I don't know if this is the right place to post this or if I am breaking some rule, but while looking for a new caliper for my R56 I noticed rockauto.com carries remanufactured R56 calipers powder coated red for $70 each. I had painted and retrofitted R56 brakes on my old R53 and remember the used junkyard calipers I bought being almost $70 each + the hassle of painting them. There is a $55 core charge which you probably wouldn't be able to get back if you had R53 calipers, but even $125 isn't too bad for new(ish) powder coated calipers with all the hardware you need to install them and a 2 year warranty.

Link to left caliper:
http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo....438260&jsn=333

Link to right caliper:
http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo....438260&jsn=334

 

Not a bad price. They are not OEM though, if that matters to you. OEM is TRW.

I painted mine with G2 epoxy and it's now flaking so I priced out powder coating my calipers (R56) locally and it's less than $140 for the pair. That includes removing the old paint.

 

Yeah, they are cheap Chinese calipers. But I've had good luck with reman calipers. The VHT caliper paint I used on my OEM set didn't last very long either and I sand blasted them before painting.

 

I've got lucky with there remans, I've gotten oem several times from rockauto. I received 4 ate calipers for my E36 a while back. As long as you take your time with the prep and paint, rattle can should last a good while. Always best to have a corrosion free caliper to start with though, mine are still holding up well on my r56s brake conversion.

 

You know remanufactured units are remanufactured cause they are old units taken off off old wrecks, or traded in as cores when brakes are done right? Remanufactured units, while not as good as new (opten pretty darn close) ARE the OEM parts, just fixed and rebuilt to new standards by what might be a 3rd party, a1cardone, in this case.....
Sure many of their parts are new Chinese junk (ball joints, cv joints and strut mounts)....but not sure how you determined THESE units are? Please do tell....have never heard to enough USED, WORN OUT Chinese made brake copies floating around to bother to rebuild....
And for the record... Yup...folks have been buying them on rock.com for years...
One tip...some of the sku's include the brackets you need...read the description CAREFULLY.

 

After your comment Zippy, I looked closer at the pictures posted on rock auto and you seem to be correct. The photo clearly shows a MINI and TRW stamp on the caliper body.