[mex2309]

The computer on the car says I'll need brakes in 1,500 mi ( right when my odometer hits 49,500). This is good since they can change them under the maintenance warranty for free. However today I brought my car for other things and to check the brakes and my SA says they have 6mm left and since then they have changed the computer to reflect that they need replaced 6k miles from now.

This will be obviously be outside the 50k maintenance plan. Should I fight it and tell them to change it back to the original reading? Can they do that?

[Tom K.]

My understanding is that brake service under maintenance is dependent upon actual pad measurement, not the dashboard reading. So I doubt you'll get yours done under the warranty period.

Tom

[David1]

The sensor needs to be tripped to get the brakes service from BMW. 3mm or less of pad material. If you are at 6mm, thatis way away. The mileage is based on driving style and isa computer estimate. The dealer should not have changed the readout though. Now you will geta brake warning when the sensor trips and you willbe likw WTF? The car showed I had like 10k miles left when I left for vacation!!

[Three_thirty_I]

They should not have changed the readout, but since they have physically measured the pad thickness at least you know how much "meat" is left. There are times when for what ever reason, the pad wear is different from left to right side and while the wear sensor might not have tripped the other side might have seen more wear, this is why it is best to actually check the wear. With 6mm left, that is still a fair amount of pad life, so I think within reason for them not to change them at this stage - pads are also not so massively expensive, well not as bad as the disks...

[BMW_TECH]

The late model LCI uses a different sensor and algorithm to compute brake wear. Sometimes the calculated mileage is off and indicates that brakes need to be replaced, when in reality, there is plenty of life left. BMW recently released a software fix for the issue.