Brake Judder - W213

[Steveamg]

w213
e220d
2016

Purchased a few months ago and have done approx 4k miles since - mainly motorway miles.
Got the 19" wheels powder coated gloss black, drove car locally for a few days everything fine.
Did a long motorway trip - approx 600 miles in a few days, again everything fine.
The day after the motorway trip I noticed a severe judder when braking which can also be felt in the cabin and through the steering wheel. Judder only is there when braking, during normal driving it is fine.

I assume as i can feel judder/vibration in steering wheel it is an issue from the front brakes.
Jacked car up to see if front wheels move freely - there is a slight resistance at certain parts of the rotation - wouldn't say it is a sticking calliper though.
I have tried a few hard braking to see if any pad deposits on the discs are removed - this has made no difference.
Could the issue have something to do with getting the alloys painted? or is it a a coincidence that the judder appeared after i have had them done?
See > How refurbished alloy wheels can cause brake judder


I can look at fully stripping down and cleaning the front brake mechanisms and replacing the front discs and pads with original Mercedes parts however I need to come to some conclusion of what has happened to cause the issue in the first place - to prevent it happening again! Dont fancy forking out £250 every few k miles!

Have spoken to a local brake specialist and they have suggested we get the discs checked for trueness - so will strip off the car and pop in with them some time this week to get readings.

Got a feeling this is going to be a long headache!

 

[sgregory124]

Bit of a Long shot, but maybe youhave thrown a wheel weight at some point? Although you'd probably feel that as a continuous vibration at speed through the wheel.

Don't discount the brake deposits on the discs as being the cause. Up until last week, my C63 had the same judder through the steering wheel on heavy braking (had it since I bought it in July 2020), I thought my discs were warped. I did the braking routine and it cleared the problem, so I must have had a lot of crud on my discs. I used the following method:

Stage 1 - Accelerate to 60mph, brake hard but don't activate ABS down to 20mph (but don't stop) - I did this 5 times to warm the brakes up to operating temperature.
Stage 2 - Accelerate to 80mph, brake hard but don't activate ABS down to 20mph (again, don't stop) - I did this 10 times.
Stage3 - Drive for 5-10 minutes at a constant speed to cool everything down and most importantly, don't come to a stand with your foot on the brake without the cool down time.

I'm not sure which model of E class you have specifically but on my car, my brakes had gotten hot enough to start 'pinging' and 'clicking' loudly on the cool down so I knew they'd got the workout they needed.

Sorry if you know all of the above, that method helped me and now the judder is practically gone and braking is much more confidence inspiring!

 

[Steveamg]

Thanks.

Will give this a shot later this evening. ATM so much traffic I cant even get above 20mph!

 

[mark little]

Got the 19" wheels powder coated gloss black, drove car locally for a few days everything fine.

Were the wheels removed from the car? If so my guess is that the nuts were over-tightened


Im on my third W / S 213 and this has happened twice on two different cars after changing the wheels.
Front disks were replaced each time. I now have a torque wrench......

 

[Harps1st]

w213
e220d
2016

Purchased a few months ago and have done approx 4k miles since - mainly motorway miles.
Got the 19" wheels powder coated gloss black, drove car locally for a few days everything fine.
Did a long motorway trip - approx 600 miles in a few days, again everything fine.
The day after the motorway trip I noticed a severe judder when braking which can also be felt in the cabin and through the steering wheel. Judder only is there when braking, during normal driving it is fine.

I assume as i can feel judder/vibration in steering wheel it is an issue from the front brakes.
Jacked car up to see if front wheels move freely - there is a slight resistance at certain parts of the rotation - wouldn't say it is a sticking calliper though.
I have tried a few hard braking to see if any pad deposits on the discs are removed - this has made no difference.
Could the issue have something to do with getting the alloys painted? or is it a a coincidence that the judder appeared after i have had them done?
See > How refurbished alloy wheels can cause brake judder


I can look at fully stripping down and cleaning the front brake mechanisms and replacing the front discs and pads with original Mercedes parts however I need to come to some conclusion of what has happened to cause the issue in the first place - to prevent it happening again! Dont fancy forking out £250 every few k miles!

Have spoken to a local brake specialist and they have suggested we get the discs checked for trueness - so will strip off the car and pop in with them some time this week to get readings.

Got a feeling this is going to be a long headache!

Hi mate, had the same issue for some time. I later found out refurbishing the wheels was the issue. The back of the wheels must be clean of any new powder coating so they fit flush to the disc, the wheels have to be then torqued to first 70nM and then 150nM. Had this done been almost a year now and the issue hasn't come back.