Hi,

The 'Low Brake Pads' warning has been coming on intermittently on my 2010 XF SC so I took it into the Jag dealership. Of course they want to replace all four rotors and all pads, sensors, etc at a cost of over $2100.

I find it surprising that the rotors need to be replaced due to wear.
I find it surprising that the pads cost more than the rotors!

I have a few questions about this...

How many miles can I expect from pads and rotors? - with regular road driving / lively road driving / racing...
Do rotors wear out at the same time as pads?
Do the sensors always need to be replaced?
What should these components cost?

 

The dealer want to do service to make profit. Your goal is to pay as little as you can for a safe car. The two interests conflict with each other :-).

Basically, you do not necessarily have to replace the rotor with the pads. An honest mechanic would measure the thickness of the worn rotor and compare it to the minimal thickness value that should be stamped on the rotor, or available as a spec on the web. He should give you a choice to replace it, unless it is worn already beyond the minimal thickness.

Generally, even if you do not remove the wheels, you should be able to reach through the wheels and get an idea on how much the rotors are worn. New rotors have no "shoulders", that is a very thin raised metal where the pads do not wear it near the outer edges. Badly worn rotors will have a very pronounced raised edge when compared to the surface where the pads ride.

So, run your finger through the rotor surface. As long is it is not badly grooved and does not have a pronounced shoulder you probably are safe for many thousands of miles.

 

Alex, do you have even a little bit of mechanical ability in you? If so, you can do the brake job yourself and save a ton of money. Worst case, you can get a set of rotors and pads through e-bay for your car for around $400. You figure in another $50 in miscellaneous parts (this is really high, honestly, you are looking at maybe $15 for some tygon tubing, a pint of brake fluid, and a bottle of pad adhesive). From there, doing the brakes is easy and you can most likely get it done in about 2-3 hours.

If you have to replace the pad sensor, e-bay has them for $50-60 delivered to your door. Installing them is easy. So, worst case, you can do the whole list of work that they were saying for around $500 or so (I doubt you would need to replace all 4 sensors). I wish you lived close to Maryland. I would tell you to come over and we could get you taken care of in an afternoon easy.

 

Edobernig has a how to on this. It's in the sticky notes section.

 

Thanks for the encouragement Thermo and jaguny. There was wear on the rotors - perhaps 2 couple of millimeters ridge on the shoulder.

I think I will replace the front brakes myself. I'll take a good look at Edobernig's how-to post. I did see that already - looks very comprehensive.

 

Check out my How to on brakes in the XF forum and also 03-08 XJ, I did both of them since I have both cars. It's fairly easy with hand tools.

 

If you're not getting any vibration or shimmy when you brake, I don't think you need new rotors. The only time I've ever replaced rotors on any car was when I had these events. Many shops will tell you that you can't put new pads on without replacing the rotors, but plenty of others will tell you what I just said (if they're honest). I would buy some low dust aftermarket pads and have an independent shop do the work. The cost should be around 1 hr labor for front + 1 hr for the rear.

 

^ This

Doing your own brake job might seem difficult, but it is surprisingly easy. Brake Calipers are held on by just a couple bolts, the old pads pop out, the new ones snap in. Take the rotors to O'Reilly's to get them mic'd, and if they're still thick enough they'll turn them for $25. If you're even moderately handy and have a socket set you can do each corner in about 20 minutes. Got a friend with you? You can do each corner in 15 minutes and bleed the brakes too. Front pads (EBC Redstuffs) are $150 with four pads to do the front wheels. Throw in some brake fluid to bleed the system and your total cost should be around $200 to do the fronts.

As an aside, I highly recommend EBC Redstuff pads. Not only do they grab well, they are VERY low dust. That's the one thing I don't like about the stock pads on the XFR, they produce a lot of dust. An alternative are Hawk HPS pads, which also grab well and low dust but they don't make them for my XFR.

 

Incorrect.

