Just as a public service announcement, I wanted to share my recent experiences.

Exactly one year ago, I replaced all brake pads and rotors on my MINI. Then a couple weeks ago, I start hearing metal-on-metal thrumming while I'm driving, and it got really loud while braking. I pinpointed it to my driver's side rear rotor. Could it be that I had worn through brand new brake pads in just under one year???

YES, because my parking brake cables had seized up. In the last year, while parking, the parking brake is engaged. (No criticism wanted about how I need to just put the car into first gear while parking, please; I live in a very hilly area, and therefore don't trust just using the first-gear thing).

Anyway, after releasing the parking brake, unbeknownst to me, the rear brake pads were still being squeezed a little bit, against the rotors, even though my parking brake was completely deactivated. Well, as you can imagine, throughout a year, this rapidly wears down the rear brake pads to nothing.

I attribute the seizing of my parking brake cables to corrosion due to winter driving on salted roadways.

THIS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, if you live in the Northeast, and frequently drive your MINI on salted roadways.

How do you prevent it? I don't know if regular lubrication of this cable is even possible, but that's a start.

The cables aren't sold anywhere but through a dealer. I recommend Classic MINI out of Cleveland, because they'll give you a 15% discount for being a member of NAM. They cost 47 bucks each, (37 after discount). That isn't nearly as expensive as the labor was!!! Ouch.

Just wanted to give you guys and gals a heads-up.