rmcd

I had the rear brakes serviced last Friday. They replaced pads and rotors. I drove it a short distance on Friday afternoon, nothing on the weekend, and then out to the airport (25 miles) on Monday night.

This morning (Thursday) I flew back into town and picked up the car. I wasn't more than 100 feet out of the parking garage when the screen cleared with a message "Brake Failure" with sub messages about not braking sharply and being really careful. It went away on it's own after about a minute or 90 seconds. I made an instant assumption that it had something to do with the brake service and called the dealer. I gave him a "piece of my mind" - but not too much as I haven't that much to spare.

I dropped by the dealer this afternoon. The SA checked the messages on the service menu (I could have done that) and said that since there wasn't a red flagged message then there isn't any record to see what happened. I questioned him about a sensor not being connected correctly and he said that if a sensor had tripped it would have shown up as a red flag on either the front or read brake icon on the service menu. OK. As far as he could tell, the brakes are fine and that it might be a control module "glitch". Upon hearing the word "glitch" I gave him another small piece of my mind about techincal precision.

He did mention that since the car had sat for 2 days (4 years old, 84,000 KM) that the battery could have dropped in voltage and caused random messages to appear. I can almost accept that in general but at the moment the battery seems mighty strong.

I naively thought that any message like that would be recorded somewhere in a log. No?

Has anyone had a similar experience? Did it get resolved?

Thanks

luigi524td

A glitch in the braking system is not something I'd leave to chance. Tell your SA you want the complete brake system inspected ... not a tour of iDrive!

pinguhk

If he says a glitch, then I would not drive the car until they have fix it.
you dont know what will happen to the car...
It may loss it brakes

rmcd

All good advice. Thanks,

chris f

unlikely you will "loose" your brakes, they are designed to fail safe. You may loose the servo assistance or the abs but the brakes will still work unless you get a leak.
Even if you did get a leak the circuit runs in tandem so 2 wheels would still have braking capacity.

subarashi

There is no such thing as a glitch in these high precision automobiles. There was a reason that message came on and it would be stored as an error code on the on-board computer, not necessarily the iDrive that you would access. Ask him to check the fault codes on the vehicle - it would explain everything.

I can't believe BMW employs folks who openly admit to "glitches" in their vehicles...

pinguhk

sound like this has happen to you before
any thing can happen it a computer that contro it.
like you say you can always still use the hand brake

andy535xi

Funny thing you mentioned this, and funny this that the OP is from Toronto.

I have a Volvo V50 AWD T5 before this car. Volvo's are suppossed to be super safe right? ... right?
Merging from the 401 to 427 highways I had to cut in so I sped up to 140km/h and started moving over. I had to brake (about 20% pressure) once I merged into the lane. My brake pedal hit the floor and thank god no one was in the next lane. I got off the highway safely using gears only ... I had no brakes period. Pumping the brakes didn't work, no message showed up, fail safe didn't work.

The dealer said I blew a line, I'm only glad I'm ok.

twh

I do remember a similar message after the first time I had my car serviced. I don't remember the exact text, but it did make me wonder. I also assume that the brakes are probably pretty hard to screw up completely unless there is a severe hydraulic failure. I once had a full size van that had a rear leaf spring break which severed the brake line. Not fun - had to use the emergency brake to stop the van. I had the car in for something like the "high battery drain" problem, which required a newer software version. It never came back.

subarashi

Wow...better watch out for them volvos north of the border!