Rotors are stamped with minimum permitted thickness in mm.

If the rotors are more than half worn you MUST replace them or they will be below spec before the new pads wear out.

On modern cars the rotors often wear down more than 50% on the first set of pads so replacement is required when new pads are fitted.

 

I just had my front rotors turned true. Was getting a wobble at high speed braking. Dealer told me they would have turned them but did not have a machine to do it. Had it done at a local brake shop. My XF has a little over 20k miles. Will see how long it lasts.

 

hey Thermo where are you in Maryland? I would love to learn how to change the brakes on my jag.

ernest

 

Aftermarket brakes perform as good as oem, i replaced my front 15 inch rotors and pads with r1 concepts carbon geomet rotors drilled and performance pads for 500 canadian, just under 400 usd. Aftermarket brake sensors were 20 dollars a piece, theres only 1 sensor for the fronts and 1 for the rear. Yours will be much cheaper with the smaller rotors and pads. EBC rotors and pads would probably cost you 200usd for the fronts. Check your brake pad percentage, if you have 4mm or less then replace all your pads and rotors. OEM pads are semi metalic which chew up your rotors as your pads ware out. If your replacing all 4 rotors and pads get ceramic pads (ebc red stuff) that way you can change your pads out twice before you even have to think about changing the rotors.

Any mechanic shop can do your rotors and pads, by the book its a 4 hour job to do all 4 (2.5 hours for the front and 1.5 hours for the rears). Just find a reputable mechanic to do it if you don't want to do it youraeyo. The whole thing, front and rear should cost you 1000usd or less for parts and labor.

 

I am still running stock rotors, but I switched to ceramic pads. You need to measure the thickness of your rotors before you determine if they need to be replaced.

So many good things about the ceramics, with no downsides for me. One of the nice things is how long the rear brakes last now. On my 2011, you are lucky to get 20-30K miles out of the rear brakes. Since I put on the ceramics, the rotors have stopped wearing (as evidence by complete lack of brake dust), and the rear pads still look like new after 30K miles since I put them on.

 

Ill be ordering new rotors and pads from myself here in the next few weeks. Doing the job all the way around. Is the sensor a wear item or is it only to be replaced as needed if damaged?

 

If you have groovings on your rotors where you nails can catch it, then replace it. If not then its fine.

The brake sensors should be replaced if the brake sensor light comes on. If not then you will be able to reuse it, but keep in mind, they are VERY fragile when removing and most of the time the tabs to brake off from age, so its best to replace the sensor as well, its a very cheap item. Centric and acdelco brand are less than 20usd a sensor on carid.com. again, theres only one sensor for the fronts and one for the rears

 

So rotor thickness doesn't matter? LOL

 

Not if you have deep grooving or a lip forming on the rotor. If grooving is on there, you would have to shave quite a bit of rotor thickness to get rid of it, less thickness on the rotor, the higher the chance of warping or hot spots. If you put fresh pads on rotors with grooves then you wont get proper contact on the pads and they will ware out faster.

 

Ok, so what happens if the rotors aren't grooved, but they are below min thickness? You said if they aren't grooved, they are fine.

"If you have groovings on your rotors where you nails can catch it, then replace it. If not then its fine."

 

Ok, now you're being petty,it's common sense and obvious that if your rotors are below minimum thickness then you have to replace it. Also, if you know it's below minimum thickness, chances are you have gone to a mechanic who has already recommended replacements or you have used a gauge yourself to measure the thickness and your mechanically inclined to know its below the minimum thickness which also means you know it needs to be replaced. checking for grooves is a visual indication that its time to replace rotors.

 

Not being petty. I am just doing my part to correct people like you that post nonsense on forums like this for people that are trying to learn from these posts and don't know any better. And it's not uncommon for people like you to try to pretend like you didn't post some ridiculous instead of just owning up to it. So no surprise there.

Please stop polluting on the internet.