BOWA Brake Pad Wear Sensor

[MB V8]

Anybody ever use a brake pad wear sensor made by BOWA? Saw them on FCPEuro's website. FCP noted BOWA was a German company and the sensors were manufactured at their plant in Poland. I did a search on 500eB for BOWA and turned up nothing.

 

[Glen]

Anybody ever use a brake pad wear sensor made by BOWA? Saw them on FCPEuro's website. FCP noted BOWA was a German company and the sensors were manufactured at their plant in Poland. I did a search on 500eB for BOWA and turned up nothing.

Not knowingly, as in I've never ordered that brand specifically in the past but I'm willing to give them a shot. In fact, I just ordered 4 of them with my brake rotors and pads. Will have them in a week or so and will report back if no one else does first.

 

[gsxr]

Bowa is OEM for brake pad wear sensors on Land Rovers, so I'd think they should be decent quality.

For the Mercedes wear sensors used on the 124/129, the aftermarket brand I usually see is Pex, and have used them for years without issue. The price for OE was ridiculous last I checked. Many times the old wear sensors can be re-used, if they are carefully extracted from the old pads. I have a bag full of old ones, but at a buck each for new aftermarket, it's generally not worth the hassle.

 

[gerryvz]

I generally do not re-use brake pad wear sensors unless they are in pristine condition. At $1-2 apiece, I try to keep a dozen or so spares on hand (though I just sold a bunch of sets with the spare E500E brake pads I sold recently). Pex is a fine aftermarket brand that is of decent quality, and much more inexpensive than the factory sensors.

 

[Glen]

For posterity’s sake, here are some pictures of the BOWA sensors from FCP. They appear to be of excellent quality.