Ok so i just went and got my brakes pads changed at a local trustworthy shop. Now i have an indicator saying brake pads are low and im sure he changed out the old pads. What can i do to remove this message? Any help would be appreciated thanks

 

I believe there is a separate pad wear indicator part on the caliper that also has to be replaced, but I may be wrong.

 

You've got be kidding me. That would suck

 

Not really, useful to warn you when pads need replacing.

Early cars don't have this feature.

The sensor is on one rear wheel? It is recommended the sensor be replaced with the pads as apparently the sensor can be damaged when the pads wear out.

 

Fashions come and fashions go...........

Back in the 80's the UK market XJ40's had pad wear indicators but this useful feature was dropped on later models. Now they're back again on the XF?

Graham

 

Can i just order the sensor?

 

You get a sensor easily and cheap enough, should be less than $20 but pads will need to removed and reinstalled on the brake with the sensor. Not a big job and the guy who did the work should do it free as it should have been done when the pads were replaced. As for there value, the sensors, which ideally are installed all 4 calipers, can warn you of pad wear before your rotors turn to scrap metal. If the rotors are well made you don't always need to replace them every time the pads wear out saving you big bucks on a brake job.

 

Except the XF wears out its rear rotors with one set of pads.

Fronts are much more durable apparently.

Still, it is rare now for rotors to outlast the second set of pads.

Which begs the question why pad wear sensors then?

 

Once the new sensors are on do I have to do anything special to remove the message of brake pads low or will it disappear on its own? Thanks

 

It should go out on its own. The sensor is usually just a wire which wears through when the pad reaches a certain wear level usually under 2mm remaining. I am not sure which type Jaguar uses but it will either ground a circuit when active or open one, either way the light will go out when the pad wear indicator is connected.

 

Well my change brake light never came on but I could tell they were getting low so I got the brakes changed. With that being said should the sensors still be working?

 

2009 XF do not have pad wear sensors.

 

I have a 2010 NA

 

Pad wear sensors are very simple devices.if you have them on your 2010 they will still work. They only illuminate the warning when the pads are virtually gone, just before the rotors touch the backing plate of the one pad. Spec is 1mm left for pad replacement I believe, 2mm at most. The per mile cost of brake pad is tiny so it makes perfect sense to change badly worn pads before the light goes on.

Mechanics also always want to change them out early because of long experience with warnings unheeded by customers followed by complaints from those same customers when the brake job becomes very expensive. Unless you are experienced at observing and predicting pad wear it is false economy to wait until the very last minute to replace worn pads. I know, I do!

 

Thanks for all the info but let me rephrase my statement/question. My brakes low indicator didn't come on until after I got my new brake pads on. Being that my brake indicator came on after the brake job and there is no reset switch to turn off the indicator something must be wrong with the sensors correct? I'm Assuming they hooked them back on or didn't destroy them when they were taking them off. They admitted they never worked on an XF before and they actually had to go out and buy new tools to get the job done. With all that being said I guess I should be looking for new sensors being that the indicator is still on?

 

The pad sensors will have been disturbed when the pads were replaced, and clearly are now flagging a warning, so best to replace them. At the minimum, an inspection is needed to see why the warning is coming up.

 

The new tools would be to turn the caliper pistons back in. A lot of European cars use that system for self adjusting park brake.

My mechanic advises that often the pad wear sensors need replacing when the pads are changed. He suggested they are sometimes damaged when the pads wear thin.

New sensors should solve your problem and it likely wasn't your shop's fault.

 

I have not seen them for $20 anywhere online can you point me in the right direction?

 

This whole discussion brings up the question of why not take it back to who did the repair and ask them to look at it. You better believe that if something happened like that in this shop, the owner would be back right away. Another point of view would be the reputation of this repair shop or person not understanding pad wear sensors. There are so many european cars that have sensors on them that any respectable mechanic would know to replace them and ROUTE them correctly. I suspect the wear sensor was damaged from replacement or damaged from routing it wrong and it rubbed the wheel. Either way, the sensor is at fault and needs replacement. The light will go out on its own once it is repaired.

 

I just did the brakes on my 2010 XFR last weekend, so I can maybe shed a little clarity to the brake situation. My car had a sensor on the front driver's side and the rear passenger side. The brake wear sensor will need to be replaced at with each brake job as it is a wearing part.

The sensor is a basically a plastic slug that clips into the brake pad. The slug has a wire that runs through it and connects into the harness near the control arm. You could remove the sensor altogether, but I suspect that would result in a persistent warning light in the message center.

The cheapest price that I could find for the sensor online was around $70. Sensor installation is incredibly simple and can be done in a few minutes by removing the wheel and clipping the sensor into the harness, the retaining clips along the brake line, and into the U shaped slot on the brake pad.

If you have an existing sensor on the car, you can visually identify that it is warn by looking at the contact surface of the plastic slug (the surface that wears against the rotor when the brake pad is low). If you can see two copper dots, then the sensor wire isn't making a full circuit and you'll get the warning light.