Proudly owning a supercar might be costly, even if in case you have the means. The engineering and components that go into making these autos carry out the way in which they do might be shockingly costly. Take what one dealership charged a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren proprietor for brakes.
In creating the SLR collectively, Mercedes and McLaren developed a brand new braking system known as Sensotronic Brake Management. Basically a brake-by wire-system, it eradicated lots of the mechanical components that had been utilized in regular braking techniques. Mercedes mentioned the carbon-ceramic brakes had been fade-resistant as much as temperatures of two,200 levels fahrenheit. They had been huge, measuring simply over 14 inches for each the entrance and rear discs, the fronts used eight-piston calipers whereas the rears had four-piston calipers.
Brakes like these, particularly on a automobile with efficiency of the SLR, unsurprisingly have an equally huge value after they must be changed. This explicit 2005 SLR is owned by @humped.my.importer, a automobile collector and fanatic who took to social media to tweet his frustration over how a lot he paid for his brakes. He took his SLR to Mercedes-Benz of Knoxville, Tennessee for the service. No matter quantity you’re pondering of in your head in all probability nonetheless received’t put together you for the precise price of what they charged this man to do a brake job: $120,462.79. No, that quantity is just not a mistake.
I imply positive, the SLR price almost half one million {dollars} when it new, and fewer than 3,000 had been made. However nonetheless, it could’t be that costly, can it? Desirous to know extra, I known as just a few native Mercedes sellers right here in Southern California to see if that’s what it could actually price to do the brakes on this supercar.
I began with Mercedes of Downtown Los Angeles. After placing me on maintain for almost 10 minutes, the service advisor got here again and laid it on me: the entrance brakes can be $67,219 whereas the rears can be a barely cheaper $65,283. He additionally knowledgeable me that the rear brakes had been out of manufacturing and so they’d need to get them organized from Germany. Wanting a bit extra convincing, I known as one other supplier.
Subsequent I bought in touch with Mercedes of Beverly Hills, a supplier who ought to have some fairly good expertise coping with SLRs. Weirdly I bought a value quote that was as if the SLR was another Mercedes, as he quoted me costs of simply $3,350 for the entrance and $1,858 for the rear. If true, this could possibly be a steal, although I truly suspect the man misunderstood me or one thing.
Since that didn’t appear fairly proper, I known as Mercedes of Ontario, who had been completely happy to assist me out. The customer support was glorious however it went to a different degree once I advised them what automobile I used to be calling about. Their pricing virtually lined up with Downtown LA’s: together with components and labor it could be $64,840 for the entrance brakes and $62,840 for the rears, so determine slightly below $128,000 for a full brake job. It seems to be like that actually is the going charge for a brake job on certainly one of this stuff, so the unique Twitter poster was truly getting a little bit of a deal. Even if in case you have deep pockets, it’s nonetheless a sphincter clenching value.
