I don't want to overpay for a brake job. My car finally hit 28K miles and is about due for rotors and pads. Anyone in WA know how to change brakes? I'm open to paying someone to teach me how to do it :-) I've always wanted to try this but having never done it, worried I might mess up. It seems pretty straight forward getting the pads and rotors out, but I'm not sure about bleeding the brakes etc

Btw. For those who did at dealer, how much did you pay for a full brake job? (pads, rotors, all 4 sides)

 

This summer Mercedes wanted $5k for pads and rotors all around. I bought new brembos from FCP Euro and had a friend install with parts and labor for nearly $2k, Watching him do it all it was very straight forward. Pays to shop around!

 

Yep, I saw FCP euro even has lifetime replacement, which was something I'm interested in. I'm looking to keep my car for another 5 years, and I know I will need 2 sets of rotors. I can't see myself paying $10K for two replacement sets. The brakes at $5K works out to $1/6 miles in brake wear. I may almost do ceramic brakes at that price.

Parts is only around $2Kish for the set.. The labor they were charging at dealer is $610 which maybe is reasonable, but the parts they're charging too much for the rotors, high mark up..

If anyone can advise or is willing to help out that would be so helpful.

 

Find an independent shop that will allow you to supply your own parts to avoid mercedes dealer markup

 

I did this job on my '14 wagon on Saturday. How much mechanical experience do you have? There's nothing special about an E63 other than:
1. Getting it in the air, all of my other vehicles either have a good way to jack up and get on stands (exige, E30 M3) or are body on frame (Tacoma). I bought a pair of Jackpoint Jackstands and they worked great, just make sure the lift adapter is in the pocket before you lift and don't forget to chock a wheel.

2. Pretty painted calipers, this means be careful getting the wheel off the hub, use the stud wheel hanger doohickey in the trunk. Be careful how you hang the caliper out of the way.

Other than that the calipers are like any other fixed caliper, open them up in back disconnecting pad wear sensors and bracket if present, push the pistons back, and remove the pads. Then undo the caliper mounting bolts, hang the caliper out of the way taking care not to kink or stretch the brake hose. Remove rotor retaining screw, remove rotor.

Clean up the hub, apply anti seize, install new rotor, reinstall rotor retaining screw.

I used new caliper bolts, I think you'd be ok re-using and applying blue loctite. The WIS says to use new rotor retaining screws, but that seems dumb to me, it only is useful when the wheels are off.

The caliper bolts are fairly high torque, 100 ft-lbs for the rear and 130 ft-lbs for the front if I remember correctly, this can be a pain to achieve with the car on jack stands. The sway bar end links also were in an awkward spot and made accessing one of the caliper bolts a pain at pretty much all four corners.

I managed to loosen the banjo nut on one of the front calipers when taking the caliper bolts off, re-tightened it to 30 nm as per the WIS.

To spread the pistons I cracked the bleeder open and applied my hands or a screw driver to spread. Attach a hose to the bleeder and a container as fluid will come out when the pistons are pushed back. Close bleeder when done.
I spread "brake quiet" on the back of the pads, let it setup up for 10 minutes before I installed the pads. Front pads have pins retaining springs that need to be knocked out with a punch and a bridge tube secured with a 13mm bolt. Rears are pins and spring only.

I also used a Motive pressure bleeder to bleed all four corners as I finished each one.

That being said I did use a full complement of torque wrenches from small in-lbs for the sensor brackets, big in-lbs for the banjo bolt I knocked loose, medium ft-lb for the rear caliper bolts, big ft-lb for the front caliper bolts. One could argue that torque isn't critical on any of these fasteners and "good and tight" is sufficient for the caliper bolts and "snug" adequate for everything else. I also did have to use a longer than usual flex head ratchet to get some of the caliper bolts loose.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have a fair amount of tools on hand and could pull off the job without a run to the tool store. You'll need a Torx T-30 for the rotor retaining screw, an inverted E-torx that I can't remember the size, E-10? E-14? for the sensor brackets. Brake bleeding setup, so either a catch bottle and a 2nd person or a pressure bleeder. 11mm flare nut wrench for the bleeder screws. 19mm and 21mm sockets for the caliper mounting bolts. 13mm socket for the front caliper bridge bolt. Big screwdriver if you have problems pushing back the pistons. An assortment of punches and a small hammer for the retaining pins, I used a bigger punch to give the bridge bolt a tap. Anyways, take your time, have a way to get to the tool store when you get stuck. Don't have the car fall off the jackstands.

It's also a great time to spray wheel cleaner on everything to get the inside of the wheels and the calipers squeaky clean

-chris

 

This is a great write-up but don't be intimidated!
It looks like a lot more work that it actuality is. As Chris states - they are like any other brakes out there. Small comments:

1. Bleeding only necessary if you change brake fluid. No way for air to enter from calipers.
2. You can also just place paper towels in a nice "ring" around the opened brake fluid container to catch over flow, if you don't have a hose to connect (which you usually only have if you have a pressure bleeder). Key thing - opened brake fluid container! If you forget to open it the push back of old pads is very hard to impossible (BTDT).
3. Depending on climate, the rotor retaining screw may be rusted and hard to get a good grip on (which is the recommendation for the new one, agree 100% there would otherwise not be a need for it). If your's is rusty, take the time to clean it with a wirebrush/pick/small screwdriver before trying to undo it. If you make that one rounded it's a pain in the axx to drill out (BTDT). Sole reason for this crew - hold disc in shop while installing wheel - avoiding making it harder to mount wheel - drop wheel - nick pretty caliper - have angry customer. In real life the disc becomes attached to the hub very fast due to thin layer of rust forming (or in some cases just pressure fit due to small tolerances).
4. No need to replace caliper bolts unless they were incredible overtorqued and/or you are going racing. Loctite is a question of preference. Safer, but make removing next time much harder and at 100+ torque values they are not going anywhere. But again - since some people go to local greasemonkey shop where they may have overtorqued and stretched bolts in the past, safe solution is to replace them. If that is not the case, no worries.

All - not a hard job, just a bit dirty and make sure you do have the time.