320 e, brakes and instrument cluster

[wise320e]

I don't have a manual for my 94 320e. What I thought was the brake light sensor came on, so I replaced all the pads and sensors. The light is still on! Did I do something wrong ? It is the light with a circle it is yellow and located right next to the red park brake light. Any suggestions what to do now?

[G-Benz]

A few post-mortem questions for you...

1. Did the brake pad wear indicator "flicker" or come on solid when brakes were applied while deaccelerating?

2. Did you notice pad wear (especially the fronts) that was down far enough to trip the sensor attached to it?

3. The pad wear sensor is indeed yellow, but does the icon look like a set of concentric circles with a dotted outer circle (three hashes, each side)?. Is it to the right of the red BRAKE indicator?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then possibly, the sensor(s) aren't installed properly, Take care to route the sensors through the spring clips in such a manner that the insulation is not subject to kinks or anything that may breach the insulation, cause wire-to-metal contact, and set off the light. This happened to me once upon pad installation.

BTW, if the light you are referring to is the one next to the ABS light, then that is the "bulb out" indicator, not the brake pad sensor.

[Ferdman]

Wise, that's the brake pad wear indicator. Presumably you checked the thickness of the brake pads before replacing them all. As mentioned you may simply have a short somewhere that is causing the dash warning light to illuminate. It's not a panic situation when the brake pad wear indicator light comes on ... probably have a 1,000 miles or so before experiencing any scoring of the discs.

[wise320e]

Only one of the pads had wore into the sensor. I guess I will double check the sensor wires to see if I installed them correctly. Thanks for the help.

[bowin]

Check the brake fluid in the container. If the level low, it will indicate the same light.

[sokoloff]

Unless things changed in the 124, the red brake light indicates low fluid level as well as parking brake on/off.

Len

[ILUVMILS]

If everything checks out with the brakes, you may want to consider the possibility that one of the warning bulbs is installed in the wrong socket in the instrument cluster. It sounds silly, but I've seen it happen more than once.

[wise320e]

G-Benz you was right. I compromised a sensor wire. So I replaced it with one of the older wires, that was still in good shape. Thanks... this forum sure is handy.