Brake Job

[racingbmwm3]

The red light along with the brake pad warning message indicate pads worn out. The amber light along with the DSC light indicate an ABS/DSC fault. Unless your wires have been damaged (offroading much?) the wear sensors are very reliable. At the minimum, go look through your spokes to see which pads/discs are worn out and make sure you don't have any absurd/abnormal wear that would prevent you from driving your car until it gets warmer out. Just noticed your comment about the cost of rotors. I wouldn't expect to be paying $400 for new rotors unless you upgraded to the 4.6 brakes or have some aftermarket BBK. Even if you did, $400 spread out over 30k miles is only 1.3 cents/mile to know that your brakes will operate at maximum performance for the next 30k miles. You won't notice the difference in regular day to day driving, but if you need to panic stop from 70mph, would that $400 justify the extra distance it takes you to stop because of overheating discs and longer brake pedal travel?

@TiAgX5 - The average I saw for front brakes on E53's in the Portland area was around 40k, and 50-60k for rears. It really depends on your driving style and environment. Looks like the geography of CrazyOneToo is more mountain vs your rolling plains, which would account for some of the wear difference. Also, more highway vs stop/go/city driving can play a major part in brake wear. Also, maybe the OP drives his 3.0 harder than you drive your 4.4 (like you said, maybe track duty)?
And towing I would expect to cause more even wear front to rear, requiring replacement of all the brakes at the same time. If you don't tow every weekend or more, I wouldn't expect a drastic shortening of the brake life (except for the rears).

[CrazyOneToo]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

If you haven't noticed by most of the threads about how fast some drive in the X, and how fast they go stoplight to stoplight in the 3 ton SAV racing kids, a lot of the newer E53 drivers here don't surprise me that they wear out brakes often, most are friends with this guy:

[CrazyOneToo]

Originally Posted by racingbmwm3

The red light along with the brake pad warning message indicate pads worn out. The amber light along with the DSC light indicate an ABS/DSC fault. Unless your wires have been damaged (offroading much?) the wear sensors are very reliable. At the minimum, go look through your spokes to see which pads/discs are worn out and make sure you don't have any absurd/abnormal wear that would prevent you from driving your car until it gets warmer out. Just noticed your comment about the cost of rotors. I wouldn't expect to be paying $400 for new rotors unless you upgraded to the 4.6 brakes or have some aftermarket BBK. Even if you did, $400 spread out over 30k miles is only 1.3 cents/mile to know that your brakes will operate at maximum performance for the next 30k miles. You won't notice the difference in regular day to day driving, but if you need to panic stop from 70mph, would that $400 justify the extra distance it takes you to stop because of overheating discs and longer brake pedal travel?

@TiAgX5 - The average I saw for front brakes on E53's in the Portland area was around 40k, and 50-60k for rears. It really depends on your driving style and environment. Looks like the geography of CrazyOneToo is more mountain vs your rolling plains, which would account for some of the wear difference. Also, more highway vs stop/go/city driving can play a major part in brake wear. Also, maybe the OP drives his 3.0 harder than you drive your 4.4 (like you said, maybe track duty)?
And towing I would expect to cause more even wear front to rear, requiring replacement of all the brakes at the same time. If you don't tow every weekend or more, I wouldn't expect a drastic shortening of the brake life (except for the rears).

Yeah its just the red brake light coming on. Never been offroad since I owned it. Dont know about PO. You make some good points and if I see they seem worn at all I will replace them. I just bought the vehicle a few months ago and don't know the brake history. As for the terrain I live in the city and the traveling back and forth to work is flat driving. No towing at all. I plan to buy a hitch kit someday soon tho. The reason I had hoped it was the sensor is I had issues with the rear on my E46 2 years or so back. It kept picking up metal dust and road grime thus making it say the brakes were low. Brake pads were fine. I took it off and cleaned it several times and it would stay off for a little while but would come back on after awhile. After doing that a few times I bought a new one and it hasnt came on again.

PS anyone have experience with this brand or type of rotor? Low quality??

Front Rear Kit Black Hart Drilled Slotted Disc Brake Rotors | eBay


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[bcredliner]

Sensors sometime fail and set the light off when pads are fine. Once they cause a problem it is unusual to get them to work right again. Save time and money, jack up the 2 wheels with the sensors. Start with the front and visually check the pads then you will what the cause of the light.

[TiAgX5]

Originally Posted by CrazyOneToo

.....PS anyone have experience with this brand or type of rotor? Low quality??

Front Rear Kit Black Hart Drilled Slotted Disc Brake Rotors | eBay


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Look the same as mine from BrakeLabs.........just different coating. Mine are zinc plated, been on 2 months.

See "Cool Carbon Pad" thread I just bumped.

[CrazyOneToo]

Originally Posted by bcredliner

Sensors sometime fail and set the light off when pads are fine. Once they cause a problem it is unusual to get them to work right again. Save time and money, jack up the 2 wheels with the sensors. Start with the front and visually check the pads then you will what the cause of the light.

I will as soon as I can....weather permitting. Are ceramic pads good?
I hear they make less brake dust and that really sounds good to me. Originally was planning to go with OEM but now I am on the fence. I dont drive fast so a little loss in braking wont bother me.

[CrazyOneToo]

Originally Posted by TiAgX5

Look the same as mine from BrakeLabs.........just different coating. Mine are zinc plated, been on 2 months.

See "Cool Carbon Pad" thread I just bumped.

They look great on yours but I have stock wheels and plan to either dip them anthracite or powdercoat them dark. Seems like these black ones would match better when I get that done. And $200 for a set of 4 sounds like a decent price. But quality is what I care about more than looks!!!


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[TiAgX5]

Originally Posted by CrazyOneToo

They look great on yours but I have stock wheels and plan to either dip them anthracite or powdercoat them dark. Seems like these black ones would match better when I get that done. And $200 for a set of 4 sounds like a decent price. But quality is what I care about more than looks!!!


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Looks were secondary for me too.

These are made/machined in the USA, 300 series iron. I did a 100% inspection of flatness, parallelism, runout and dynamic balance. Everything checked out.

These come with a 1 yr warranty, if they did not check out I planned on returning for a refund. If they crack I will return them.

I've done two 12 stop cycles from 50/60 mph to 5 mph near ABS activation, to bed/mat'l transfer the pads/rotors (allowed full cooldown between the two cycles). After about 5 wks of use I went out and did a series of +100 mph to 10 mph stops (early am, empty hwy).

No cracking or issues.

[racingbmwm3]

You say you don't drive fast so don't need the extra performance, and you are planning to have dark colored wheels, just stick with the OEM. (ATE, Jurid, Textar) You seem cost conscious, so why pay the extra money for ceramics if they won't really benefit you?

I also don't see the benefit of cross drilled rotors, else all supercars and 'tuned' factory cars would use them. They had their place when they first came out because of the outgassing from old style pad materials, but the modern ceramic pads don't have that problem anymore and the holes reduce the swept (functional) area of the rotor as well as introduce the possibility of cracking that doesn't occur on solid rotors. But, cracking typically doesn't occur until the rotors are worn and probably should have been replaced already...to me it falls in the category of cold air intakes and oversized exhausts

[TiAgX5]

I got away from solid rotors because of pad float while driving in wet conditions. With the new rotors in wet hwy conditions the brakes are stopping the INSTANT I hit the pedal. With solid rotors I had about 1 sec of pad hydroplane in heavy rain @ 80 mph, that adds about 120 feet to stopping distance to solid rotors vs drilled/slotted. MASSIVE difference!