This weekend I brought my '05 CVT into South Bay MINI for its 10K service. I heard great things about this place here, so I thought I'd give them a try, even though the 10K service is a fairly simple operation.

First off - I called ahead and the service folks said that they would only service the car if the mileage "countdown" indicator said 500 miles or less, so I waited until it read about 1000 before making an appointment, and the nearest Saturday appointment was 1 week out (but I opted for 2 just to be safe). They have a person on the phone who is dedicated to just taking appointments it seems, and she said the service can last a few hours. I decided to try to wait it out anyway. Apparently reserving a loaner car is something you can only do if you have a weekday appointment, and since I wasn't able to take time off from work, I decided to just hang out on a Saturday and hope for the best. Besides, I heard they had wireless internet access and I could always bring my laptop and work for a little while in their lounge.

So, Saturday morning comes and I have an 8:15 AM appointment. I drive up, and there is someone who verifies my name is on the appointment sheet. I wait less than a minute and then she assigns me a motoring advisor (Roy) who takes my key, puts it in the computer at his desk, and it reads all the relevant info about my car. Roy is efficient and fast, warns me it could take a few hours though for service, and shows me into to the waiting area.

The South Bay MINI waiting area is nice - they have a coffee and snack bar, and a small area with two computers running Windows XP that are hooked up to the internet for web browsing. They also have a small desk area with two ethernet ports, two power outlets, and the a wireless access point you can use if you brought your own computer. I don't drink coffee, so I have no comments on that, but I did spend a good hour or so with the very nice wireless internet connection, and got a fair amount of email answered. Then, just after 9 AM, Roy comes by and tells me my car is done! He hands me my key and has me initial the papers that say that service was performed and I am on my way. So total time, slightly less than one hour!

A few interesting observations - I had just over 11,000 miles on my car when the indicator dropped to 300 miles remaining; it will be interesting to see what happend with subsequent services, because if it continues to count "engine miles" slower than real miles, I might run out of the free service period before I actually get my last service. :(

Roy also showed me on my service papers that I have 10mm on my front brake pads and 9mm remaining on my rear pads. I guess this must be the "brake force distrubtion" feature biasing to the rear brakes when stopping. He said the brake pad indicator light will go on at 3mm remaining, that MINI will replace my brake pads as part of the included maintenance when that happens (and possibly not until then). So, a question to all of you: What was the height of my pads when new? And what distance are they measuring to come up with this number? I'd like to estimate accurately when the pads are going to hit 3mm so I can make an appointment in advance, or at least try to estimate how much more time I have on the current pads.

Regardless, my first experience with South Bay MINI was a good one. Those of you LA Area MINI owners should check them out for your 10K maintenance!

 

You are not driving it spiritedly enough - if you drive the car a bit harder you won't have the problem of the engine miles going slower then reality, it will be just the opposite

 

Glad you had a good experience at South Bay! They were our major sponsor for the AMVIV II Kick Off Dinner.

As for the brake pads, I'm at 42,000 miles. My brake pad warning light came on the week for AMVIV II. When I called to make an appointment, they couldn't squeeze me in until the week after, and I didn't want to drive to Vegas and back--not knowing how bad my pads were. Needless to say, I bought a set of pads and installed them myself. Those were the fronts.

2 months later, my brake sensor came on again for my rears, but by then, I was already past the 36,000 mile servicing, so I had to buy my own pads again.

In the end, I ended up buyinh Mintex Red Box pads as well as my OEM pads which I used as a backup. The Mintex pads are great if you have white wheels---dusting is minimal--I wipe every 2 or 3 days instead of twice a day now, plus they cost half as much as the OEM ones. Only drawback is no hole for the rear sensor to plug into, but you do retain the front sensor. In reality, once you understand how to check your pads, you don't need the sensor, if you check it every once in awhile--especially if you rotate your own wheels.

Richard

 

Don't know the thickness of new pads but I can tell you that since I just had the JCW brake kit installed and got the old rear pads back that they look like they got slightly more than 11mm left at 2K miles. I don't know if that helps. They are measuring the thickness of the pad.

With the pads pulled off is simple, you just stick a ruler against it. On the car, you need BMW tool 34 1 260 and read the number (per the manual)

 

You don't even need to pull the pads or buy the BMW tool to check wear. Just sight down the disc and see if the pad backing plate is as thick as the remaining pad. As long as the remaining pad is thicker than the backing plate you are fine.

My Front Pad Writeup
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=38346

Rear Pad Writeup
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...345#post550345



Compare to New OEM Pad

 

I've got 33,000 miles on my 2-year-young MINI Cooper and last week Mini Service said that all 4 pads had 8mm of pad left! I must have a very lite braking foot!

I'm wondering if I should pay the $550.00 to extend my warranty until 50K miles? I'm wondering if my pads will even be below 3mm at 50K miles??

Rock on,

-boognish

 

If it's for brake pads, then definitely not. I mean, new OEM pads will cost around $100 for front and back--and it's something you can do in around 30 minutes. Go aftermarket and you can have front and backs for half that cost (i.e. Mintex)

It's doubtful your rotors will have worn out by 50K if you're still on your first pads---those are incredibly cheap as well--and usually need to be replaced after your 3rd set of pads.

Since you're talking about $550 for the service warranty, I guess it depends on how much you value the service visits.

Richard