I just replaced front and rear pads, front rotors and f/r sensors on my friend’s e53 X5 (2005 4.4i). It stops on a dime (relatively speaking or a massively heavy BMW) but I can’t get the “check brake lining” message and red brake light to go out. Help please!
Here are what I think are the pertinent facts:
I’ve done this countless times on my e30s, e46 and e86 so I think it was done properly but I’m not familiar with the e53 as respects the warning indicators and resetting (if it doesn’t reset automatically)
The front senor was worn through and triggered the check brake lining message. The rears were close but the sensor was intact
I checked and rechecked the fitting of the sensor connectors and I believe they are snug, but both of the connectors on the vehicle harness side are brittle and the locking tabs were broken off previously
I checked the brake fluid level after the new pads were installed and it appears to be very close to the max line but it was certainly lower before the calipers were compressed and the new pads installed
I turned the key to position two and waited in hope that the brake light would go out but it will not. Again I’m not familiar with X5s of any generation so I don’t know that that procedure was supposed to work.
The “brake” indicator is glowing red, not yellow
The hand brake is fully released and the dash has a separate light for the hand brake which is operating properly
So have I overlooked something, could the vehicle-side sensor receptors be faulty although they seem to be fitting snugly or does the emergency brake possibly need adjustment? Or is it none of the above.
Thanks very much for your help, Bill