Bypassing the brade pad warning system

[IT]

Previously covered by Paul Waterloo in his excellent pre facelift write up, I've done a few photos today whilst sorting my car to show how it all works facelift and with the steering wheel on the correct side of the car...

The brake pad warning systems is crude. It takes a single wire that originates from the cluster, runs down through each brake pad in series and down to earth. Essentially, whilst this connection sees an earth, the brake pads are assumed good. Once a brake pad wear through, the circuit is broken and the warning light comes on.

The problem is that any fault in the circuit, poor installation of the pads wiring etc, causes the same warning light, which sits on permanently in the top line of the DIS, erasing other useful info.



So, instrument cluster out. Remove both the covering tabs. I find it easiest to prize them up with my finger nails and pull them out



Then remove the 2 x 4mm Allen bolts....



There are 3 connectors into the cluster. It takes some wiggling, and likely a couple of cable ties to remove to get it out. MAKE SURE the steering column is adjusted to be as far out and down as possible to give you the space to manouver. Its worth putting something on top of the cowl to prevent scratching.




The blue connector is the one we're interested in. Pin 17 specifically. Note that Audi always puts pin numbers on connectors, they're just usually tiny !



Pull down and remove the purple retaining flap, then the whole blue casing can be slid off.




Pin 17, is brown with a black stripe. This is the one we need to connect to earth. So, lets cut it:



and solder it piggy back onto a ground, of which there are plenty. I took the one on Pin 31...



And, quickly plug it all in and test before we re-assemble:




So, tape it all up and make it neat:



And pop the blue cover back on, and the purple end clip




and pop it all back together, and enjoy