[jyl]

I redid my brakes and removed the brake pad wear indicator sensors. For the fronts, I unplugged the sensor and lead from the plug that is clipped to the strut. (The pads that came with my Boxster calipers had no provision for the sensor.) For the rears, I simply folded the sensor and lead back and zip-tied it to the e-brake cable. (If I'm not going to have sensors for the fronts, I don't want them for the rears either.)

To my surprise, my brake pad warning light is now permanently "on". (This is the rectangular warning light in the dash that looks like a circle with some concentric segments around it.)

I thought the way the sensors worked was that if the pads wore enough, the sensor touched the rotor, thus completing an electrical circuit. So that unplugging/disconnecting the sensors would not illuminate the warning light.

Am I missing something?

(The other problem with my brakes is an embarassing squeal, which I may have resolved by charging down a steep hill, repeatedly braking to the point of lockup, until I could smell that "brake" odor. No squeal since.)