Replaced front pads, rotors and sensor today. Other than the 21mm bolts holding the caliper on it was easy and straight forward. Those bolts are tough!

Anyway, still have the pad wear light on the dash so either I installed it wrong or it’s the rear one.

Any ideas or anything I can check to verify it’s installed right or needs to be reset? (Pretty sure there isn’t a reset tho).

 

Just remove the 10mm slide bolts to remove the caliper. they have to be removed anyway to re-grease the pins. No need to remove the caliper bracket. The sensor gets replaced with new pads. One is driver front and other is passenger rear (if I recall). Did you put new sensors on? Also some of the aftermarket sensors have horrible plugs that don't connect well, tug em a little to see if they pop apart.

 

I’ll tug on the connection tomorrow although it seemed seated well. Replaced the sensor with a new one, new pads, shims and rotors.

the pads seemed to be seated and it stops pretty well. Maybe a little soft as it seats but I expected that.

Nothing touched on the rear yet although I looked thru the rim and they look pretty low too.

 

Ah, yeah if doing rotors the caliper brackets come off. Makes more sense now why you did that. You can always jumper the sensors to see if the light goes out. There can be other causes for the light to come on, such as a faulty parking brake system.

 

I’ll try the jumper. EPB works flawlessly.

 

Pulled the front sensor and it’s fine. Hopefully I got it reseated correctly. It’s way harder to reach with the wheel on in off-road height as opposed to on jack stands without the wheel.

Pulled the rear pad sensor and found the problem. Next weekend will be rear replacements for sure.

Here are a couple of photos of the worn sensor in the event someone hasn’t seen one.

It’s been cut off and the wires bonded together to turn off the light.

Rear pad wear sensor. Worn.

Rear pad wear sensor. Worn.

 

Since when do you replace the sensor when replacing pads? The sensor is at the end if a long wire that goes up along the suspension and then behind the wheel liner to a plug. I broke mine when installing new pads and had to replace it by taking out the wheel liner. I wouldn't say it was a routine job. . They are easy to break as they have a U shaped plastic section that slides onto the pad but one side is really thin and easily broken off.

 

I replaced the front one when I did pads and rotors because it was corroded. It wasn’t that hard to pop the liner, run the cable and plug it in. Turned out it wasn’t the one that set the light, it was the rear.

I haven't replaced the rear yet, just cut it off, spliced the wires together to create a circuit and override the light, turning it off again.

 

Very often. That is kinda how it works. The sensor wears out once the pads get to a certain point and thus requires replacement. The only time one does not is if pads are being replaced early and the sensor has not been "damaged" yet.

 

Make sure:
1. Brake sensor harness is fully seated. Some aftermarket sensors seem to clip but are very tight. Had a sensor that stayed on for months. Re checked everything and solved it with channel lock pliers to squeeze the harness fully together.
2. Make sure you're using a green front brake sensor on the front and a brown rear brake sensor on the rear. One defaults to open circuit, the other defaults to closed circuit. Weird, but they are not interchangable. Hence the different colored wires.

I replace these sensors every time. They're 4 for $40 on Amazon. Brakes get hot and that plastic won't hold up. I've had the tip crumble in my hand.