[AWDBooSTIn90]

So i changed my oil. Reset the oil CBS as per youtube video for E92 335i. Worked fine

So I figured id reset some other things while I was in the reset mode. I reset the micro-filter, inspection, vehicle inspection, brake fluid, and some other ones. Because I either jst changed them or im doing it within the week with the big maintenance parts order I made. Worked fine.

Now at the end i figure id reset the front and rear brake pads because im chaging them soon to upgraded pads and rotors and i knew the oem pads still had a lot of life left in them or so I thought when i did a visual inspection with the pad off the caliper/car. Still a good 1/4 or more of break pad material coming from the backing plate.

Now the problem im having is that the front and rear brake CBS indicators went from 6k miles and 4k miles to negative numbers after i reset them, lol.

So now every time I start the damn car, i have to clear the front and rear brake pad wear faults, from the idrive screen.

Now i know the rear brake pads are low and i have new pads to put in that ive had until i get the new rotors and performance street pads like i said. Im not rdy yet and still need to do research and make my choices. So obviously i have to do something so i got $30 autozone gold brake pads for the car lol.

So i have a question. I tried 10+ times to reset the front brake pad wear sensor CBS inside the car. It will not reset. I checked the physical wear sensor and it doesnt look scraped one but. So i took a pic. Is this rly when the light comes on for its first stage? How much pad materials is rlt on a new oem pad, not much...

[IMG]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...psgz6sdbpm.jpg[/IMG]

As you can see above and below the wear indicator that the DS inside brake pad has plenty of brake pad material left to use. Do you think that the wear indicator has been scraped alrdy or im having a different issue. I had the caliper off and the brake pads are fine. Theyre not new but id call them 50% used.

[Abax335]

There is about 13mm of pad material on a new pad.

Generally when that happens a cluster reset is in order then resetting the CBS again. Second, don't have your foot on the brake when you reset it.

The e9x engine could be running out ignition on, doesn't matter. Try both.

There are stages of the sensor but I honestly don't know exact, had one today with 1800 and I feel like I had I've this week with 3k+ but couldn't do anything with

[Kevinl]

If the sensor is tripped you can clear it till your blue in the face it wont reset

[RobertRichy]

Originally Posted by Kevinl

If the sensor is tripped you can clear it till your blue in the face it wont reset

+1

[VTECaddict]

If the sensor has not touched the rotor yet (eg brand new), you can reset it all you want.

If the sensor has made contact with the rotor, it will not reset anymore.

[dannyjones]

I think I read another thread about problems resetting this if the sensor hadn't completely worn down. I think the solution was to short the wires for the sensor, so the computer thinks it wore down completely. Then replace with new or previous sensor and reset.

Search and you'll find the full details

[AWDBooSTIn90]

Originally Posted by Kevinl

If the sensor is tripped you can clear it till your blue in the face it wont reset

I know this. Theres 2 stages of the sensor. Slightly worn out and it gives the warning. Fully scraped then it shows replace brakes right away.

But in asking does it look like my front brake pad wear sensor is worn past its first stage even with all that pad material left? I kno the sensor is close to the rotor.

Thw funny part is, i had no brake wear sensor error for the front or rear until i attempted to reset the mileage on the front and rear brake pad mileage CBS computer under service info on the iDrive

[VTECaddict]

Originally Posted by AWDBooSTIn90

I know this. Theres 2 stages of the sensor. Slightly worn out and it gives the warning. Fully scraped then it shows replace brakes right away.

But in asking does it look like my front brake pad wear sensor is worn past its first stage even with all that pad material left? I kno the sensor is close to the rotor.

Thw funny part is, i know no brake wear sensor error for the front or rear until i attempted to reset the mileage on the front and rear brake pad mileage CBS computer under service info on the iDrive

Yes. Like I said, after it makes contact with the rotor, it's pretty much in "stage 1" where you won't be able to reset it anymore. A new sensor has a little nub on it that has clearly worn away by now from your picture.



I wouldn't replace the sensor now without replacing the pads. If you do, all the braking force will be on the sensor since it will stick out past the pad surface, and all you would do is just crush the new sensor and end up with the same problem.

