Hello all. I need to call upon the wealth of knowledge on the board. It's probably a very easy question to answer but here goes anyway. On my drivers side rear caliper there is a loose wire (red) that is hanging out. It seems to have a magnet on the end of it and looking at the other calipers it fits into the middle of the caliper. After repeated attempts to try and put it back it won't stay. One, what does the wire do (maybe ABS?)? And two, how can it get it to stay??? I know it seems stupid but I'm a relatively intelligent and capable person but I can't seem to fix it. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

It sounds like it is the brake pad wear sensor. It probably will not stay because part of it has been broken off. These things are very fragile and they should be replaced when the brake pads are changed. Were your pads recently replaced? I would just zip tie them out of the way if I were you. You could go to the dealer and get a replacement at your leisure. If it is the pad sensor, there is nothing to worry about.

 

Or could be the speed sensor.. Does it look "hairy"??

Do you have pic?

 

Trackjunkie- Thanks, it could be a break pad sensor. Zip tieing it won't work because of it's placement.

Jeff- The wire doesn't look hariy. Just your normal red wire with a small triangle(ish) magnet attached. I will try to take a pic today.

Thanks

 

My front ones were loose too when I replaced pads/rotors. Don't know about the rears but on the fronts, there is a slot on the caliper and that sensor wire should go in between before going in the pads' slot. That slot should help keep the wire in place. If the little metal clip is still there, expand it a little so it will fit tighter in the pads. Again, this is for the fronts and I assume the rears are the same.

 

hn- Thanks I'll try that. Do you know what the wire is for? Pad sensor or ABS?

 

That was my first brake job but if you are talking about the red wire that come from a termimal and has two angular shape tips, each tip is inserted into the middle part of each pad, it's the brake wear sensor. Unless someone will correct me.

Look at Robin's diy below. On the first pic, it shows the slot on the caliper that hold part of the red wire (that part look black in the pic, must be the dirt)

Or it's the metal clip that slides down and let loose as shown in that same pic.

http://p-car.com/diy/brakepads/

 

hn- Thanks. In the link pics 2 and 3 are excatly the red wire I'm talking about. Good to know it not an ABS wire. Thanks again for your help.

 

Dan-
you can get replacement wires for like $7 each. Many of us (including me) don't even use them since we're frequently monitoring our brakes. It's ok to just tie them off, and it makes pad changes MUCH quicker. But if you don't watch your brakes much, you should probably install replacements to be safe.