Just curious if this sounds normal......

My car is a '06 CPO, which I got in Oct '08. It had 36k miles on it when I got it. At that time the front/ rear brake pad sensor in the i-drive said 40k life left for both front and rear pads. Over the summer I had my car in for service, and the SA said my brake fluid was time to be flushed..so I said sure. After I got the car back I noticed in the i-drive the pad life now said 50k for both front and rear. For kicks, yesterday I looked at it again, and it now says 60k left for the front, and 50k for the rears. The car now has 57k miles on it.
Is it normal to gain pad life in the i-drive, or are the sensors bad or something?

 

great question, i ran into the same thing with mine when I bought it it had 24k left on the front and rear so i bought the service warranty because i knew I could actually use it for that. After a year of driving now the front is 50k and rears is 40k.

AFAIK the sensors are just tiny fiber optic lights that measure the pad depth so there is a constant output on them, so why it would be low and then increase over time is far beyond me and even all of my SA's couldnt answer why it did this. Just check the pads and you should be good to go.

 

Yeah..there's plenty of "meat" on the pads....so I'm good there. It just bothers me...why are we paying for luxury options (I-drive) if the info on them isnt accurate?

 

yeah i feel ya, the dealers explanation was that it was an estimate system not an exact

 

Could this be a reactive counter rather than a straight count-down counter. I mean, maybe the computer figures out how many times you brake, the speed, the length of time of braking and adjusts the brake life estimate accordingly? Sort of like it learns your braking habits and adjusts the mileage based on that. Does anyone know if this is the case?

 

The service interval indicator is abbreviated "CBS" and it stands for "Condition Based Service"...

Check out page 201 (which is .pdf page 202) of your manual to learn more about CBS:
https://5series.net/information/2006_5_...s_Manual_US.pdf

 

Mine is doing the same thing...i've gained about 6-7k miles on my front and rear brake pads on the I drive. If you are easy on the brakes...it will count up. As it was explained to me, i'm driving in a way that is "easy" on the mechanics.

 

This proves that my hunch was right. I guess it means that intervals are determined according to your driving style rather than just a simple count-down as customary in many other cars.

 

I noticed the same on my car. Driving like an old man pays off

 

Is it possible that this driving information is also stored on your "key"??