[vladman]

Hi,

I bought my car used from BMW mid September. It had 26000 miles when I picked it up. I've covered about 3500 miles since then, approximately 60/40 city/motorway driving.

I fairly accurately remember that the idrive said the rear pads would need changing in 20-30k miles (when I picked the car up) and the fronts in 130000 (yes, 130k), which sounds crazy, is this possible?

The crazy high number for the front pads aside, my issue is that all of a sudden, yesterday I noticed when I started the car it said service needed in 1600 miles, which was very surprising as over the last couple of months the car was progressively counting down the required next service interval in 1000 miles increments, down from about 12000, if I remember correctly, when I picked it up. So only about a week or even less ago, I'm sure it was down to about 7000. I checked the itemised menu in idrive and it's now saying the rear pads need changing in 1600 miles (the fronts are still saying 130000!).

This is all a bit weird to me. Is it reasonable that the rear pads need changing in less than 3 months (and after only 3500 miles) after I bought the car, and how could the mileage countdown for their required change plummet down as suddenly as that?

Should the dealer cover this, I know the pads aren't normally covered by warranty, but does this sound normal to you?

I'm planning a trip to the Czech Republic and back in 10 days and I think I definitely need to have this sorted before that.

Many thanks.

[vladman]

As I'm in a bit of a hurry because of my forthcoming trip to Europe, if I were to replace the pads myself (did it on my previous cars, hopefully it's not too different/complicated?), would I in any way invalidate the warranty on my car? Would the idrive notification system reset itself or would I have to do something?

Thanks.

[The Beast]

You can reset the brake mileage indicator from the instrument cluster, I had a BMW mechanic change mine at his home and he accessed a menu using the mileage trip function. You press and hold it and it brings up a menu that allows you rest all of the service items.

If you do change them make sure you change the sensors as well.

[vladman]

Hi, I haven't had the time to do anything about this. It's now saying 1400 miles till rear brakes need service. The round trip to Europe I'm planning will be approximately 1600 miles.

On another thread somewhere, I read someone's explanation that the iDrive indicator is an approximation, and that real indication that pads need changing imminently is when the embedded sensor withing the pads body itself gets in contact with the disc. Is this correct? When this embedded sensor touches the disc, do I get a different type of warning, on the dash perhaps? And then, the brakes are still functional, but ideally need changing very soon? I'm just trying to decide if I absolutely must change these before my trip, or am I ok to do it on my return.

Obviously, just seeking advice and opinion, I know it's my decision ultimately.

Many thanks.

[makkan00]

When they go down to zero and below, pads have at least 10-20% life left on them.
BMW's method is proactive and suggest you to do it early than be sorry.
On my previous cars, everytime my indy removed pads, there was at least more than 10% life left on them.

[vladman]

Thanks for the reply.

I went and took the rear wheels off today, and had a look. There's about 4-5mm thickness left on all four pads (2 inner and 2 outer). Seems ok to me.