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What warning should I expect if brake pads are worn out?
2014 F-type 19,450 miles...I’ve been getting “Brake” ," ABS Fault” and other warning lights sporadically. I installed a new battery. Cannot find anything so I looked at R. Front brakes. The outside pad has around 3/8” of friction material and the inside pad maybe 1/8” of material. A U-TUBE video mentions a “sensor” that, I assume triggers a warning, but I don’t see the sensor. The video mentions that the sensor must be replaced when new pads are installed, as it “Breaks” at some point...?
My question is; what kind of sensor is it? Can I tell without removing the pads if the sensor has worn to the point of giving a warning?? The second wire woes to the center of the hub back-side..
I cannot see anything touching the disk(Such as a wire or scraper). The huge difference between thickness of friction material looks strange to me but I’ve never done a brake job on a Jag F-type.
If pads wear out, exactly what warning message indicates THAT’s the problem?
EDIT: Looking through the slot BEHIND the caliper it appears BOTH pads are approx. 3/8” thick..From the front one can only see a small amount of the inside pad. .
Last edited by Philipintexas; Jul 16, 2021 at 03:04 PM.
Jaguar only installs sensors on one wheel front and back - in my case it was left front and right rear. I fits in the U shaped groove in the top of the pad backing.
It's a sacrificial sensor - when the pad gets too thin it wears the sensor an breaks the connection, triggering the pad wear warning.
If you replace the pads before that, you can theoretically reuse the sensor, but my experience ahs been that they get brittle over time, and tend to disintegrate when you try to reinstall. I just replace them as a matter of habit.
Funny, I looked at two u-tube videos and I thought both were working on the Front Right. Mine appears to have the sensor on the Left front so I’ll pull that wheel next.
I don’t believe that’s my problem as there is plenty of material on the one I checked. The sensor could be a problem so I’ll check. I’ll check the obvious stuff before going to a dealer. If one wears down to the sensor, what message is displayed???
The official JLR story is that the pad wear sensors are meant to activate when that pad (either left front inner or right rear inner) gets down to around 3 mm thick.
But these sensors are known to be problematic, with many reports on the Pommy forum of sensors failing to trigger at all and especially false triggering when there is still plenty of pad thickness left. From memory the message which is supposed to flash up on the dash is "brake pads low" (never had it myself, see next point).
Because the sensors are not reliable and because I check the pad wear and condition manually every two or three months I have always disabled the sensors, on my XFS, XFR and F-Type. You can't just remove the sensors altogether otherwise you will get the "brake pads low" warning forever, you need to keep the top wiring connection (up high in the footwell) plugged in. So there are at least two ways to disable them - just pull/leave the sensor end out of the pad and zip tie it up out of the way (this is what I have done) or cut and splice/tie the two wires together - but either way you need to keep the other end plugged in up in the footwell.
My brake pad sensors tripped last year (65k+ miles, pads were shot), the message was ‘brake pads need replacing’, or something like that. Had to press ‘ok’ to get rid of it each time I started the car.
Thanks Guys, I’m nowhere near having them worn down but I was hoping they might be the source of all my warning lights. I get every warning brake light EXCEPT one mentioning brake pads.
What warning should I expect if brake pads are worn out?
