2007 CLK, 22.5k miles - discs & pads front & rear, bit of help please

[AbbieCadabra]

how's everyone's week going? mine's just getting better & better by the day! here's my thread on yesterday & this will be my one for today...*sigh*

the last annual service on the car was Sept 2010, 19,900 miles. on the completed healthcheck sheet the following was recorded for brakes:
all items ticked green
pads (there's 2 handwritten numbers on top of each other so i presume this means front & rear) it's not too clear but i think it says 20%, 20%
discs (2 handwritten numbers again) 20%, 30%.

nothing was mentioned about discs or pads when this service was completed & i'm not even sure i've noticed the little notations until i've checked it again now.

do you think that would mean -
pads 20% remaining front & rear
discs 20% front remaining, 30% rear remaining

if so, shouldn't that be an amber tick & advise me? (ideally, yes, i should have noticed this before now! ).

so, whilst my car is off the road with the other little matter, they've checked it over & told me today that both sets of discs & pads need to be replaced. front are worn & rear are scored (like something has got stuck on it?).

i've just rang up another local franchised dealer that can normally beat them on price & have been quoted - (total prices CLK280 Sport 2007), front £474 & rear £296 how much?! *faints*

while getting a price i asked what he would consider average replacement mileage, front @ 30-35k & rear around 50k. low mileage as ours can actually impact this as there's more of a chance of corrosion.

have i read the healthcheck correctly? should it have been mentioned at the last service? have i got any chance of getting them any cheaper??

thanks guys,
yours, a damsel in deep distress at how much this is all going to cost...

 

[BlackC55]

The percentage is the amount that has worn. You still had 80% left.
I would get a second opinion.

 

[tpwuk]

Do you drive the car hard? 22K miles seems early for new discs methinks.

 

[AbbieCadabra]

The percentage is the amount that has worn. You still had 80% left.
I would get a second opinion.

so what are they going on about then?!

Do you drive the car hard? 22K miles seems early for new discs methinks.

i have the odd moment or two & i'm sure hubby throws it around corners a sight quicker than i normally do, but as i drive it 95% of the time, no, definitely not hard on the brakes at all.

i've emailed 3 more local indies for an idea on price, but i won't be getting anything done until i've had them checked somewhere else (fortunately OH's cousin runs a small garage 20 mins down the M1 so i feel a trip there coming on soon).

 

[DITTRICH]

I am loath to trust garages to correctly suggest when to replace brake discs and brake pads. Over time, the discs get thinner, the thickness being defined as the distance between the faces where the pads rub. There is a minimum thickness which should I believe be stamped on the disc itself. The front discs and pads tend to wear out quicker as they get more use than the rear ones. I have seen comments on the internet which say that discs ought to be replaced for every two sets of pads. My advice is that a second opinion is required. Better still get that person to show you what to look for yourself in future. I used to listen to this sort of BS from garages but now consider that 20% means I have 20% more use to get out of them.

 

[dokalj]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your problems with your 3 year old CLK.

I would just take the wheels off and inspect, if there are big lips on the discs...you may want to consider changing them soon. With regards to the pads, you will be able to tell from a visual inspection if they are gone. Although if the discs are low then you have to change the pads at the same time. (I am sure you knew this)

All dealers are the same, Honda told me the pads were gone on my Jazz. I went home and took the wheels off and they were perfectly fine.

I know Mercs are heavier, on my ML there were some lips. I went down to kwikfit for a free brake inspection and was told the discs are fine and they measured them. I was also told, the pads are okay and they met the brake efficiency test..so all ok...no charge

I hope this helps

dokalj

 

[GordonTarling]

From previous experience, I would expect front discs to last for two sets of pads at least. If the rears are badly scored, that's a different matter, but also down to someone's opinion. Get another opinion before paying out all that money!

 

[rf065]

but i won't be getting anything done until i've had them checked

Time for hubby to get his head under the car & check the wear indicator on CLK discs.

 

[st13phil]

^ Wot Olly said.

Estimating brake pad wear is not a precise science, but even if the last service assessment was overly optimistic and they were 50% worn it's quite an heroic effort to kill the pads in another 2.5k miles - unless, of course, you've been doing track days in it?

