It’s no secret that supercars come with super bills. From Audi R8 dampers with four-figure price tags to mid-five-figure front drive unit replacement on a Ferrari FF, the upper echelon of performance cars comes with maintenance costs that could make you wince. However, as wild as those examples may be, nothing will prepare you for just how much a set of discs and pads for a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren costs.
In case the SLR McLaren slipped your mind, this was Mercedes’ 2000s moonshot, a supercharged, carbon fiber-intensive rocketship that McLaren had the unenviable task of making actually work. The end result? A whopping 617 horsepower, zero-to-60 mph in 3.4 seconds, and a top speed of 207 mph. Back in 2005, mid-way through the production run, this thing carried an MSRP of $455,000, and if you want to replace the discs and pads on one of these things today, expect to pay a pretty penny.
Just take a look at this quote at list price. I can’t tell what’s more astonishing, the list price of $112,320 before tax for all the parts, or that the cost of each individual brake disc is so great that it actually clips through the column.
I gotta sell this shit this not finna work pic.twitter.com/vDDZR8Ke0p
— Kancho (@HumpedMyJeweler) May 3, 2024
This parts quote is going viral on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, but I was able to track down the original post to the Facebook group called “Parts Departments. Where the Magic Happens.” If you’re employed in auto parts, check this group out, it’s brilliant. The original poster was one Daniel Braddy, who explained the parts quote in the comments.
I just was showing a newer employee the high price to get a laugh and decided to post it. I sold a set a long time ago under warranty. And they were stupid expensive 17 years ago so I knew they would be even more expensive now. They are collector cars. Even most of the used ones only have less than 10,000 miles. So most of them have not needed brakes yet.
Keep in mind, this quote’s for discs and pads alone, meaning no labor and none of the fiddly one-time-use stuff like pad wear sensors and clips. So why on earth do these discs and pads cost so much? Well, it turns out that if you build a special set of carbon ceramic brakes for a high-end car way back when that tech was in its infancy, the parts themselves are just excruciatingly expensive. We’re also talking about 14.6-inch front brake discs and 14.2-inch rear brake discs, so not tiny units either. Still, that sort of money buys a whole lot of other things.
You know that funny-looking EQS flagship electric sedan Mercedes offers? Yeah, that thing starts at $105,550 including freight, which works out cheaper than a full set of discs and pads for an SLR McLaren. In this case, I think I’d have to go with the SLR McLaren brake pads over the EQS, although just think of the litany of cars you could buy for $112,320. You could buy a brand new Porsche 718 Cayman GTS 4.0, a C8 Corvette, or two Toyota GR Supras for that sort of coin. Ouch.
On the flip side, these brakes might give some Mercedes-Benz owners a feeling of shared lineage, making the SLR more relatable. Given that a standard Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is worth between $350,000 and $400,000, it has something in common with a 25-year-old fully-depreciated LeMons-spec C-Class — a brake job is worth about a quarter of the car.
(Photo credits: Mercedes-Benz, Facebook/Daniel Braddy)
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Makes the quote of CAD $7000 for the brakes on my boss’s Alfa seem like chump change.