Hey all.
I just got the Mintex Redbox pads and new fluid. I also have some braided stainless steel lines that I won on MINI2 that I want to have put on. Could anybody recommend a good shop somewhere between Norwalk and Milford I could have this done? I have all the parts so the labor should be the only cost here I imagine, and I don't really have the desire to redo half my braking system myself for the very first time so I'm going the professional route.
Any info would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Not anywhere near the area you describe - but the boys at Autotechnic slapped my stainless, ebcx and mintex on for a decent price- if you want to make a trip to new Milford for the old stomp.

860-350-8407

 

In Norwalk, there exists a good shop : Speed Technik, on the Post Road, just towards Westport after Stew Leonard's, on the opposite side of the road.

Call : 203-229-0590 for Mitchell or Brian, or whoever answers.

website : speedsporttechnik.net (will have new address soon)

 

Euromotors, 183 Main St, Norwalk, CT 06851
Phone: (203) 849-1501

Have you check the price with MINI of Fairfield?

 

Thanks all. I went with Speed Technik after I took a trip by there. I have a business trip coming up so I won't have the work done until the 13th, but I'll let you know how it went after then. I appreciate your suggestions.

 

how did the brakes come out CTMINI? also how was Speedtechnik's work?

 

New website : www.speedtechnik.com [not working properly now, maybe my link is wrong, cause it was fine yesterday! ....nav links do not appear]

They have pics up of my mini and the new Milltek header & exhaust!

These guys are the best !....very clean shop, very professional!!!!!! Great work. They are even mounting my tires on some new wheels I did not buy through them! Which around here is rare ! to find a shop that will do that!
PM me , post here or call me, IM : mini1600.......I highly recommend them for any mods on MINIs !

Nice to find a competent, local speed shop. Check out their website - they do some really cool cars !:smile:

 

Sorry for the very delayed reply.
The brakes work well, they do need some warm-up time, but they are fine. The problem was that I didn't replace my rotors when I did the "soft" goods (pads, lines, fluid). I noticed the day I drove home that I 1)screeched on stops and 2) screeched and groaned and fluttered when the brakes weren't even being applied. I was furious.
I got myself calmed down and went back to the shop the next day and took one of the techs for a ride. He listened for a bit and told me my rotor was warped. I'm not sure why there was NO sound at all coming from that brake (the right rear) when I had the stock components on there, but I guess the Redbox compound just reacted differently to it somehow. When I got back to the shop, I spoke to one of the other guys who basically took attitude with me ("I believe I told you that you should have gotten rotors when you switched everything else out.") He had told me that they "usually switch out the rotors when [they] put in new performance pads", this is true. I guess it is my fault for not asking what might happen if I didn't. His advice: "Drive on these pads for another 25,000 miles and then get the whole thing re-done." My car sounds like it's strangling a cat as it's driving down the street and this is the advice I got. Anyway, I rubbed down the rotor surface with some fine grain sandpaper and that seemed to help, apparently there were some deposits, but it still warbles, which is embarrassing. I guess I either warped it at the 12MDC or autocrossing. Either way, I'm learning how to do this stuff myself from now on. Speed Technik seems like a good shop, but I just didn't have the best of experiences there. Now I'm trying to decide if I need to just scrap these basically new pads when I get the new rotors or if I can salvage them despite the fact they now have over 1000 miles on them.

 

when I first read this post I was going to recommend doing it yourself...or calling my brother...LOL....since I am in AZ...and he is in CT...however I dunno if he'd be ok with that..LOL...anywho...I do all my own work now...time consuming yes...but well worth it...

the I told you so attitude is just wrong...It should have been well how about you get some new rotors...they never should have done the work if that was the case...not that they knew the rotor was warped...but didn't they test drive it...and if they did...uhhh maybe a phone call "it appears one of your rotors is warped...it should be replaced...after market ones tend to be cheaper and well jsut perform better"...oh well....hind sight I guess...

I really hope to move back there...my brother is looking to buy a mini and make it a race car....right now he has a 300zx twin turbo with 500 + HP he races but it's still a street car...he wants a dedicated mini racer for Lime Rock...that would be fun!

anywho...again go for it your self...sometimes you need more tools if you don't have them so make sure you invite a friend over to help (one that is savy with cars) in case you need another car to drive to get more tools!

 

This is what I'm saying. There is no way they didn't hear this after they gave it a ride. The tech told me they bedded in the brakes according to spec, but this would very difficult. They are in a high traffic area with a LOT of stop lights and no open roads at all. There is no way you could do a series of 60-20, 40-10 stops and then let the brakes cool without stopping 15 times. In order to get somewhere in which this is possible they would have to stop probably ten times on the fresh pads before they began to bed them in. If I had gotten a call like this I probably would have just said, go ahead and slap some new rotors on, but I didn't.

Is your bro's Z a dark red one with a tall wing on it? Because I see one around sometimes.

 

Naw..it's white with red interior...looks pretty stock (which makes it fun) other than the wheels...he doesn't drive it that much anymore other than at the track...

 

UPDATE

OK, now it's time for legal recourse. DO NOT go to SpeedTechnik in Norwalk. You will see that I supplied parts and paid for service. You will see that the tech (Brian) took attitude with me when I wondered why there was a horrible sound coming from my rear brake (the new pad combined with the old rotor was causing it, he said) WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG THEY NEVER REPLACED THE REAR PADS!!!!!
I just got a call from the service advisor at my dealership and he asked me why I had replaced the front pads but not the rears? I had told him about the brake work before I handed him the keys and now he was confused - "I even compared your brake pads to those on a another MINI in for service," he said "They were exactly the same."
So not only did SpeedTechnik not gaurantee their work because I supplied the materials, but they then claimed I was in the wrong becuse of the malfunction on work that they didn't do, they then proceeded to charge me for it!
We are going to have a size large problem as soon as I get the receipt from this fraudulent transaction. Who knows what they did to my brake to make it produce that noise if not what I paid them to do?

 

Sorry to hear about any bad experience...... hope it all works out OK in the end.