I never got the memo that W140 MB brakes are terrible.

And having driven and owned several BMW products, I'd say your comments are misleading.

Maybe you intend to follow up with something like "4 pot braking is superior to 2 pot', or 'the bigger the pads, the better the brakes', or 'ceramic pads are better than those soft textar pads..." And we can now enter into the world of the BEST Oil, Tires, Air Freshener, etc."
Or, better yet, "If Benz truly wanted to build the best vehicle ever, why didn't they design a better more MODERN brake system?"
Hint: Well, they did!
The Emergency brake system on the '98-'99 models have an interesting setup. The computer measures the time between your lift on throttle and when the brake pedal is activated. If it senses you are in a PANIC STOP, it will take over the braking and toss you into the windshield. I donno, maybe BMW offers that.

I personally don't feel the need for BMW quality brakes(whatever that implies) on my W140. I suppose you COULD play with them, stop a few feet quicker, sure. Isn't that what AMG and Brabus does to these vehicles?

I recently inspected my W140 brakes while replacing all 4 shocks, and I was very impressed with what I observed, even wear, super smooth rotor and pad wear, with just a tad of scoring on the rear rotors. Probably the best wear I've ever seen on ANY vehicle at 80-90% wear.

The feel of the MB brakes to my mind is superb, sensitive to MY inputs. Limousine soft would be how I describe them.
YMMV.

 

Not saying there isn’t bigger brakes out there I’m sure someone from Europe can chime in. but have you checked the obvious?
-What size tires do you have?
-Have you done a brake fluid flush recently? How to the rubber brake lines look?
-are the pads wearing evenly? How do the rotors look?
something sounds off with your current setup.

 

In my experience, the W140 brakes are more than adequate for street speeds (in North America) but inadequate for repeated stops from track or derestricted autobahn speeds. If you try emergency stopping a W140 from 200+ km/h, you will be able to feel the brake fade in addition to smelling it. If you just look at the size of the rotors and pads relative to the size and weight of the car, the reason would be obvious.

 

No offense intended, Logical Position. Yikes.

Perhaps they will have proper bite after a service, but they feel soft and undersized for the weight of the car. I'll report back after a servicing with original parts.

Brake hoses look OK. No idea when the last fluid flush was, but will start with a flush and bleed. Rotors and pads are older but not very worn down.

 

No offense intended, Logical Position. Yikes.

Perhaps they will have proper bite after a service, but they feel soft and undersized for the weight of the car. I'll report back after a servicing with original parts.

Brake hoses look OK. No idea when the last fluid flush was, but will start with a flush and bleed. Rotors and pads are older but not very worn down.

No offense taken.

When designing a brake system I'd imagine space and unsprung wheel weight determine the caliper, rotor, and pad sizing.
Today's market is dropping 18" ++ wheels on street vehicles, and ppl want to see those 4 pot, brightly painted calipers thru spokes.

There may be SOMEONE who drives their W140 like they stole it, and they may desire a more aggressive braking system. But I suspect, given the unlimited budget of the Benz engineers of the era, that the design they chose for the W140 was the best ever for a production vehicle.

I'm not a huge fan of ceramic pads to be honest. I find them to be harsh, too much bite, very little sensitivity to the touch, and they get hot, grinding away at the rotors. I feel like you are standing on them. Either they are on full braking, or off. They have an application to be sure, but not on my W140.

I'm a late braker, can burn thru pads in under 25k miles. 30k+ on my front pads/rotors and still have another 5k miles left. I was amazed at how nice my brakes looked when I replaced the shocks. The rears were a little more worn looking, but are probably original at 124k miles. Definitely worn, but functioning at 100%.

 

I am with Logical on this subject. Mercedes with that $1B design budget used various criteria in in evaluation and selection of the final design for the best production vehicle of its day. Performance, feel, longevity,etc. each of us may have had a different weighting of each criteria however I think the overall Balance of the original product is Excellent.

 

Do not mess with perfection!
That being said my Indy convinced me to switch to ceramic pads. I cannot see any difference in stopping ability, but there is a million times less brake pad dust!

 

I'm a believer in using genuine parts whenever possible, especially so with brake pads. I wouldn't ever put ceramic pads on anything, the bite is very poor, in my experience.

 

Are you referring to the ability to stop? Will the ceramics increase the stopinng time?
My Indy whom I trust convinced me to switch to ceramics.

 

As we all know, the brakes on the W140 are terrible. Especially compared to any BMW made since... well... ever.

i guess ca 50% of brakes is calipers and another 50% is rotors+pads. BTW, brake lines and hydraulic laws are in force for any car in the world so they do not play a role in "equation".

It is highly possible that your rotors and pads in your car are not original (I am guessing) and that they were replaced with aftermarket parts. If so, then 50% of your brakes indeed needs an upgrade (from aftermarket to MB). The braking force depends on friction between rotors and pads (so let's roughly say this is 50% of braking effect) in addition to the force with which the pads act on rotors (another 50%). Btw, many people do not know that size of pads does not play any role in the effectiveness of braking in first plan. however it does matter in terms of brake wear or life span of pads and rotors on the other side.

Third, the weight of a car has a crucial effect on braking. heavy cars will stop later than light cars. So, yes, w140 does not brake in best way, but that's just how it is because it is a heavy car.

 

Just learned this from Mr Google:

Can I switch to ceramic brake pads?

If a vehicle was originally equipped with semi-metallic pads, most brake suppliers recommend replacing same with same. Switching to ceramic pads may reduce noise and dusting, but often at the cost of wear and fade resistance. Semi-metallic pads are generally better for high heat applications and heavier vehicles.

 

Just installed 4 new Zimmerman (made in Germany) brake discs with genuine Mercedes Benz brake pads (made by Pagid, Germany). The bite and brake performance is significantly improved. It looks like a previous owner or repair shop at one point installed the cheapest possible brake pad. So the braking performance is acceptable now.

 

This is exactly the combo I use and I love my brake performance and feel…good choice

 

Yeah, I disagree. The stock brakes on S600s were just about the largest brakes on a consumer-grade automobile at the time. They're adequate for light track use already.

 

Zimmerman rotors:
front $54 each
rear $41 each
MB Genuine brake pads:
front $81
rear $68
ATE 200 fluid $17

total: $381.76

 

so the cost for Zimmerman rotors is ca 25% of the cost for original MB parts here. BTW I have paid ca 80 eur/rotor for ATA brand and they were good for less than 5000 km. At 10,000 km vibrations were so strong during braking that i did not miss the massage function in seats ....