On our newly acquired 2000 W210 wagon, we're noticing a some pedal surging when coming to a stop. It's not a huge amount, but it is definitely annoying.

In looking through some posts here, warped rotors sound like a leading cause of this. I also read that over torqued wheels could cause this problem, and I'm fairly certain that happened on the vehicle. I just swapped out the rims on the car - reverting to stock - and there was WAY more than 80 ft. lbs. on several of the front wheel lug bots. I didn't measure it, but it took a a pipe extension on a breaker bar to break a few of them free. For whatever reason, the rear wheels seemed fine.

Per the receipts I got with the car, the brakes are almost new - about one year, and less than 5K miles. My guess is, the wheels were re-installed by some gorilla at the time.

Anyway, given that new front rotors are relatively inexpensive, I've no problem replacing them. Which leads to a couple questions...

- Can/should I simply replace the rotors, or should I replace the pads as well? The pads look like new, but I've no idea whether a warped rotor would result in any damage to them.

- Phil sells three different rotor brands, all cost about the same - Brembo, Zimmermann and Balo. Any reason to pick one over the other?

Thanks.