W203 coupe brake pulsing

[B19Evs]

Hi all,
My recently acquired ‘06 W203 coupe has had new discs and pads all around but I’m getting a pulsing sensation under braking. This feels at low speed like I’m taking my foot off and on the brake and at high speed more like a continuous vibration when braking. I’d be grateful for any shared experiences and fixes.
Also my hand/foot brake is seized. Is there a kit to fix this and what will a garage charge to sort, ballpark obviously? My garage said ‘just leave it in ’park’ it won’t go anywhere but the car is well taken care of and if it’s on there I want it to work.

 

[Petrol Pete]

Who did the brake work ? sounds like they did not clean the hubs properly before fitting the new discs . I drive a 2006 203 C class (149K miles) I had no 'pulsing' after I replaced my front discs and pads , get them removed and re fitted .

Any garage that tells you to not bother with your handbrake has obviously never sent a car to an MOT test , The handbrake is part of the MOT and the car will fail if the handbrake does not work , find another garage to use next time.

The foot operated hand brake is an pain in the a$$ when it goes wrong . You need to get to the splitter unit and free it up if it has seized up , if the spring is broken in the unit you will need to buy a new unit . On a 2006 estate/saloon it is accessible from under the rear seat , not too sure on the coupe ,but easy to check by just lifting the seat squab up. Some have the trap door as in these photos and some (a saloon W203) had the trapdoor hidden under stuck down sound deadening material. Do this DIY step to free it up first before paying to have it replaced - potentially saving yourself many hundreds of pounds.

The part is around £90 from MB and the labour charge can spiral upwards depending on what happens when they remove the old one. It has to come out from under the car which means the drive shaft has to come off and on mine the exhaust had to be removed and the fuel tank dropped , mine is an estate but yours will not be much different in this respect .

The problem comes from corroded fixings , if the nuts holding the fuel tank up snap the threaded part off the car the price to repair goes up . Also the rear wheels will have to be removed to set the brake shoes inside the rear discs. The discs might have to be removed and the shoes and springs for the handbrake internals replaced with new ones.

Do the DIY check on the splitter unit first , could save you a lot of time and money. Let us know what you find.