mayday1

My '99 996 recently started randomly giving me a "brake wear" warning light on the dash when I start the car, and the light stayed on
until I turned off the ignition, then next time starting the car the light stayed no lit.

I can see all four brakes have plenty of brake pad left, and the brake fluid reservoir seems full.

Impending electronic meltdown? Bad sensor? Or a real problem?

I am the Walrus

Here's some stuff about it
https://rennlist.com/forums/964-forum/578115-brake-wear-indicator-light-on-but.html
https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/313584-brake-wear-light-came-on.html

Montychristo128

I would go with faulty sensor. Pull them out and take a look, pretty easy to replace. Just watch out for the plastic clips that retain them (mine snapped).

peteb3

second the faulty sensor approach, just replaced mine, they take a beating under there, easy fix

MikeinBloomfield

The sensor "plugs" into the pad itself, and when the pad wears enough so that the sensor is exposed and touches the rotor, that completes the circuit and the light goes off.

Mine started as intermittent, then stayed on the whole time. Kind of what you would expect for something that requires wear to go off. When I did my brakes, only one of the sensors had worn through, which seemed odd to me to have that level of uneven wear, but I am watching it. I only mention it because you may be in the same boat. When was the last time your pads were changed?

Surprisingly, these are super cheap so there's not a ton of harm in throwing parts at it. Although, I believe you may have to take the brakes apart anyway to plug in the new sensors. Not sure, because I had mine apart already.

Mike

Hardback

pad sensors suck. buy new ones, plug them in and zip tie them out of the way. your welcome

dkraige

Or just cut them off and short the wires together. No need to buy new ones, especially if you aren't going to use their functionality!