Quote:
Originally Posted by jphughan
Of COURSE the retrofit will be more expensive; the upgrade is the marginal cost over the steel brake system, but unless you can find a buyback for your (used) steel brakes when you upgrade to carbon ceramic, you're essentially ending up with both brake sets, hence the added cost.
I wouldn't recommend an aftermarket setup since I figure the ABS and DSC systems would need to be recalibrated in order to function properly with carbon ceramic given they have vastly different properties -- unless you can also find someone who knows how to code the car appropriately.
$20K might be a bit high, but probably not outrageous. The carbon ceramic option on the M5/M6 was priced at $8700, which is similar to Porsche's upgrade pricing, and Porsche ceramic front rotors are $4K -- each. Double that, add the cost of rear rotors, a full set of pads, plus possibly new calipers, and I can see that reaching near $20K. In fact Porsche DOES offer a carbon ceramic retrofit kit, which might be a good reference point, but I don't have time to look its price up right now.
And all of this completely ignores that point that for a street car, carbon ceramics are ALL downsides except for reduced brake dust. Otherwise, you'll be dealing with squealing, obscenely expensive brake replacement (which I suspect will actually hurt resale from prospective second owners not wanting to have that looming on the horizon), and very fragile rotors that have to be replaced at huge cost if they're nicked by road debris or while mounting/unmounting a wheel. Carbon ceramic has no place on a street car IMHO, and even track junkies on the Porsche side end up switching back to a steel after damaging or wearing out a couple rotors because of the obscene cost. A steel BBK can often deliver similar fade resistance to carbon ceramic at a fraction of the cost.
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22k from Porsche and Sharkwerks sold the kit for 18k. I wouldn't mind spending the cash up front to have the ceramics. BUt I would need them to last at least 150k. I honestly have no idea how long the rotors should last. I know on my old e36m I replaced rotors ever 10-15k with a few track days. I know the dealer replaced the rotors on my current e92m at around 40k and that was before the car had seen any track days. If these brakes could do 150k with a couple track days a year I would consider. I just hope they carry over the exact same brakes from the M5/6 to the new m3. I see it as a way for bmw to save some money and give consumers a product we want.