[Searay55555]

Many of us are getting our cars delivered soon, and many have just come in recently. This has me thinking about maintenance plans and BMW Ultimate Care.

Those of you with prior M car experience in F8x and G8x, how many miles will we typically get out of front and rear brakes on a car that isn’t tracked? I’m seeing in the M3/M4 threads, talk of 10-12K miles out of the rear because they are so small. Then I’m hearing of full brake changes (assume pads and rotors) of $5K from the dealer.

I’m just wondering if it makes any sense at all to get any of the Ultimate Care packages? I’m thinking about MAYBE getting the lowest one at $850 but that only covers 3 years.

I’ve been doing brakes since I was 16, and it’s not that bad of a job. Doing a brake job on the M’s doesn’t look that bad at all, from what I’ve seen. The pads for the front are the most expensive at ~$300/set, rears MUCH less. And I’m hearing 2 piece rotors will soon be available for around $300’ish. Also, I imagine new rotors won’t be required on every pad change. Can these drilled rotors be turned, or do they just have to be replaced? The thought of paying a dealer $5K for a set of brakes is bananas.

Any thoughts from those much more knowledgeable for us new M owners?

[Searay55555]

BMW Ultimate Care

[AZG87]

Originally Posted by Searay55555

Many of us are getting our cars delivered soon, and many have just come in recently. This has me thinking about maintenance plans and BMW Ultimate Care.

Those of you with prior M car experience in F8x and G8x, how many miles will we typically get out of front and rear brakes on a car that isn’t tracked? I’m seeing in the M3/M4 threads, talk of 10-12K miles out of the rear because they are so small. Then I’m hearing of full brake changes (assume pads and rotors) of $5K from the dealer.

I’m just wondering if it makes any sense at all to get any of the Ultimate Care packages? I’m thinking about MAYBE getting the lowest one at $850 but that only covers 3 years.

I’ve been doing brakes since I was 16, and it’s not that bad of a job. Doing a brake job on the M’s doesn’t look that bad at all, from what I’ve seen. The pads for the front are the most expensive at ~$300/set, rears MUCH less. And I’m hearing 2 piece rotors will soon be available for around $300’ish. Also, I imagine new rotors won’t be required on every pad change. Can these drilled rotors be turned, or do they just have to be replaced? The thought of paying a dealer $5K for a set of brakes is bananas.

Any thoughts from those much more knowledgeable for us new M owners?

It's definitely a cost/benefit analysis and a very good conversation to have. Very curious to see feedback from other previous M owners with first hand experience and anecdotal info.

[RockCrusher]

Originally Posted by Searay55555

Many of us are getting our cars delivered soon, and many have just come in recently. This has me thinking about maintenance plans and BMW Ultimate Care.

Those of you with prior M car experience in F8x and G8x, how many miles will we typically get out of front and rear brakes on a car that isn’t tracked? I’m seeing in the M3/M4 threads, talk of 10-12K miles out of the rear because they are so small. Then I’m hearing of full brake changes (assume pads and rotors) of $5K from the dealer.

I’m just wondering if it makes any sense at all to get any of the Ultimate Care packages? I’m thinking about MAYBE getting the lowest one at $850 but that only covers 3 years.

I’ve been doing brakes since I was 16, and it’s not that bad of a job. Doing a brake job on the M’s doesn’t look that bad at all, from what I’ve seen. The pads for the front are the most expensive at ~$300/set, rears MUCH less. And I’m hearing 2 piece rotors will soon be available for around $300’ish. Also, I imagine new rotors won’t be required on every pad change. Can these drilled rotors be turned, or do they just have to be replaced? The thought of paying a dealer $5K for a set of brakes is bananas.

Any thoughts from those much more knowledgeable for us new M owners?

No BMW experience but I bought a mini maintenance plan for oil/filter services for my Dodge Hellcat. But I ran into problems. When I had the car in at a dealer other than the one I bought the plan from -- it was a *Dodge* plan and not just a dealer plan -- the dealer refused to honor it.

There was one or two more hiccups. A real disappointment.

Have no idea of how long the M2 brakes will last. They could last a long time. I checked my notes and my 996 Turbo front brakes lasted 124K miles. The rear brakes were still not on the wear sensors at 161K miles when I sold the car.

The flip side is at 27.5K miles the front brakes on my Hellcat were very close to needing attention. No wear light on but the rotors were manifesting a distinct "lip" (~1mm) around the outer diameter of the front rotors.

As for replacing rotors when pads are renewed there are various factors in play. New pads and old rotors can have a considerable mismatch -- the pads are flat the old rotors are probably not flat -- so the pads and rotors will experience more wear as the pads bed in to the rotors. Both pad life and rotor life are sacrificed.

With new pads working with old rotors the chances are high the rotors will wear under size before the new pads trigger the brake wear light. To ensure this doesn't happen one needs to periodically check rotor wear. So every so often grab the brake rotor micrometer out of your toolbox and check every rotor for wear below the allowable lower limit.

What I found with my Boxster (and one time with the Turbo) when the pads were worn out the rotors were down very close to the wear limit. In the case of my two Porsche cars the wear limit was 2mm. (And manifested a 1mm lip around the rotor's outer edge.) So I replaced pads and rotors. And other brake hardware Porsche called for to be replaced.

As a (ex) machinist I can say rotors can be turned, resurfaced. Even drilled/slotted rotors. And provided a shop has a brake lathe that can accept the rather large front M2 rotors. But this resurfacing is not easy peasy. The tech must determine that there is enough metal above the minimum thickness that a resurface won't take the rotor under size. And that the rotor surfaces will clean up. And this goes for both rotors. Not ideal to have one rotor thicker/thinner than the other.

Even with a good resurface the shop risks a "comeback". This is why even years ago I found less and less shops willing to resurface rotors or drums. They would rather sell new ones as this reduced their exposure to a customer returning with brake issues.

Even with a good resurfacing one is still faced with as I mentioned above the rotor wearing under sized before the pads wear out.

When it comes time to renew the brakes on my M2 barring a tech advising me otherwise I'll have the rotors replaced along with the pads.

Last but not least be sure to have the brake fluid flushed/bled every 2 years.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by RockCrusher

As a (ex) machinist I can say rotors can be turned, resurfaced. Even drilled/slotted rotors. And provided a shop has a brake lathe that can accept the rather large front M2 rotors. But this resurfacing is not easy peasy. The tech must determine that there is enough metal above the minimum thickness that a resurface won't take the rotor under size. And that the rotor surfaces will clean up. And this goes for both rotors. Not ideal to have one rotor thicker/thinner than the other.

The floating rotors on the M2 can't be successfully turned without removing the drive pins, but if you do that the relationship between the hub centre and friction surfaces will not be very accurate on reassembly and new drive pins would need to be manufactured, as the originals aren't designed to be disassembled. The original rotor surfaces are probably centreless ground as opposed to being turned.