Hi all! I am on my fourth MINI - a 2019 JCW Countryman. It's 5 months old, 3,300 miles. The brakes recently started screeching. First just in the morning, after the minor rotor rust went away, and now they do it frequently. Service told me it was normal for this to happen. I reached out to a service tech at BMW who told me to bed the brakes and see if it resolves. Did it four times (50-60mph to 10-25 mph) And........ it got LOUDER! And more persistent. Nearly every time I brake, I sound like an MTA bus.
I found posts about Brembo's doing this on other brands, but not MINI. I've asked BMW M, MB AMG, and Porsche owner's, they said it's not normal.
Has anyone else experienced this?? Is there something wrong with my brakes or is it normal for a $50k car with 3,300 miles to make this noise (that it never did until recently)?!
Any help is greatly appreciated, I am about to lose my mind.

 

Only think i have heard about is front brake sensor coming on from wearing down pads early. My guess is the compounds were too soft and they might have changed them to a harder compound which makes the brakes noisy? I had some JCW gen 2 brakes do that in th past when they get hot. But not when they are cold. I just changed pads to aftermarket and it was fine. Factory ones dust and can screech a little.

This helps with the sliders.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...122296187~oem/

and

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-crc-part...ste/05016~crc/

Goes on the back of the pad to the piston.

 

Thank you for responding. I am losing my mind over this. The service department chamfered (???) the front brake pads and cleaned them. It worked for about a week and now the noise is back even stronger than before. One of the BMW/MINI engineers told me it was because I don't drive the car enough and the pads get glazed. If the pads were glazed, wouldn't they have seen that and stated it in the work order? I hear ceramic brakes make noise but only when they are very hot. Would that provide more relief ?

 

Not normal. Brake pads don't glaze from infrequent driving, let them explain that again. If your not aggressively driving and overheating the pads, maybe they are improperly adjusted or installed and making contact and overheating.

You can either keep hounding MINI (that's what I would do), go to a different MINI dealership if you can or bite the bullet and switch up the pads/rotors on your own dime.

 

Call the manufacturer of the pads and rotors and get their input.

 

Thank you for your response! After the third service visit for this, they are replacing the front and rear pads as a one time only courtesy. They are replacing the rear pads because if I roll at maybe 8-11mph and pull the ebrake, the rears screech just as loud.
MINI's stance is that the car has to brake/stop aggressively several times from a high speed each outing for the brakes to get hot enough to NOT make a noise. I find it hard to believe that every JCW owner who uses this as a daily driver, drives like that to avoid this issue?? To be clear - I do NOT baby this car - I sure as heck drive it vigorously.
I also requested they seat the pads for me - they said the car needs to be driven to 100MPH and stopped nearly fully several times for them to be seated properly.
It all still just does not make sense that if MINI says this is just a "high performance brake common occurrence", that it only started after 3,300 miles. ?!?!?!!?

 

I had the same problem with my brakes on my 2019 Countryman JCW. The dealer also did a "courtesy" replacement for the front brakes. Then 10 months later, the fronts had to be replaced again along with the rear. Squealing started up again recently and it's driving me nuts. I doubt I will be getting another MINI just because of this issue. Too bad cuz I love the car but can't deal with the noise. It's embarrassing.

 

I've been having the same problem with my 2019 JCW Countryman. Service Advisor told me it was normal and to just drive fast and break hard to shake the dust off. I did that a few times over the past year and nothing, the breaks are so loud. I have 3 months left on my lease, so I'm not sure its worth getting fixed. I'm hesitant to get a new MINI. This is our second, and I always get the strange feeling the Service guys are constantly gaslighting me.

 

I have a 2019 regular Countryman with 12,000 miles and zero brake squeal.

 

Mine squealed a bit too much. I replaced them with aftermarket rotors and ceramic pads. No more squeal, except in the morning when I am backing up. Never when going forward.