UltimatePeter

So, my iDrive was telling me that I needed to get my front brakes changed. I haven't had this car very long, so didn't have an idea the duration the brakes have been on. I bought pads/rotors/sensor off Amazon. A friend of mine does a lot of brakes and helped me out. However, when we got the caliper off, we noticed that the rotors were fine and the pads were nearly as thick as the new ones. So... I decided I would just stick with the current ones and save the stuff I'd bought for when they actually need changing.
Now, I came to understand that maybe the iDrive tells you to change them after a certain number of miles? So... Maybe the last time they were changed, nobody reset the mile counter in iDrive for the front brakes. I decided I would just reset this now so it would stop bugging me, then also reset it again when I changed them in reference to the sensor telling me.
I went to do the reset using the "check" button and then button on my cluster. However, it didn't reset the miles, and now whenever I start the car, it shows this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3275/...973f56.jpg?v=0
which is much more intrusive than the original message that would say to service front brakes, and then go away.
I know that pads are not at their lowest level, far from it. Did we *break the sensor, and now it is saying this? Is the fix to replace the sensor with the one I got with the new pads?
Help. Thanks!

Dremers

Did you replace the sensor wire? A sensor wire should have come with the brakes when you ordered them.

andymax

If the pads look new, then I'm betting whoever recently changed them didn't bother to replace the sensor. If you are not familiar with the sensor, it works by wearing down, along with the brake pads, which changes the resistance of the sensor which the computer then processes as worn brake pads. I'd try changing the sensor first, but be sure you again reset the brake pad service indicator. Just to cover the bases...also be sure you are resetting the FRONT sensor service indicator...not the rear.

twh

Minimum depth message comes from the sensor.

jfolli1

btw sensors are located on front left and rear right of car

UltimatePeter

Yeah, so I finally got my phone camera in and took a pic of my sensor.
There is still quite a bit of brake pad left and the sensor is far from the rotor...
So, I guess I must have broke the sensor. I will be putting in a new one.

twh

It doesn't look quite right. The sensor slots into the pad, but lives in that cutout in the pad you see in the picture. Your sensor looks like the head is snapped off or pushed down too far. You can see it in this picture:
http://bmwe32.masscom.net/sean750/re...rSensorOut.jpg

UltimatePeter

Huh... Maybe they are different kinds?
Anyway, I replaced it and my car is fine now.
But the new one still didn't look like the one in your picture.
It looked like this: