Saw some chatter on this forum recently about how the very popular Akebono pads don't actually have a hole drilled for the factory brake wear sensor.

If this is true, does someone have a comparison photo of the two pads to show where this hole is located, and it's size?

When I bring my car in to the "not-so-local" dealer for my brake job I'd like to have my Akebono pads prepped in advance (ie. predrill the hole) so that they will be more willing to swap them in place of the dusty OEM ones....

Anyone?


-G

That is NOT true. My Akebonos (front and rear) came with the holes AND the sensors. The rears only have one sensor.

Cool.

I just got a set of front Akebonos from Amazon.com.... guess it's time to pop open the box and take a look, and snap a few photos.


-G

you're gonna love em, I've had mine for about a month now - ZERO brake dust!

Can't agree more. I had never even heard of them until I got my 55 and joined here. Been a Hawk HPS guy for years. Now that I've had my set of Akebonos, I will never go back. NO DUST, and they stop just fine.

Once you put them up I could describe best where the drilled holes need to be. I've been running them on my E55 since 2010, and I didn't realize how dustless they were until we picked up our GLK. 1k miles of brake dust on the E can be had on the glk within 150 miles.

On the E55, there were pre-drilled holes but when I inserted the plastic needle portion of my stock sensor (since they hadn't triggered the message yet) into the hole, the base of the sensor would not fit into the slot on the metallic backing plate of the pad. As a result, I had to drill the new hole right between the existing hole and the metal backing plate but as close to the plate as possible to get a neat fit.
On my brother's cls55, I'm not sure where he got his replacement sensors from but they fit in if memory serves me correctly. Come to think of it, I think he used an older set of my Akebono pads which I had drilled already. Either way, its not too hard once you have a sensor and a pad in hand, it'll be obvious if it will fit without modification.
HTH

never heard of them not having the port for the sensor

Greg,

The holes are there for the sensor. See below.





*Edit 1 - Photos came out small, but rest assured that the sensors have a place to be installed*

*Edit 2- Re-sized photos*