2014 mb e350
 

Andrew my neighbor across the street needs to get one of his kids a car.

His neighbor next door, Mike, has a 2014 E350 with 90k that's in really nice shape he will sell Andrew for $12K.

Mike is a Benz junkie. Family owned a dealership at one time. Car is his wifes and she wants something else. Car has always been dealer maintained and it's really clean, not a scratch on it.

Andrew just took it for a PPI at a well known foreign shop around the corner and stopped by to talk to me.

Car needs front brakes and front rotors. They quoted him $1,000.00 which seems steep to me. Feels like book rate because he's only in ~$700 in parts, pads / rotors / a sensor which I assume is wheel speed sensor.

They told him there is only one rotor option and it's OEM for $250 per.

Quick search shows there are a ton of rotor options available for the car and even the high performance coated Brembos are less than half that per.

Anyone know these cars?

E350 is not that high end a Benz so this surprises me and I'm suspicious.

I get most things here, just looked up rotors

Mercedes-Benz E350 Rotors


I can see a shop charging $1000 for a completely front brake job: pads, rotors, sensors and set screws parts and labor combined. But it's an easy job, maybe 2 hours and $300 in parts if you are handy.

Same as BMW parts
Same as all German cars
Zimmerman rotors/pads are $150/axle
Cheap as it gets

Good car…brakes are easy but I’m not sure I would try to save 3-400 bucks doing myself if I didn’t have a lift and all the tools that I have invested in over the years.

Well yeah, I laughed when he told me what he was quoted.

I've never paid a shop to do my brakes.

Used to keep spare sets of rotors just to make it easier, do a swap then drop off the prior set for cutting at my leisure.

I was kinda floored by the rotor cost and the insistence that the ONLY set was OEM.

I think Joe Bob has the '15 model. He has plenty of horror stories; ping him.

I find doing brakes easier than oil changes, well, less distasteful a chore even though it's more labor.

If I don't have to crawl under a car I'm happy.

I had a BMW X5 years ago that had gone to dealer for other issues. They came back to me with laundry list of stuff that need fixing, one was front brakes (rotors/pads). IIRC, the price quoted was 2 to 3 times what the rotors/pads cost me. It was so high it was laughable. I did it myself.

I believe the sensor you refer to is the pad wear sensor. Usually a beotch to fit and I've broken them in the past.

I thought that he had an older ML with Bluetec diesel…completely different beast. If he switched to a newer e-class, never mind. :)

Rotors for the 2015 e350 are under $100 each in all of the OEM name brands. The dealer business model is not designed for people who shop for their own parts or do their own brake jobs. One look at the new $10M facilities most of them have should tell you that.

Sub'd, I'm curious about the wagon version of this MB model.


Linky no worky. :(

FCP Euro Don

^^^ I get most of my BMW parts from them. Lifetime warranty.

That seems like a pretty good price for that car. I have been shopping for a couple months now and can't find anything that isn't hopelessly overpriced. People still think the used car market is bonkers. And of course remember what the MB cost 5 years ago.

That brake job is typical MB tax. Same as BMW and Lexus tax etc. That said, if you add up factory parts and replace the whole shebang, it isn't that crazy. You can't compare it to a DIY turning rotors or getting $100 jobs and buying pads at Autozone. Of course that's what all of us would do if you bought it for your kid.

I would not let this slow me down on buying that car. Seems like a safe car for a youngster. It is pretty peppy actually. Figure out the brakes, shop around for another independent and I am sure you can get it done for 800 or less.

G

I don’t think that anyone is talking about turning rotors or using Autozone pads. At least I wasn’t. It’s an under $300 job to replace both front rotors with ATE or Brembo and use dealer pads. The sensors cost next to nothing.

A lesson I learned for my 1st born's first car. Got him a 2002 (IIRC) Audi A4 3.0 litre v6. Had considered a 2000ish Land Rover Discovery because they aren't the fastest but decided against due to high center of gravity and fuel costs. Bad idea.

The A4 was too fast and suspension was too good at speed, so that's exactly what he did, speed.

Brakes aside, I probably wouldn't buy this vehicle as a 1st for my kid.

Update.

I inform the neighbor he's being raped on parts upcharge by at least double.

He takes the car to a new Brakes Plus that opened here for a 2nd opinion.

They measure everything up and tell him it's all in spec.

Aside from a minor groove in one rotor that probably came from a stone that got lodged for a bit everything is looks great and the car doesn't need any brake work at all.

Oh and original shop had also been trying to sell him some special fancy battery that the car required because the one in there was looking long in the tooth.

Brakes place tested it, said nah, this things fine, you're good to go.

So there ya have it.

Wow.

Yup. Seems about normal.
By the way - Audi dealer told me we needed brakes. I said "Go ahead and shoot me a quote".
Just about $2000 - and all four need to be done.
1. The rears really weren't that bad. But did them anyhow. Around 35k miles - with first portion of it's life living around atlanta. They had a harder duty level there than they do back here in semi-rural WI.
2. I bought all the stuff from FCP Euro, and it came in around $600 for parts. Tried to use OEM or better pretty much everywhere. Also bought ceramic - and they are much cleaner than the factory, which must have been largely organic.
3. The rear brakes on a Q7 are a royal pain in the butt! There's a 'triple square' head on the caliper fasteners. And they're torqued to 200 #-lb or more. Took all I had to get them loose. On jack stands - probably much easier with the luxury of a lift. But I didn't know that until I was already pretty well committed...

I just did the rears again. Somewhere around 70k on that first set that I replaced. Part of it was because of less traffic, and part of it was because of ceramic pads.

That vehicle gets 25k-30k on a set of tires, max. Somebody please tell my wife that it isn't a Honda Civic. :)

Did you look at the front pads yourself ? Flashlight often reveals pad thickness.

What's the chance that Euro shop is actually going to the Benz dealer to get OEM rotors?
I bet they are buying parts from the parts truck and charging OEM markup for parts.

The brakes job is an easy upsell since they can crush the book rate.
Same logic goes for the battery upgrade. High margin, low time payday.