Rebuilding your calipers is much cheaper than buying new ones. The caliper repair kit is not expensive at all...maybe $25. What brand rotors and pads do you have right now? Are your pads wearing evenly?

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1989 300CE Astralsilber/Schwarz
1992 300CE Schwarz/Schwarz

Pads are wearing perfectly even. Not sure what brand of rotors & pads are on the car (I didn't install them).

I'm thinking of skipping the pads since there is so much life left. Am I going to cause any problems by just installing new rotors (and hoses while I'm in there!) Not sure I want to buy pads & sensors when the existing ones are perfectly fine for many more miles.

Any thoughts on doing rotors only?

Thanks!
Neal

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'83 300SD 335,000km (207k) mi SOLD
'87 560SL 163,000km (101k mi) SOLD
'86 300SDL 356,000km (220k mi) SOLD
'92 500SEL 250,000km (155k mi) SOLD
'90 300SL 140,000km (87k mi) SOLD
'01 S430 260,000km (161k mi) SOLD
'03 SL500 167,000km (104k mi) SOLD
'07 S550 4MATIC 235,000km (146k mi) SOLD
'07 GL320 CDI 4MATIC 348,000km (215k mi)
'13 GL350 BlueTec 4MATIC 170,000km (105k mi)
'14 SL550 72,000km (43k mi)

Check the rears, too!

Make SURE they are warped before replacing, as bad rear rotors are both more likely and will cause the exact same "warped rotor" feel.

I'd not bother to keep the old pads, as they could very well be the cause, although driving style may have more to do with it. You can re-use the sensors if the wires will coil back up.

In the future, avoid near panic stops from high speed coming to a complete stop and standing there with the brakes applied -- the heat will not dissipate from the area under the pads, and pad material will then stick to the rotor, causing it to wear less than were there is no pad material.

Leaving them too thin will make this much worse, that's why I suggest looking at the rear brakes -- they get neglected much more than the fronts.

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

American manufacturers tended to use enormous rotors in the early days, assuming that they would last the life of the car. Monsters, most of them, with cast hub (not separable like the Benz or BMW/Volvo, etc). Very thick, so there was lots of metal to turn them flat again, and the pads used at the time didn't wear them like the semimetallics Benz uses do.

Much heavier and much more expensive -- I've seen them cost upwards of $100 and that was twenty years ago.....

European makes always used "disposable" rotors to keep the unsprung weight down, something of very little concern to Detroit in the 60's and 70's when American iron still handled like a wounded whale.

That changed, and they are all simlar today.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

I think the number one cause is the insulating property of the pad against the rotor when stopped with hot rotors. Everything that is not under the pads is going to cool off quicker. If you are really anal about it, you could always leave a little room to roll forward a bit after hard braking.

low mileage for an 87. was it in storage for some years before you bought it?

i ask this because benz had a real problem with rotor warping when they switched over to asbestos-free pads. if my recollection serves me well, this problem occurred in the mid-90's.

i know that my 1986 560sel warped 2 sets of rotors in months. now, i am a fast driver and hard braker, but i had never warped a rotor before. when i warped the 3rd set and took it back to the dealer, the service mgr told me that the problem was with the asbestos-free brake pads...that benz was suddenly seeing a deluge of warped rotors.

all i know is that all the expenses of my rotor replacements were refunded, new rotors were installed gratis, and asbestos-bearing pads were installed.

never had another warped rotor.

if i remember correctly, benz even devised a special device for asbestos-bearing pad replacement so that any asbestos was confined and collected, not exposing the mechanic.

on the other hand, all of this might have been a deceptive explanation. benz might just have been supplied a lot of defective rotors.

others out there might know that story better than i do.

all i know is this, i acquired a 1987 560sec from a widow in 2000. with all of its service records. it only had 42,000 miles. everything about it was as if it had just been delivered by manhattan benz. original battery. original brake pads. original rotors. it was a time warp car. the only thing unoriginal about it was the first vintage cell phone that had been installed in the center console and the antenna that was fitted to the right rear[imagine, the cutting of a hole was countenanced].

i mention this because if you acquired your car where problemmatic pads were installed, and then the car wasn't used very often afterwards, you might have acquired a problem that was solved years ago.

just a thought.

Did anyone read the link in post #3? That is pretty interesting. He claims there is no such thing as a warped rotor. He does seem to be pushing a particular brand of rotor machine at the end so I'm not sure if there is any truth to what he says. Comments anyone?

Mike

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra