Owning a supercar can be expensive, even if you have the means. The engineering and parts that go into making these vehicles perform the way they do can be shockingly expensive. Take what one dealership charged a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren owner for brakes.
In creating the SLR together, Mercedes and McLaren developed a new braking system called Sensotronic Brake Control. Essentially a brake-by wire-system, it eliminated many of the mechanical parts that were used in normal braking systems. Mercedes said the carbon-ceramic brakes were fade-resistant up to temperatures of 2,200 degrees fahrenheit. They were massive, measuring just over 14 inches for both the front and rear discs, the fronts used eight-piston calipers while the rears had four-piston calipers.
Brakes like these, especially on a car with performance of the SLR, unsurprisingly have an equally massive price when they need to be replaced. This particular 2005 SLR is owned by @humped.my.importer, a car collector and enthusiast who took to social media to tweet his frustration over how much he paid for his brakes. He took his SLR to Mercedes-Benz of Knoxville, Tennessee for the service. Whatever number you’re thinking of in your head probably still won’t prepare you for the actual cost of what they charged this man to do a brake job: $120,462.79. No, that number is not a mistake.
I mean sure, the SLR cost nearly half a million dollars when it new, and fewer than 3,000 were made. But still, it can’t be that expensive, can it? Wanting to know more, I called a few local Mercedes dealers here in Southern California to see if that is what it would really cost to do the brakes on this supercar.
I started with Mercedes of Downtown Los Angeles. After putting me on hold for nearly 10 minutes, the service advisor came back and laid it on me: the front brakes would be $67,219 while the rears would be a slightly cheaper $65,283. He also informed me that the rear brakes were out of production and they’d have to order them from Germany. Wanting a bit more convincing, I called another dealer.
Next I got in contact with Mercedes of Beverly Hills, a dealer who should have some pretty good experience dealing with SLRs. Weirdly I got a price quote that was as if the SLR was any other Mercedes, as he quoted me prices of just $3,350 for the front and $1,858 for the rear. If true, this could be a steal, though I actually suspect the guy misunderstood me or something.
Since that didn’t seem quite right, I called Mercedes of Ontario, who were happy to help me out. The customer service was excellent but it went to another level when I told them what car I was calling about. Their pricing almost lined up with Downtown LA’s: including parts and labor it would be $64,840 for the front brakes and $62,840 for the rears, so figure just under $128,000 for a full brake job. It looks like that really is the going rate for a brake job on one of these things, so the original Twitter poster was actually getting a bit of a deal. Even if you have deep pockets, it’s still a sphincter clenching price.