FWIW, I'm light on brakes and most of my driving is outside urban areas but at the B service just over a year ago (at 26k miles) the front pads were noted as being 50% worn. At the A service last month (at 39k miles) the front pads were noted as 30% worn. Like I said, a visual check will always be imprecise so I'm not much concerned that the pads are now apparently 20% less worn after another 13k miles. The important thing is that they still have a good deal of life left in them.

Get someone else to give an opinion before authorising any work.

 

[AbbieCadabra]

some great info, thanks for taking time to post

 

[BlackC55]

I have a customer that has made his front pads last 100k.

 

[tagnut]

You should have a pad wear indicator alarm on the dash. This will illuminate when they need changing. As for the discs take a look and see if there is much of a lip at the edge, use a fingernail to see how far down they have gone down. If not much (sorry that isn't very exact is it I don't know what the wear limit is ) then they should be fine. Similarly for scoring on the disc, light scoring is fairly normal, scratches in concentric rings around the disk, but any deep gouges could be a problem.

For the mileage you've done and with not a great deal of hard braking I'd be surprised if either need changing to be honest. If they do it would be far cheaper taking the car to a decent indy than MB.

 

[AbbieCadabra]

i finally received a callback from the service guy yesterday, he's saying -

front - pads are 30% worn, discs have got 3k left in them
rear - discs corroded

so that's all the info i've got, he didn't ask if i wanted to book it in for the work & i just said 'ok' when he told me.

i have had 2 quotes back from local indies now, £558 & £447, so a little better than the £770 initially quoted!

i should be getting the car back today as the gearbox part was being fitted yesterday, so i'll take it to have the brakes checked out next week some time.

 

[ukcodger]

From previous experience, I would expect front discs to last for two sets of pads at least. If the rears are badly scored, that's a different matter, but also down to someone's opinion. Get another opinion before paying out all that money!

I think this is the best advice Abbie.

As most keen DIYers know, discs are not lasting like they did on old cars and we also know that new pad materials cause this.

All the same front discs=2 pad changes must be about right as a rule of thumb on a car in normal use.

Now corrosion (pitting they're probably meaning) is a problem for the low milage driver. Cars like mine get rusty discs by standing outside and not moving for a week at a time. I expect to run into the problem of disc pitting at about year 4 or 5 (like you). Then if (and only if) the brakes are deficient in any way, or if vibration is apparent when braking hard or if the MOT man says NO!, then I'll change 'em. Maybe 30,000 miles upwards before I expect this to start to happen.

Your best advice from what I've read is to put this dealer's advice aside and find a dam good dealer or an impartial independant you can trust.

It sounds like it's all exaggerated to me.

 

[cl55 amg]

I think that still sounds priccy, when I had my front disc&pads done on my cl55 I am sure it was around £180..

 

[ukcodger]

Time for hubby to get his head under the car & check the wear indicator on CLK discs.

This is interesting!

Does this show a slot machined out of the edge? And so if the disc metal starts to erode back inside the slot then a hole appears and then that's the wear indicator precisely defining what's what?

Looks like a fair bit of wear is acceptable if that's how it works.

I've got these then on my W209?

Dave

 

[bing]

i would just wait for the brake wear indicator to come up, 70% is plenty!!

 

[ukcodger]

I think it's the disc wear report that's causing raised eyebrows, not the pads?

 

[renault12ts]

i finally received a callback from the service guy yesterday, he's saying -

front - pads are 30% worn, discs have got 3k left in them
rear - discs corroded

so that's all the info i've got, he didn't ask if i wanted to book it in for the work & i just said 'ok' when he told me.

i have had 2 quotes back from local indies now, £558 & £447, so a little better than the £770 initially quoted!

i should be getting the car back today as the gearbox part was being fitted yesterday, so i'll take it to have the brakes checked out next week some time.

Corroded rear discs? So what. No need to change them.

And 3k left on the fronts discs...are they having a laugh...my big heavy bus still has the original front discs at 100,000 miles.

 

[moosehead]

My C230 V6 petrol with Sport Pack does 40K on a set of front pads and 80K for the dics. Interestingly the rears go 80K for both pads and discs. MB front discs and pads were £186 (parts only) back last summer. I would imagine an indie would take around an hour to fit them (mine were a pig because of the aluminium calipers and removing the pins).