I just took my car in for service and they replaced the rear brake pads. This puzzles me. I don't drift or use the hand brake for anything but parking. Why did the rear wear before the front? Are the pads softer than every other cars oem pads? Is the car set up so that most of the braking power is on the back? The SA was unable to offer any good answers. Ultimately, it cost me nothing, I just thought it weird.

 

From what I know about the MINI and just about every car, the front brakes do most of the work. My fronts wore out way before my rear brakes did.

Did you get a wear light indication? Did they replace the rear rotors at the same time? If not, then I suspect they noticed something wrong with the pads rather than them being worn out.

 

That would be strange that you would have to replace the rears first. Generally wear of the rear would be attributed to a problem with the calipers, but I've read the excessive DCS can also cause uneven wear (lost of hard braking during turns, hard accelerations during turns). When you brake, do you brake in a straight line or do you brake in turns? Same questions for accelerations.

 

Unusual, but not unheard of. On the wifey's Volvo V50 the rear brakes went first at about 25K. The oem front brakes were still on the car when we traded at about 50K. My Miata still had the original brakes when I sold the car with about 70K.

 

my 09 lost the rears first too. Don't worry about it, especially if the dealer did all the work

 

I put first replacement pads on my 95 Miata at 100,000 cuz I could not believe they were not needed. I discovered the original pads had about 40% remaining but they had started to squeak especially in reverse . . . {and the stock pads tossed virtually no dust}

darn good car

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the parking brake is actually a set of drum brakes that is in the hat of the rotor.

 

The handbrake is incorporated into the rear calipers. (No little brake drum/shoes)

 

You're wrong

 

My F-150 was like this but our smaller rear rotors just are not big enough I don't think. As others have mentioned that is not the case, our rear calipers actually have to have the piston rotated to press it back into the caliper.


OP, Is the handbrake all of the way down when driving around, not one click up? Maybe it needs adjustment?

 

My Corvette and my F-350 have that setup. I thought our R56 car had it, but I see I am wrong. I never worked on the brakes on my car, but I rotate the tires ever 3000. The reason I though they had it is that the rear brake has a large hat on the rear rotor like it would have the shoes in there. I also saw that star screw in the hat and assumed it was an adjuster for the parking brake like my corvette.

 

2003 mini....I am told that the rotors must be changed at the same time as the pads. sounds bogus to me, but both the independent and the dealer say that the rotors are always below the legal limit when the pads are worn out.

what gives ???? am i being ripped off or what ?

 

When they did the brakes on my rig, the rotors were well within specs. They were not replaced.