i just brought my 2012 Mini Countryman s all4 3 month ago. Today the brake service light on tell me within 350 miles then I need to go to service, but when I use flash light check on it. It seems still have planty of it. So I wonder is the light on because it just factory set after I drive certain miles and it will on and tell me to service no matter it still have good wear on the pads. Or I really need to go to change it?

 

If you bought used you should probably stick it on jack stands and take the wheels off and inspect the pads. Brakes are pretty easy to do on my 2011 MCS but I dont know about the countryman. If its anything like mine they go on when the wear sensor is tripped. New pads often come with new ware sensor to replace old one with.

 

How many miles? On our 2012 MCS, replaced pads and rotors on all four corners at about 50k miles..

 

The light gets triggered by miles and/or wear sensor. I reset the mileage timer and the light still kept coming on. Had lots of pad left so I cut the sensor wires and twisted them together to get rid of the light. Managed another 1000 miles before the pads were actually low enough to change. Didn't bother buying another false alarm sensor for $12 or whatever it is. So long as you visually check inner and outer pads every oil change/tire rotation (5k miles) you should be fine.

 

When I buy I it had 42000 on it. It have 43xxx on it now.

 

You're probably due. As another member posted, the only way to really check is pull the wheels and look at both pads. From what I've read on NAM, most folks replace them around 40k-50k miles.

As I recall, the ECU tracks more than just miles. Probably keeps other data such as the number of times the brakes are used for a given set of miles...

 

Algorithms that determine brake wear were screwy and if not updated could give false readings. You should check to see if software is updated.

 

I'm going to pull then wheels and check the pads tomorrow. So if the pads are ok, should I just reset the service? Or should replace the pads anyway?

 

If it was me, I'd go ahead and change them out. There is nothing special about Mini brakes..

 

the GEN2 MINI has two systems that monitor brake wear.

One is the sensor which get's tripped physically when the sensor touches the rotor wearing off the tip until a wire is broken. The broken wire creates an open circuit that causes the dash indicator to come on. This indicator can only be cleared by replacing the sensor, or as mentioned, just connecting the wire ends together and fooling the system. If you try to clear this indicator without closing the circuit the light simply comes back on 'immediately'

Second is a simple counter similar to the miles counter for oil changes. It is somewhat 'conditions' based so the projected miles left on the pads can vary, and JUMP around. The first time THIS warning appeared I checked the pads visually, saw PLENTY remaining, so just did a reset thru the OBC buttons and drove happily for many thousands of miles beyond ....

note: the counter can be reset using the button on the TS stalk .... the sensor is reset by closing the open circuit .....

 

I have a 2013 Countryman. At around the 25k mark, I received the low brake pad warning. Went to the dealer, who told me that I had PLENTY of pad left. The dealer told me that the software version I had gave screwy readings, so they updated it. I now have 40k and there's still approx. 10k miles left on the front pads according to the OBC.