squeaking brakes
 

with under 1000 miles on my '04 E55 have noticed the brakes are sqeaking periodically. I know this sometimes happens esp when the car hasnt been drivien for a while an a little rust may develop. But is seems this happens for extended periods. Anyone else have this problem?

Same problem over here. The rust deal... you're talking about the rotor, right? Turns a light brownish color?

I don't know why it squeaks, but a lot of other W211 owners have described the same problem. It squeaks even braking at low, low speeds. A bit out of place for an $80K car. :nix:

Totally agree and yes the "brownish color" on the rotors is what I'm talking about.

Wondering if anyone else has been successful in having the dealer fix this issue or do I just live with it. Pretty embarrassing to pull up in this awesome machine whose brakes squeak like a '76 Nova (Yes I've had one).

I don't know the exact issue, but some people posted and claimed that, on a stretch of open road, start at a high speed and brake hard. They said to repeat this 3 times in total. I can't confirm this, but you can always give it a try. I don't want to risk anything so I don't bother.

Most disc brakes (even MBZ's) will squeak if only driven gently and/or have not been bedded in properly.

Personally,I like rotors that rust...it means that the choice of rotor material is a probably good one.Rotors that stay shiny generally do so because they have enough nickel in the metal to resist corrosion...not a great choice for a friction surface.

Anyone else here remember the early 70's Japanese bike brake rotors that never rusted,but almost needed both hands on the brake lever to work effectively?.

W210 factory rotors/pads are very quiet.

TJC

It sounds like you just have a bit of glazing of the rotor surface from repeated slow speed stops. To remove this, just do some heavy braking about 3 times. This should allow the pad to cut through the glaze and bite down on the metal surface of the rotor again. If you do mostly stop and go driving in the city, the glaze will most likely build up again on you, but it is nothing serious. Hope this helps.

Agree with the recommendation for three or four high speed (70) brake applications to bed in the brakes. Had this problem with my CL. The stops need to be back to back - you're trying to heat up the rotors.

The light brown color is surface corrosion and is normal - I've seen this on all my cars MB and other brands. If you look at the rotors after you wash the car they change color.

I have 3000 miles and have had brake squeaking. As others have said it starts after I have done a lot of slow speed stop and go city driving. It is caused by glaze on the rotors. I have done the 3 or 4 hard stops from 70mph routine and it worked perfectly. No more squeak. It was good for a thousand miles then started to come back. I repeated a couple of hard stops and it was gone again.