Originally Posted by Greg in Oz

The 180E was a uniquely Australian re-badged version of a 190E-1.8. The 180E badge was used to distinguish this "special edition" model from the higher priced and more highly specified 190E-1.8 (and of course 190E-2.0, 190E-2.3 and 190E-2.6 which were all sold in Australia). The 180E marketing strategy and pricing worked well and they sold in good numbers. Surprisingly today the 180E has a resale value comparable to those other W201 models which sold at up to double (or more) the price of the 180E when new.

Now to your brake question. All W201 models shared the same rear brakes with solid rear disc rotors. Even larger model MBs such as the W124 ran solid rear disc rotors and only went to vented rear rotors on the highest performance models. Therefore I would have no concerns as to the capability of the rear brakes.

The 190E-1.8 (180E) ran solid front disc rotors, as did from memory the 190E-2.0. The 190E-2.3 and 190E-2.6 ran vented front rotors which obviously required wider calipers to accommodate the thicker rotors (although the pads were the same size for all types). Only the 16-valve models (which were not officially sold in Australia) gained larger diameter vented front rotors with larger calipers and pads. On the 190E-2.3-16 the front brakes were the same size as those on the W124 300E (with M103 motor). Bigger front brakes still were only used on the 24-valve (M104) and V8 (M119) versions of the W124 (in Australia we never got anything bigger than the M104 in a W124).

If you have concerns as to the capability of your front brakes you could look at fitting those from a 190E-2.3 or 190E-2.6. Those from a 190E-2.3-16 or a W124 would possibly be overkill for the 190E-1.8 (especially those from an M104 or M119 powered W124).

Greg