Brake pads Carbotech or OEM Mercedes

Received the brake pads today. They look pretty massive.

I had a set of the Carbotech fast road/track day pads in my AW11 before I had to scrap it and they were amazing.

If your just daily driving then OEM is fine, if you're looking for a slight upgrade then I recommend Carbotech 1521 Bobcat pads. I have the Carbotechs and they are nice.

When I had my mini cooper, I ran the 1521s on stock rotors and never had any issue in the rain.

Mercedes has always had great brakes but until the 190E you didn't have many cheap upgrade options. I have E420 brakes on my 190E Sportline, and my god the stopping power is exceptional.

I have run the Carbotech 1521 on the street and can confirm they are low dust and noise, but not the most performance oriented.

I just changed my pads and rotors at all four corners asI was always very unhappy with the stock pads and rotors; mostly because of noise in the cold and the amount of brake dust the pads made. Upon inspection of my rotors, with barely 30k miles on them, there was a startling amount of material removed and channeling from the pads. I would totally recommend you replace the rotors at the same time. I too went with the ECS slotted and drilled rotors with Carbotech 1521 pads and love the setup. Very quiet, very little dust and good performance.

Carbotech Pads (F-CT682 & R-CT340 1521 Street Compound)

Yes forgot to mention mine only started this when switching over to carbotech pads. Stock pads I never saw this issue.

Might I share an experience with my Mercedes Warranty Service: It was my last "scheduled" maintenace on my Benz before my warranty expired in a month... This is what my service rep told me behind closed doors...."We better schedule in as many repairs as possible" 4 new break pads and 2 new rotars for the front (even though they still had a few more thousand mile on them), replacement wood trims for 2 of the door panels, new wiper blades and arm, a whole new radio system b/c the tape player broke (even though I've put probably only 2 tapes into the bay for the 4 years I owned the car); a brand new driver seat b/c one of the heating element on the car seat would not power on (I live in Florida, rarely ever used it).....