Never seen brake pad warning light

[Blacksamurai00]

Hey guys

As above. I’ve had the car since 2018 (a 2013 A4) and I have never seen the rake pad warning light. Specifically, I’ve just replaced the front brakes because it looked like grooves were starting to form in the left front rotor, and my mechanic told me that it was at 1-2 mm. No brake light on the dash. I actually had to Google it to see what it looked like and I’ve put about 75k miles on it. Anyone know where I should start to look for this issue? I’d like to have the feature work so that I can avoid living on the edge. Thanks

[WHT13AR]

Not sure what the failure mode is to turn on the light, broken wire or just open contact to the rotor. Was the warning device in place? That would be my first question.

Sent from my KB2007 using Audizine Forum mobile app

[AudiTLC]

sounds like previous brake pad change, they didnt hook up the wear sensors. i think some aftermarket pads don't have them.

[Smac770]

My pad wear sensor has never broken either. I tend to replace them before that event occurs, I guess.

It's just broken circuit. Eventually the rotor will cut through it when it rides down low enough and the open circuit will be detected by the control module. Note, it only monitors the inside front left pad.

The front pads have 10mm of wear life. At 60k miles on the fronts usually for me, that's about 6k miles per mm.

If you want to confirm the indicator, just unplug the sensor (you'll need to take the front left wheel off to get to it) and tie it up and then you should have the light on.

[Blacksamurai00]

First brake job done by Audi, (at the time didn’t have a pad warning light) and second done just yesterday with the sensor installed. Could be that Audi didn’t do it the first time though. Especially after talking to my mechanic last time I was surprised to hear that I had one before because I’ve never seen it. I’ll check out the circuit on it. Otherwise I’m wondering if there is another circuit somewhere that is missing power?

[MongoMcG]

For some reason the A4 attracts a lot of little creatures that nibble on the wiring. I've had two incidents in the last 5 years. Little buggers chewed through my A/C electrics and the harness that goes to the rear for TPMS, wheel speed sensors and more. Audi even put a warning about the critter damage in their service manuals.