leased a 2019 Mini Cooper Hardtop 6sp in November 2018. At 17,000 miles it needed REAR brakes (!!) to the tune of $600. I brought it to New Country MINI in Hartford, CT. They told me a wealth of stupid excuses for the lousy brake pads and treated me like an idiot for questioning the extremely short brake life. Fast forward 5,000 miles and I now have to replace the front pads for $500. Apparently, I went through 6mm of pad in 5k miles. At this point, I went ballistic! Again, I was treated like an uninformed idiot (I've been driving manual transmissions for 30 years) by two service advisors and then the service manager -- I drive too aggressively, the pads are very soft to accentuate the sportiness of the car so I need to accept that as a cost of driving a MINI, etc. What condescension! Needless to say, I will never lease a MINI again, and I will go out of my way to advise my family, friends and coworkers to avoid both the brand and New Country at all costs. I am truly disappointed; I was very excited to get a MINI, but now I regret it immensely.

Absolutely no assistance from New Country or MINI. I now am stuck with another year on my lease for a car that I despise.

Live and learn.

 

Why are you complaining to us? The vast majority of owners on this forum would have fixed the issue ourselves. Perhaps you should post in the correct forum for your vehicle generation and see if this is a common issue.

 

Brakes are an easy repair, even if you aren't that mechanically inclined. Rotors can usually go for every other pad change. Pads and sensor for all four corners can be had for a couple hundred bucks. Also, just because its a lease, doesn't mean dealer only for servicing.

 

Without knowing a damned thing about Hartford, I can just about guarantee there's at least one very reputable independent MINI shop that will treat his customers with respect. Check with other MINI folk in your area and find him. Don't judge a fun car by people who show no respect to their clients.
For a reference, I replaced pads and rotors, EBC Red Stuff and OEM rotors 7 years and a bit over 70K miles ago and they're still solid.

 

First of all what are you doing at the Stealership for any your maintenance in the first place?

M a y b e would go in for recalls, but aside from that, there is absolutely no reason to be there; their entire business model relies on shafting people in the service bay; they're not making anywhere near the money on the showroom floor. This is the dirty open secret of every stealership, for every brand out there. But you knew that already.

+1 on doing it yourself. You need a jack, stands, and basic tools. Consider swapping in ceramic pads - they don't create the same amount of dust nor will they wear down the rotors as fast as metallics or semi's. Plenty of sources - vendors here on NAM, Rock Auto, even Evilbay and Amazon.

 

Does that mean MINI doesn't cover brakes under service warranty anymore?

 

good question, I thought brakes were part of the maintenance coverage you get buying a new mini / bmw

 

600 over 5k miles? Rough.

Mini brakes were junk for me as well. I blew through my front and rear pads and had them replaced under Mini Service back in the day. Once that was done, gone! Besides being weak, they dust like no other. Up there with a Brembo setup. For $600, Mini pitches the pads and the rotors are disposable each round.

But it may pay to learn how to work on brakes. Its pretty simple and straightforward.

 

MINI F56 factory rear rotors are about $150 for the pair and about $130 for the set of MINI pads. How do you possibly charge $300 in labor for a rear brake service? Any technician at a MINI dealership should be able to change the rear pads and rotors in under 30 minutes.

For rear brake pads and rotors to wear out in 17,000 miles, there would be something seriously wrong with both calipers or the driver uses both feet with one on the accelerator and one on the brake pedal simultaneously.

 

You’ve never driven in Connecticut, have you...

 

My 2019 F57 has just over 30,000 miles on the original brakes, and I do a lot of hard driving with our local MINI club. That being said, one of our other cars is an X2 (i.e., Countryman cousin) and it needs new brakes front and rear at 21,000 miles! (It also will need new tires very shorty, but don't get me started on that...)