You can short the wires together to simulate a new sensor, reset, then reconnect your old sensor. Or just live with it until you change the pads and put in a new sensor.

[AWDBooSTIn90]

Yea i was thinking of just shorting the wires for now. I have the wheels off. I know that theres plenty of pad left. The rotors will be replaced anyway, so it's not like I care about the rotor. It must of just went through the tip of the sensor and it just was a bad idea trying to reset the low mileage left before doing the job itself. I visually check the pads once and a while so i don't even go by the CBS meter anyway for mostly anything it monitors. Except for maybe the cabin filter and the state inspection, i guess its a good reminder if i somehow forget it's getting close to time.

Anthony

[RobertRichy]

Forgive me but I have not pulled my wheel off yet to see what everything looks like, but what is the procedure to short out the sensor for resetting purposes?

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by AWDBooSTIn90

Yea i was thinking of just shorting the wires for now. I have the wheels off. I know that theres plenty of pad left. The rotors will be replaced anyway, so it's not like I care about the rotor. It must of just went through the tip of the sensor and it just was a bad idea trying to reset the low mileage left before doing the job itself. I visually check the pads once and a while so i don't even go by the CBS meter anyway for mostly anything it monitors. Except for maybe the cabin filter and the state inspection, i guess its a good reminder if i somehow forget it's getting close to time.

Anthony

I looked at the pictures you posted... you need new brakes. I've done at least 15 brake jobs on BMWs since the early 1990's... your brakes are what is called "spent".

So this is at least the 3rd thread this week on Posters and their brake pad wear system indications. What I don't understand is these people buy a sophisticated, well engineered, and thus expensive car, and ignore the engineering put into it. In your case OP, your car is doing what it is exactly designed to do, which is telling you when the brakes need to be refurbished. You look at the pads and think they have life left in them because they have material left, but you have no idea that they are supposed to have some material left because there is a safety margin engineered in to the system. The safety margin is to prevent the pads from over heating and delaminating from the backing plate. The pads need some material left when they are considered spent so as to have enough material to safely absorb braking heat. All this discussion about tying off the sensors and resetting the system so as to get another few thousand miles out of the pads is just stupid. If you are tying off the sensors because you are too cheap to replace the brakes when they are spent, then go buy a fucking Hyundai Elantra and wait until the brakes are at the backing plates because you never heard the wear indicators go off.

[5tony]

In general, you don't want to have less pad material than backing plate. That's where you are. Don't understand what the reset did, but you've probably worn through the densor and won't be able to reset to 100% pad life remaining even with new pads.

[John 070]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I looked at the pictures you posted... you need new brakes. I've done at least 15 brake jobs on BMWs since the early 1990's... your brakes are what is called "spent".

So this is at least the 3rd thread this week on Posters and their brake pad wear system indications. What I don't understand is these people buy a sophisticated, well engineered, and thus expensive car, and ignore the engineering put into it. In your case OP, your car is doing what it is exactly designed to do, which is telling you when the brakes need to be refurbished. You look at the pads and think they have life left in them because they have material left, but you have no idea that they are supposed to have some material left because there is a safety margin engineered in to the system. The safety margin is to prevent the pads from over heating and delaminating from the backing plate. The pads need some material left when they are considered spent so as to have enough material to safely absorb braking heat. All this discussion about tying off the sensors and resetting the system so as to get another few thousand miles out of the pads is just stupid. If you are tying off the sensors because you are too cheap to replace the brakes when they are spent, then go buy a fucking Hyundai Elantra and wait until the brakes are at the backing plates because you never heard the wear indicators go off.

I feel this way about endless battery life discussion on my wife's SUV's forum. People wanting to know exactly how long a battery lasted for someone else (it's not as simple as say my Nissan which is old school change it in < 5 min with a simple wrench, as the battery is under the rear right passenger's feet). But it's like the BMW where it has battery posts under the hood, so I ask, why not load test the battery, either yourself, or if you don't have a load tester, get it done for free. This way, there is no guessing as to what condition your battery is in.

