that's a pain too, unless you've got a good tool to pull the two strong return springs in and out of position.
Checking out the condition of the front discs isn't difficult, as half the disc isn't covered. The inside friction surface is always in much worse condition than the outside surface.
The problem is, you can hammer them forever, they just don't want to move.
The trick is to clamp a small vice-grip on, spray with PB, and ROTATE back and forth (whipping or flicking the vice-grip handle) while hammering. Works great for me, the pin breaks loose and then comes out as per normal.
To pin replacement is mandatory, and I would not put any locktite or other on them.
Now onto the subject of the thread. I've never been a fan of cross-drilled discs, as the holes always fill with rust and brake dust, the disc wears unevenly, and they tend to get noisy. However, they're becoming very popular on fast cars. Compulsory, almost. On the W220, it always seemed strange that the fronts were drilled, but not the rears. If its worth it on the front, then its worth it on the rear, and different discs look odd.
I was shopping around for cheap rear discs for my black S600. The old ones weren't in terrible condition, or below minimum thickness, but there was still some slight vibration having fitted new front brakes. I searched for 330 x 26mm brakes for W215 & W220, and found that these brakes appeared to be used on all contemporary Mercedes V8 Kompressor cars. The S65 and CL65 are different.
Last edited by Welwynnick; 06-23-2016 at 03:34 PM.
Here's a shortlist of manufacturers and part numbers I came up with:
Pagid 55783 Delphi BG3880 Mintex MDC2717 Apec DSK3007 TRW DF7349 National NBD1275 Zimmerman 400353500 Borg Beck BBD5782S
Again, some of the manufactuers' web catalogues don't list these discs for the CL/S600, but they're listed for other cars like the S55K. I bought a pair of Apec DSK3007, and the vendor took a lot of persuading that these were the right parts.
Now, the thing about most of these discs is that they're cross-drilled. I never realised that until last week, and it seemed like quite a novelty. I've never had a car with ventilated AND cross-drilled brakes both front and rear before, and I don't recall seeing one before.
Does anyone else have drilled brakes at the rear?
Regards, Nick
Last edited by Welwynnick; 06-23-2016 at 12:31 PM.
The earlier W220 cars have dual-piston calipers with ventilated and drilled disks on the rear. The 2003 - up S430 and S500 cars have smaller rear brakes, with single-piston calipers and solid disks.
Just like you, I found it odd that only the fronts were drilled and the rears were solid on my 05 S500 4matic. So last summer I needed brakes for the rear and decided to go with Drilled StopTech Rotors and Oem Pads. Needless to say, I now have a matching front and rear rotors. Here is a pic of the rears
06-21-2016, 06:31 PM
