Would you buy a used BMW with carbon ceramic brakes?

[chris2002hk]

I found a nice M5, but noticed its got the gold ceramic brakes. After a read up, they appear to last for ages, but were anything to go wrong, its not a viable option to change them. On a £30 k car, £10 k for new discs, so probably way too risky for a second car?
Its under 40k miles, so maybe had track use?

Ive also read up, that the discs have wear indicators embedded in them, that show up as darker circles. I can see these showing on this car, does this indicate significant brake wear or that all’s well?



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[Krikkit]

If you have doubts either find another, or budget for replacing the ceramic brakes with steel items, you'll need calipers, discs and pads obvs.

[Truckosaurus]

You can get the discs refurbished much cheaper than buying a new set - but you'd have to send off your discs for a while (a quick google for one company suggested a 30-45 day turn around) which would be ok for a weekend car, but I suspect you'd want to be using an M5 somewhat daily.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

That is indeed the wear indicator and would suggest the car has probably been 'well used'.

I've seen a set of ceramics on a new RS6 trashed on a single trackday, conversely I've seen them last well over 100,000 miles. It's purely down to how the car has been treated by previous owner(s). If it's been tracked then things like a 'cooldown' lap help with premature wear rather than blasting off a dozen laps around a track then coming to a halt to allow all that stored heat to transfer to the other components like the back plates, callipers and pistons.

They require more care than steel discs such as not using acid wheel cleaner, they whine and screech when they are anything but hot, they need to be weighed to properly assess wear and will have a minimum weight printed somewhere on the disc etc.

There are no shortage of M5 F10s popping up, therefore maybe hold out for a better one with steel brakes?

[Terminator X]

Not M5 but yes ...



Car will be 5 years old this October. According to the computer it does not need rear pads for another 160k miles, fronts are 50k away.

TX.

[chris2002hk]

Yep, plenty of M5s out there, they come up daily on ‘trader.
Thanks for the info on the ceramics, I read about the wear indicator, but wasn’t quite sure. There’s no reason for me to have the hassle of the ceramic brakes, its not like the M5 is an appreciating asset unlike an older Ferrari .
The money saved on these brakes, I can buy a 2018- M5 , Cheers.

[Hoofy]

Terminator X said:

fronts are 50k away.

Probably best to avoid braking so you don't reduce that number.

[ZeroVision]

Truckosaurus said:

You can get the discs refurbished much cheaper than buying a new set - but you'd have to send off your discs for a while (a quick google for one company suggested a 30-45 day turn around) which would be ok for a weekend car, but I suspect you'd want to be using an M5 somewhat daily.

If the car is going to be dailyed or used for general driving and not just hot blasts and track use, ceramic brakes make very little sense, apart from the cost as some has said when not warmed through they are a bit noisy. The are designed to heat resistant for hard track use.

Due to cost they make little sense, even some GT3 owners have deleted them when the car is new, due to these issues and being 10x the price of decent steel.

[simon_harris]

surely though on a daily they last about 5 times as long as steel brakes so the cost balances out?

add into that the reduction in unsprung weight, steering feel etc...