Questions and Answers

Mercedes Benz E430 Grinding Noise Q. Hi Vincent. I am having a strange problem with my 1998 Mercedes Benz E430. When I have been in stop and go traffic for about 15 minutes or so, when I press the brakes, I get a short grinding noise and the braking is not true, i.e. brake pedal seems to move to one side and car moves slightly to one side.

Then when I hit the gas to start up again, I hear a metallic sound from one side of the car for a few seconds. The brakes work perfectly fine in normal traffic. I just had it checked and they replaced a warped rotor and flushed the system and said I should be fine, but the problem remains. Any ideas?

Regards,
Ravi

A. I can't tell you for sure but I would suspect that you have a defective brake pad. My daughter's car had a similar problem which after a full inspection of the pads revealed that one of them basically just didn't come out right at the manufacturer. These were semi-metallic pads which means there is soft metal mixed in with the composite friction material of the pad itself.

In this case the ratio of metal to non-metal material was too high and the pieces of metal were too large. This caused the brake pad to partially disintegrate and the large chunks of metal caused a grinding noise upon application of and shortly after application of the brakes.

Anyhow, renewing the pads solved the problem which hasn't recurred in approximately six months.