[chickenjames]

I'm approaching a service (oil change and inspection) and also my front and rear pads are nearly due.
They all started counting down from 5000 miles, in 100 miles intervals.
The brakes got a bit ahead (i.e. they had 3200 left and the oil had 3500 left), but I notice that the brake counters both stopped at 3200, while the oil kept counting down, and now everything is at 3200. It's almost as though the brake counters stopped to allow the oil counter to catch up.
Anyone else noticed this sort of thing?
I do about 100 miles/day so it shouldn't take long to see what happens next...

[Fast400]

One thing I can say about the mileage countdown for the BMW brakes, is that they are spot on! Don't go over...ever! Changed pads for a friend with 500mls left, and they wouldn't have lasted 100mls more. If you change them now with 3200 left, you may be able to save the sensing wire hooked to the pad. As you get lower it starts wearing the sensor in which case you'll need to replace it.

[chickenjames]

how can I tell if the sensing wire has stopped working? would that be why the countdown has stopped?
I notice that the text in the display is different for oil and brakes- brakes seems to be implying that you *must* get them changed before the countdown hits zero, whereas the implication is that oil has a +/i tolerance (which I think is 1000 miles)

[chickenjames]

hmm. oil has gone down to 3100 now but brakes are still on 3200 and they've been there for hundreds of miles. that's weird.

Anyway what I'll do is get it serviced once the oil counter hits <1000 and I bet the brakes will need doing as well...

[KGB_123_99]

If you don't care about the sensor, just drive until you trigger the brake light on your dash. That is how we used to change pads before the silly countdown meter.

[chickenjames]

urk - the brake countdown suddenly leaped from 3200->1500->1200 in half a hour - and now I have to get them done ASAP!

[CLittle]

How many miles do you have on your car? Maybe it's just a miscalculation that requires reprogramming.

[chickenjames]

28k miles. It's booked in tomorrow for brakes and in 3 weeks to get the oil&inspection done. Normally I'd be relaxed but I'm about to go on quite a long road trip (2.5k miles) and I want to make sure it's all sorted before I go - there aren't a lot of BMW service centres in the Scottish Highlands...

[chickenjames]

went to the garage today.... and

all the pads, front and rear, are way under the BMW limit
the front disks are very T shaped at the top and are way thinner than the load limit

the car is claiming that there's 1200 left on the front and 3200 on the rear!

So they're all being changed.

And, helpfully, the garage have agreed to do the oil change and inspection service even though the display is saying 2400 still to go before they're due.

that's all, perhaps this is slightly interesting to some of you :-)

[boafriend]

Sorry to resurrect a super-old thread. Couldn't find one like this. My next service countdown (it's for the front brake pads) has been stuck at 1,400 miles for probably over a year now. I never noticed any issues with my brakes when braking; no sounds or squeals or delay. Yesterday when I as driving, out of nowhere, my iDrive started blaring saying my front brake pads were at ZERO MILES. Literally dropped from an unmoving 1,400 reading to ZERO.

My braking had no issue whatsoever, but I was rattled by the sudden warning. Decided to call my local shop and schedule an inspection Monday morning. Guy's guess is that the sensors malfunctioned. It also wouldn't hurt to check my pads to see how much wear there is.

From my personal experience, the iDrive is off a lot (as many others have also noted here). I forgot... I had a tire warning or something a few years back but iDrive showed many miles until my next job. I went into America's Tires and they said the tread on my front tire was really low and needed to be replaced. I'd also gone in another auto shop years back with a 400-mile reading for my rear and front brake pads and the shop found my pads were in need of replacement ASAP.

[Billfitz]

The long term count down in iDrive is a guess, pure and simple. It's based on the assumed number of miles that new pads can be expected to last, and there's a famous saying about what happens when you A-S-S-U-M-E. The warning generated by sensors is different, they trip when the actual pad thickness is down to a specified limit. That would normally cause a short term count down to begin, starting at 1000 miles as I recall. This system isn't perfect either, because there are only two sensors, on the left front inside and right rear inside pads, leaving the other six pads unaccounted for. A broken sensor wire can give a false positive as well. Bottom line, yearly visual checks of all eight pads is a must.