Hi Everyone! I'm brand new to this forum and looking forward to interacting with everyone. My first question we recently had a number of lights come on all at the same time. Our 2017 Cooper S 4D Hardtop only has about 25k miles on it. A notification to service the brake fluid came on, which makes sense and even though I cleared it, I will take care of that soon. A message also came on telling me the front brakes need to be replaced and to drive moderately until they are taken care of. I took a look at the pads and they look good (at least the outer pads since I did not actually take the tires off) and my wife usually drives the care and she is not aggressive at all in her driving so I wouldn't expect to have to replace the pads with this mileage. The back side of the rotors did feel a bit bumpy with some grooves.

So my questions is, should I really replace the brakes at this time? And any thought about possible issue with the rotors or is that pretty normal? I noticed when I searched the forum, many people disable the sensor, and was wondering if this is the reason. If I do need to do the brakes, any thoughts on pads? A quick search resulted in a very wide range of pad costs.

Thanks for your input!

 

short version:

you have TWO brake wear alert systems. One is a simple counter that has an 'assumed' number which the computer counts down from with some adjusting over time adjusting to driving style <same as the oil change counter>. The other is the physical wear sensor in th outer left front and right rear pads.

IME it is NOT uncommon for the counter to be WAY off. I've had the alert come on and physically checked the pads and saw plenty of meat SO I reset the indicator and the miles count reset and away I went for another 10,000 miles or so .....

Now if you try this and the alert comes back IMMEDIATELY then it is probable your sensor has tripped. It is possible for a sensor to trip earlier than YOU might think it should but IME the sensor going off does mean new pads pretty soon but again VERIFY with eye ball!!!! Point is you can't clear the sensor caused warning without replacing (or jumpering out) the sensor. If you reset the counter and the warning goes away the sensors must be OK - for now.

The brake fluid replacement is on a simple calendar .... it pops at 2 years . . .