I asked a dozen men (will explain why no women) if they knew what 5 millimeters means in reference to brake pads. None of them knew.

Why the survey? Because I am a woman who went by herself to a Center BMW in Van Nuys and bought a pre-owned certified car. It really doesn’t even matter what model but if you care, a 2011 128i. After handing the finance man my check he whipped out papers for me to sign. I had spent the whole afternoon at the dealership and was tired but I initialed everything. Turns out I initialed that it was okay that the brake pads on the car were worn down to a 5 from a 12.

Well 1,500 miles later I needed new brake pads which now were worn down to a 2 ½ and a 3, in that short time. I don’t drive much and the car only had a little over 14,000 miles on when I bought it. I of course called Center BMW to discuss this, after being armed with information from mechanics and brake dealers. They refused to budge telling me I drove hard or drove it a lot in mountains. To which I refuted and also said with only 1,500 miles on it how could the brakes go all the way from 5 to a 2 ½ and 3, unless it was mis-stated on the pre-owned certification sheet or read wrong or worse.

The certified pre-owned used car sales manger told me the cost would $1,000 to replace the brake pads and rotors, two other places quoted $500 and $600. After much Italian (me) style hot-blooded arguing he relented and said they would do it for $600 complete, which now tired of it all I did, but still thinking about getting a lawyer or going to small claims court.

Anyhow folks don’t let this happen to you. If I had known the brakes were worn that much I wouldn’t have bought the car or I would have asked them to lower the price. Never again. I am a bit soured on BMW this point having called and written to the BMW of North America with no reply back.

Re: why only men were surveyed, if they didn’t know how could us women know, although I’m sure some do.

FYI:

Take a look at the BMW certification process and the checklist that allows cars to be “certified” with just 5mm of pads left–anything less than that would require them to be replaced before the car is sold. The points are :1) that BMW officially allows cars to be certified (which certainly implies that they are as pristine as possible) when at 5mm the brakes are more than 60% shot; 2) pretty suspicious that the stealership would find that all the brakes were a 5 when 5 is the absolute minimum at which pads do not have to be replaced for certification (which of course means the car will need a brake job soon and probably more income for the dealership to do it.