The service light came on my car recently, and told me that I needed to service my car in 2000 miles. When I checked the service menu, it told me that I needed front brakes, rear brakes, and brake fluid. I took my car to a local garage, who changed the front brakes for me and told me that I didn't need rear brakes. I checked them myself, and they look fine to me as well.

When I got home, I was able to reset the service indicators for the front brakes and brake fluid using the wonderful instructions here, but I wasn't able to reset the service indicator for the rear brakes. I get the little "spinning disk" icon while the reset is running, but it comes back and tells me that I still only have about 2000 miles left on my rear brakes.

I'd imagine that this car has some nifty little wear sensor that's preventing me from resetting this alert. Is there any way to bypass or reset it, so I can clear this phony service alert?

 

It may be telling you that there is something else wrong as well.

What year is your car an how many miles are on it?

 

Something is quite weird with the rear sensor. I had my front brake sensor light turn on. I replaced the front sensor (and the pads), reset it but the rear sensor was triggered (front one is now fine). Mini checked my rear brakes and told me they were fine, just replace the sensor. I replaced the rear brake sensor (which was not triggered) and tried to reset the lights but it would not reset. Mini service had to reset it with their shop diagnosis tool. Now everything is fine. Nothing was wrong with the rear brakes but the sensor still triggered.

 

It's a 2007 with 48,000 (practically all highway) miles.

 

How about pulling the sensor connection and checking it with a ohm meter to make sure the sensor is good - may be a bad sensor. I just did my brakes this weekend both front and back with EBC pads and rotors, man they are noisy. Had to replace the front sensor, but the one I got had the wrong plug, so I had to cut the wires and replace the new connector with the old one...