Sticking caliper v's pad wear countdown

[Leslie]

I've had a slightly sticking front caliper since the x5 got back on the road ,its been fine most of the time or so it seemed , I got a refurbed caliper last week and had a look at the outer pad on drivers side and it looked almost new so didn't buy new pads , once the caliper was off it became clear the inside pad was right down to the metal with about a piece of paper thickness of pad and had rubbed the end of the pad locator too.

The check control told me I had another 47,000 miles remaining !( I've already done 41,000 miles on these pads ) the problem is the wear indicator its on the passenger side and this was the drivers side so went undetected , Its not easy to see the inner pad without the wheel off so a bit of a pain but always assume you will need pads . The disc it seems is thankfully ok . I went to collect new pads and asked to see in the box at the motor factors and it turned out the box was right but it had the wrong size pads in it so they had to reorder ,in the end I put an old pad I had sitting in a spare caliper in to get mobile again till the new ones arrived
I took the pistons out and the teflon coating ? if that's what it is had worn though and it had a ring of rust on one pot only causing it to stick and yes tha'ts the friction side not the back

IMG_20240523_162820[1].jpg (144.3 KiB) Viewed 365 times

[X5Sport]

I’ve always wondered about the efficacy of brake pad warning devices. They need to be on all 4 pads at each end, and for precisely the reason you found. One sensor simply isn’t adequate.

Frustrating to have the wrong pads in the right box. That sounds to me like that box had been out somewhere before!

[Leslie]

I actually noticed in the motor factors the box had been opened before which made me more keen ask to look inside but it was one of those days yesterday where anything could go wrong did go wrong and with no car I had to beg a lift into town so was double checking and just as well. Its cost cutting as they used to have one per side now one per axle , its always the inner is going to wear badly if there is any sticking , when I had the caliper I could push the pistons in easily but when using compressed air only one would come back out again.