Brake pad wear indicator

[serdar_18fr]

Hi, everyone.

I have my 2018 Leon FR since May 2021, it had 23k kilometers on it, now it is near 60k. I have yet to replace discs or pads, (no issues with them and they seem to have some more life still) so I didn't see or check if they have wear sensors.

The car's full build info shows that it does have it (9U1 - Brake pad wear indicator) and I see it as "installed" in Central Electrics module/Adaptations/HW-Verbau using OBDeleven. There's another curious entry in Dashboard module/Long Coding/Brake lining wear indicator with brake system indicator light and it is set to "No".

What I want to know is whether a separate yellow indicator light for brake wear shows up on ignition briefly, which does not happen in my car's virtual cockpit. All other lights are there but not that one. The user manual shows such a light, I attached the photo of it. But the manual doesn't say whether it is supposed to show up on ignition or it would only light up in case of actual wear.

I tried changing the "No" value to "Yes" in Dashboard module but it didn't change anything so I thought that is meant for something else, like, when needed it would use the main brake system indicator light for pad wear warnings also, I could be wrong of course.

I'd be grateful if people who know their cars have those sensors tell me whether they see a separate warning indicator for that on ignition.

Thanks.

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[Guyelle]

I have a 2014 Cupra 280 w/ pad wear sensors and I do not get this symbol appear on my dash when switching on the ignition (I don't have virtual cockpit). So I think that is the expected behaviour.

If you're really interested to see it working you can always unplug the sensor and jump the two pins on the plug. The sensor is in the drivers front side.

 

[SuperV8]

If you're really interested to see it working you can always unplug the sensor and jump the two pins on the plug. The sensor is in the drivers front side.

The Leon wear sensor (like most of VAG) is actually just one looped wire, which triggers the light when it wears through and breaks - so just need to pull the connector to trigger the wear warning light. No need to jump anything.

 

[serdar_18fr]

I have a 2014 Cupra 280 w/ pad wear sensors and I do not get this symbol appear on my dash when switching on the ignition (I don't have virtual cockpit). So I think that is the expected behaviour.

If you're really interested to see it working you can always unplug the sensor and jump the two pins on the plug. The sensor is in the drivers front side.

Thanks for taking the time to respond

I'm really interested to see it working

I was thinking about that too, but as @SuperV8 said after your post, just unplugging the connector and see if it lights up on the dash. I'll try that later when I have time. Thanks again.


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[SuperV8]

Pad wear sensors are usually positioned at around 2-3mm of pad material left.

In my previous old Audi A4, I did over 90,000 miles on one set of brakes - driving to optimise MPG. Obviously how and where you drive has a huge effect on the life of your brakes.

 

[serdar_18fr]

Pad wear sensors are usually positioned at around 2-3mm of pad material left.

In my previous old Audi A4, I did over 90,000 miles on one set of brakes - driving to optimise MPG. Obviously how and where you drive has a huge effect on the life of your brakes.

Never saw more than 50k kilometers on a set of pads with any of my previous cars, as you said I attribute it to my driving style.
My Leon is still on its original set and it's 60k now, of which 37k was done by me.
I tend to drive this one more relaxed so we'll see how it ends up.

 

[Newt182]

Easily get many tens of thousands of miles from my break pads, but I'm not the kind of person that races to a red light and then brakes hard, or keeps tapping the brakes every few seconds because I'm so close to the car in front. I actually remember reading a book my grandad had on driving, from like the 40s or something. In a nutshell, stopping is bad (waste of fuel, brakes etc..), so try to drive where you anticipate what's happening, no stopping at roundabouts, leave a bigger gap to the car in front, so if it turns you don't have to come to a stop behind it... Things like that

 

[SuperV8]

Easily get many tens of thousands of miles from my break pads, but I'm not the kind of person that races to a red light and then brakes hard, or keeps tapping the brakes every few seconds because I'm so close to the car in front. I actually remember reading a book my grandad had on driving, from like the 40s or something. In a nutshell, stopping is bad (waste of fuel, brakes etc..), so try to drive where you anticipate what's happening, no stopping at roundabouts, leave a bigger gap to the car in front, so if it turns you don't have to come to a stop behind it... Things like that

Agree - but you also need to use them every now and then and get some heat into them otherwise they will corrode and you'll have to change them from corrosion rather than wear!
I am seeing this with EV's - which tend to be the most gentle on their brakes due to motor regeneration so they have very low wear - but as they are seldom used they corrode, and the discs often look in a very poor state (have a look at Tesla model 3 front discs) - surface corrosion of the cast iron never gets hot/worn off so over time gets deeper and deeper, ending up that you will need to change your brakes due to corrosion rather than wear.