Chaos236

iTrader: (1)

How do you make a LS stop like a S class? Pads? Rotors?
The Benz stopped way better.
Thanks

Devh

In what way did the S class stop better?
Distance or braking feel?

The LS brakes are more than sufficient for the public roads.
Adding performance pads will make the braking worse for the road.

dal20402

Our cars have odd brake feel. I'm sure the pedal in the S Class felt more reassuring.

But actual braking capability is pretty similar. Both cars have excellent brake hardware. The most important determinant of stopping distance is going to be tires. If you want a shorter stop (and better grip in corners), get performance tires. There will be some cost in ride quality, and depending on what you choose likely shorter tread life.

I run performance all-seasons -- they give more grip than touring tires, and have good tread wear, but ride a bit harder.

Nospinzone

A report I saw had the S550 stopping 60-0 in 115' and the LS in 118'. I agree tires make a huge difference and the stock Bridgestone Turanzas on the LS don't match up to Michelin or Pirelli.

Chaos236

iTrader: (1)

"Felt" better and more planted,that said 3' is remarkable.

NickTee

Buy an S-Class. The 2015 S550 stops from 60 in 115 feet, the 2015 LS460 does it in 119 feet. The LS460 F-sport does it in 115 feet. Obviously the S-class is going to feel much better than a LS460 because that's a fairly decent drop.

That being said, this is a very complex problem and simply throwing rotors or pads on it is not the answer. The art of setting up brakes involves proper weight transfer(suspension), proper brake bias(brake valving, though you can mess with it by switching calipers), and tires(the fundamental part of it all. If your tires can't grip, it doesn't matter how well your calipers can grap the rotors). If your weight transfer is off, which can be an issue of both brake valving and suspension, you will overwhelm your front tires with too much weight transfer onto the front tires. If your brake bias is off, you may lock up the fronts too quickly or send too much weight to the front. Or lock up your rears when you shouldn't. If your tires are crappy, well that's another issue. Get good tires.
The simplest answer that requires the "least" amount effort from you is to simply say buy the widest, grippiest tires you can mount on your car. If at this point you can no longer lock up the tires, buy better pads that have more bite. If they still lock up, at least you'll stop better than you did before. Unless it rains, in which case wider tires are not necessarily going to help you and may be detrimental. Rolling resistance due to increased surface area and friction are also increased, so your gas mileage will go down. But you'll stop better, sometimes. This is why it's hard for OEMs and why all of our cars aren't necessarily rolling around on 305 front and rear width tires, despite how amazing that sounds.

Devh

I don't think you will achieve the braking performance you desire in an LS. I would just buy an S Class if you like the feel of the cars brakes. The BMW I own prior to this car had better braking feel but I was not interested because the car was street driven and there is no place on the street where I could exceeded the demands of normal braking, infact I lowered the braking performance on the BMW with dustless pads. The LS brakes are more than sufficient for a luxury car on the street because the LS is a terrible for any kind of "sport" driving.
I have driven a few big cars with ginormous brakes and they are still sloppy for any kind of real performance driving simply because of the weight of the car. Soon as you apply the brakes and try and take a turn it's still a fat lady on high heels, no fun at all, thankfully these drivers have their traction control on.

jainla

As far as raw performance i agree the numbers are similar; you can get the high-friction rotors from the touring package for bleeding edge performance if you want but those require special pads and all of them wear substantially faster than the standard stuff. Obviously tires and environment, road surface etc are all factors.

The braking feel won't be similar because all 4LS's have electro hydraulic brakes (ECB) which are literally brake-by-wire. Any 'feel' you have is artificially recreated by the system as your brake pedal is signaling actuators to actually apply pressure to the rotors. The GS and LS sedans gained this feature so adapting to the hybrid powertrain was easier.

In daily use I don't find the performance that different from my other cars; although the brakes feel touchier than the Mercedes but much firmer than the LS430.

I think the hardware is just different so the feel will be different.

roadfrog

Yep...me too! Couldn't stand having to clean my wheels every other day.

Devh

Tell me about it that stuff was not only dirty it's also corrosive to the wheels. BMW brake hardware and how they tune the entire package is good but they cheat with those pads to give their customers max braking at the expense of your wheels. Once I switched them out I didnt noticed a difference for normal driving.

In my opinion what would improve on the braking "feel" of 460 is slightly stiffer suspension so it doesn't dive, that is the first area I would address. I drive normally and never have to take the car to extremes. Performance luxury is overrated but it sells.

roadfrog

Nor did I. What I did notice was how much longer the pads lasted and how much cheaper the new pads were.