Bad day in 190edude's week
 

Friday was a day from hell for my poor MB. First off I was coming off the interstaate and hit the brakes and they went damn near to the floor and the car started vibrating wildly with the brakes even lightly applied. Limped to a shop just down the road and found that the rotors were coming apart and the pads on both sides were completely worn through. Only a small piece of one pad was left.
After spending 400 bucks to have the rotors and pads as well as wear sensors replaced I was on my way.
As I pulled into the hotel parking lot( I am in Virginia on business) I heard a thud and then something started dragging the ground under the car. I stopped, got ouit and looked and the rear mufflers had come off the front hanger and was dragging and diggin into the pavement. I had to back the car into an empty space. Could not find anyone to fix it yesterday so I found a guy who looked like he might have some metal banding in his truck(ends up, he is a plumber) he had plenting of metal banding material. So I tied the front of the muffler up the heat shield and just when I though I was done, the pipe between the the front and rear muffler just fell off.

I bought this car in April and this is the first major problem I have had with this thing. What really ticks me off is that I had this in a shop who will remain nameless less than 2 months ago and was told that the brakes were good and it looked in pretty good shape on the undercarage. I have already blasted that shop on another forum so I won't go into the details here, but just another reason I will not be giving these guys any business in the future. Seems like anything as close to going south should be fairly obious on visual inspection to me. Am I over reacting here. Some of you shop owners chime in. I want to make sure I have the right perspective on this so I don't unfairly stay pissed at someone who I shouldn't.

Rotors coming apart? Did you have wear sensors on the front pads (probably not, eh?

Sounds as if you've been driving on metal for a while up there for brakes. That will warp the rotors terribly.

Pads will last between 20,000 and 30,000 miles, typically, depending on use, less if you drive hard in hilly areas like San Francisco, etc. Light brake use greatly exends the lifetime.

Exhaust failure is usually from the inside out, so the pipes can look OK until just before they collapse.

If you've put less than 5000 miles on the car since being told the brakes were "fine" I'd not bother going back, but they need to be checked each oil change, especially the rears which don't have a wear sensor.

You need to plan the pad change when the wear indicator light start coming on when you touch the brake pedal

Peter

I am curious about the "rotors coming apart" since these are solid and fairly thick metal. I have never seen any come apart. What did they look like? Also, the pedal going to the floor. What is the explanation for that? Just lack of fluid since the cylinders were extended so much? I am thinking maybe the caliper was seized and over heated everything causing the accellerated wear and also this catastrophic condition, and also boiled the fluid causing the pedal to go to the floor? Anyway, I hope they checked out the calipers also or you might be headed down the same road. With no lining left, you were metal on metal and didn't notice any strange noise on braking? Loud radio? I make it a habit to turn the radio off once in a while to listen for any strange noises (maybe once a month). The country music will wait for me.

Mike

I had noticed a slight rythmic thumping a day or two before, but nothing like what you would expect when something like that happens.

As for rotors, cracked would be a better word I guess.

I am very surprised that two months prior to this occuring, a workshop could have inspected either the brakes or the exhaust system and not determined that replacement was in order. What amount and type of use has the car had since that inspection?

I am also puzzled by your signature. There never was a 190E 2.6 Cosworth. The only Cosworth (which refers to the Cosworth 16 valve cylinder head fitted to the 4 cylinder M102 Mercedes engine) was the 2.3-16 and that was discontinued prior to 1989. The subsequent 2.5-16 (which was available in '89) used a Mercedes 16 valve cylinder head. The 190E 2.6 was a Mercedes 12 valve 6 cylinder engine that Cosworth had nothing to do with.

Hello,
There is an outfit called BEKKERS that sell *stroker* kits to increase the CCs on the 16valve engines........I think they have a website.