But the thread goes on to the 57th page of people saying how their car died here or there and at what age...

But to tell you the truth, I've seen the same nonsense battery posts here--nobody seems to want to load test it, just speculate....

[AWDBooSTIn90]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I looked at the pictures you posted... you need new brakes. I've done at least 15 brake jobs on BMWs since the early 1990's... your brakes are what is called "spent".

So this is at least the 3rd thread this week on Posters and their brake pad wear system indications. What I don't understand is these people buy a sophisticated, well engineered, and thus expensive car, and ignore the engineering put into it. In your case OP, your car is doing what it is exactly designed to do, which is telling you when the brakes need to be refurbished. You look at the pads and think they have life left in them because they have material left, but you have no idea that they are supposed to have some material left because there is a safety margin engineered in to the system. The safety margin is to prevent the pads from over heating and delaminating from the backing plate. The pads need some material left when they are considered spent so as to have enough material to safely absorb braking heat. All this discussion about tying off the sensors and resetting the system so as to get another few thousand miles out of the pads is just stupid. If you are tying off the sensors because you are too cheap to replace the brakes when they are spent, then go buy a fucking Hyundai Elantra and wait until the brakes are at the backing plates because you never heard the wear indicators go off.

Relax over there broseph, lol

I was just asking why my brake sensors were fine and then when i went to reset them, it then all of a sudden decided the brakes were worn. Mostly because i dont need the CBS to know when to change brake pads and i was curious. This happened in the front and the rear. Same story.

I know the brake pads are worn, but lets be realistic theyre not so worn that the car shouldnt be driven until theyre changed. Im ordering new cool carbon pads, and i was more curious to see if the wear sensors were still good or not and how the car wont reset the brake CBS mileage counter when the sensors look like theyre barelyyy touching the rotor, but i guess that's all it takes. On all my other BMW's ive actually never replaced a wear sensor because i always upgraded the pads and never let the pads get low enough to touch the wear sensors.

Once the pads come in, im replacing the pads, rotors, amd wear sensors i already have on hand. Front and rear.

I understand your point on having enough pad material left to absorb and dissipate heat, makes sense. Never thought of it like that. Your post was informative until you gave me the maintain the car like its a fighter jet speech. But thanks for the input

I know the brake pads are worn and need to be changed, i get that. This thread was more about the wear sensor and when approximately do they kick on. Also does resetting them, when theyre getting very very close to showing a brake pad wear warning, does that not allow them to reset, when if i didnt reset them, imwouldnt have any errors or even any sign my pads were worn and if i was some driver that just drive his car until lights came on, i would never actually know they were so close to being worn.

Now for pads. I will say i do like the OEM pads for the 335i. They bite well, brake well, handle heat on the street fairly well, but creat ALOT of dust.

Ive heard good things about cool carbon pads and also good things about Hawk pads.

Now what would you guys recommend for aggressive street oads, thats my car's current use as of right now. And if i go to the track i will get a set of track pads and swap them in quick. As of right now, im leaning towards Cool Carbon, but enlighten me on some pads that are better than OEM, creat less dust if possible, have a good initial bite, and reseist heat fade better than stock.

Anthony

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by AWDBooSTIn90

Relax over there broseph, lol

I was just asking why my brake sensors were fine and then when i went to reset them, it then all of a sudden decided the brakes were worn. Mostly because i dont need the CBS to know when to change brake pads and i was curious. This happened in the front and the rear. Same story.

I know the brake pads are worn, but lets be realistic theyre not so worn that the car shouldnt be driven until theyre changed. Im ordering new cool carbon pads, and i was more curious to see if the wear sensors were still good or not and how the car wont reset the brake CBS mileage counter when the sensors look like theyre barelyyy touching the rotor, but i guess that's all it takes. On all my other BMW's ive actually never replaced a wear sensor because i always upgraded the pads and never let the pads get low enough to touch the wear sensors.

Anthony

Broster, these passages illuminate my point. On your BMW you don't know when to change the pads and you don't understand how the system works, which is why you are where you are.