14000 nyc miles

 

But he quoted yours in his reply - - hence my confusion.

And... 5 sets of pads and rotors in 65K miles? Say what? That's a new set of front brakes every 13000 miles. Seems way excessive to me. My big heavy Lexus was far easier on brakes than that. I'm thinking that OXYBLUECOOP likes to do that race track thing from time to time

Now, I expect the MINI to be harder on brake pads and rotors - - that great braking performance (and great amount of brake dust on the wheels) usually mean greater-than-average wear. But I hope mine last more than 13000 miles. I have more than 10000 already, but on my daily commute I hardly need to touch my brakes.

We'll see!

 

i have an 08 MINI cooper S with 17000 miles and the obc says my rear brakes needs to be replaced. Is it normal that I have to replace the rear pads before the front and at only 17000 miles??

 

That is definitely not normal - the rears should last much longer than the front. Check the pad thickness to see if the OBC is wrong - you may have a parking brake that is dragging if they really are worn.

 

"your mileage may vary"

 

Finally went to the dealer and they said the brake sensor was cut so they only have to replace the pads and not the disc

 

I'm surprised these cars don't do better on brake life. When I test drove, the brake pedal was so grabby, it took barely any effort to stop these cars. It has to be driving habits, or perhaps you guys are not properly bedding in the brakes. This can also cause greater wear and tear on both pad and rotor.

 

@ 13k and again @ 29k

 

I have 11.5 on the car and the OBC says 8K more until front brakes, so close to 20K. Hopefully, I'll get the fronts within the 3 year service. If not when I first do them out of service, I plan on doing carbotech brakes.

 

I have almost 17k on the car and just replaced the front with Hawk ceramic brake pads - purely for the less brake dust on my spiffy white rims. Hi, My name is Sarah, and I'm a serial down-shifter (much to my husband's dismay - he's not a fan of roller coaster rides, evidently, ...wuss!) I had the dealer put the new pads on the front while the car was in for it's first full service, and they said my old pads were OK - could've done another 10-15k on them if necessary. I didn't replace the back brakes. A very knowledgeable friend of mine says typically 30k for OEM brakes, and that the ceramics tend to wear out the rotors faster - although not so bad if downshifting more than braking. Anyway. My two cents.

 

30k before replacing my front pads but not the rear...
I also downshift to control speed and I tend to keep an eye on traffic so that I won't have to
over brake at the last minute.

Oh and did I mention that its on a R52??

 

I'm not surprised - then again, I come from the BMW world. European cars go through brakes much quicker than American cars. The rotors are much softer and are designed to wear evenly with the pads. Shoot, on some American vehicles, you can turn the rotors enough to almost never replace them during your ownership. BMW uses very aggressive brake pads/rotors. By aggressive, I mean that they sacrifice themselves for superior stopping power. I'd rather stop a few feet sooner in a panic stop and have to replace my brakes more often than stop a few feet later and get false teeth due to a collision with the Lincoln in front of me.

As for your assertion that not 'bedding in the brakes' will cause greater wear and tear on the pads and rotors, can you please explain that further? You can get uneven deposit of pad material on the rotor (glazing, high spots that feel like warped rotors, ineffective stopping power, brake squeal, etc.) but this is the first I've heard that it will accelerate wear. Fill me in.

 

I drive about 60 ighway miles a day and went in for an oil change at 17500. OBC said i was due for pads in 4000 miles so Cincinnati MINI went ahead and changed them out. Just pads but no rotors. They also fixed the 3rd to 2nd downshift 'howl'.

 

Well, as you know, when you bed in the brakes, the basically get the pad hot enough to where it glazes the surface of the rotor. This provides a smooth surface for the pad to come in contact to each time when you stop. However, say the glaze is uneven, even to the slightest degree. This provides an uneven surface that will wear the pad faster. Basically, at low speeds, rubbing against an uneven surface would be okay, but if you multiply how fast the rotor is turning by how hard the pad is being applied, you'll start to get the picture.

 

I get your logic but I'm not sure it's an issue that contributes to the accelerated brake wear being discussed here. Accelerated wear is pretty much never listed as a reason to bed your brakes in properly (by ppl in the know like Stoptech). That's cool though - I'm certainly not trying to argue the point. I'm just throwing my opinion out there to mingle with the rest of them.

 

I dunno. My Hawk HPS pads told me to bed in or they would wear faster.

 

Dealer replaced my fronts @ 14000 miles.

 

And you may be 100% correct Pinky! Thanks for the friendly discussion. Some people get bent out of shape at alternate viewpoints.

Cliff's notes: Properly bed in your brakes no matter what! :D


I have a question related to the EBC green pads... has anyone had any additional noises, clunks, etc. after installing them?

On my 540, I ditched the Pagid pads (OEM) and went with some Axxis Deluxe pads for their low dusting with good performance. However, there was this constant 'clunk' due to the pad shifting in the carrier slightly when you touched the brake pedal. I lived with it for 6 months, put the OEM pads back in and the problem went away. It's like the ears on the pads were slightly smaller than they should have been and allowed some play to exist.

I want to do something similar on the MCS due to brake dust but don't want to introduce any other headaches - noises like that drive me to drink (more).

 

You must have the same size shoe as my husband!! haahha

 

So how do you reset the brake warning light?

 

R56? Here you go:

http://www.mini2.com/forum/faq.php?f...ice_indicators