North American Motoring

Mini Cooper 2007-2013: Brake Pad Reviews

Disc brakes are an unquestionable improvement over drum brakes, and the brake pads in your disc brakes are an unquestionable improvement over using rotors without pads.

By James Hodgson - June 28, 2016

This article applies to the Mini Cooper/Cooper-S (2007-2013).

It's easy to tell someone who is interested in getting around a track faster from someone who is only interested in pumping up their car. A track driver will be asking how to get the car to stop rather than just go. Horsepower is great, and torque is even better. But being able to brake later than anyone else is pretty dang good, too. In this article we'll go over some brake pad options for your MINI and maybe help you choose your next stopping adventure.

At the risk of bursting your bubble, your humble author cautions that this article is best used as a starting point. The best brake pad for you and your driving style is something you'll have to spend a long time figuring out. In fact, it may turn out that the best brake pad for you is actually two full sets of brake pads that you change out before and after weekends you know you'll be at the track.

Finding an end-all be-all of brake pads is tough. You have to consider price, noise level, and dust level in addition to performance. To help illustrate this point, here's a chart from Hawk brake pads that shows the operating ranges and coefficient of friction, or the amount of bite each pad is able to deliver to the brake rotor once it is up to operating temperature. More friction equals more stop.

Figure 1. Hawk brake pad friction chart.

As you can see, with your OEM pads you'll have braking ability as soon as you begin to drive. This is what you want in a street car. But after a few laps of hard driving, the heat might climb past the pads operating temp, at which point you might as well have ham sandwiches for brake pads. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you put Hawk's DTC-70 racing pads in your street car and head off to work, you'd probably drive straight into your neighbor's house or worse, because the brake pads don't work for diddley until they get up to temp.

So, with all that in mind, let's have a look at some popular brake pads. The manufacturer's claimed noise levels and dust levels are included but cannot really be trusted. They all say their brakes are super quiet with zero dust, which is impossible. Your humble author's experience with street/track pads is that they squeal like a pig with a megaphone and put out so much dust you'd think someone is emptying their vacuum on your wheels. Honestly, if dust and noise are a problem for you, you probably aren't interested in performance brake pads.

Prices are for a full set, all 4 wheels, but approximate.

Brake Pads

OEM
Hawk HPS
Akebono EURO
Carbotech XP10
EBC Redstuff
Price
 ~$140/set ~$170/set ~$160/set ~$400/set ~$170
Noise Level
 Low Low Low High Low
Intended Use
 Street Street & Track Street Track Street/Track
Dust Level
 Medium/High Low Low High Low
Best Quality: Carbotech XP10

Best Value: Akebono EURO

OEM Mini Brake Pads

Price – ~$140/set

Noise – Low

Use – Street

Dust Level – Medium/High

There's nothing wrong with the pads that come on your car. If you're not used to track driving, you might be surprised how hard you have to push your vehicle to see the performance of the brakes suffer due to heat. After all, the brakes from the factory are fully capable of stopping a car full of people and stuff at highway speeds. But rarely does usual street driving include braking as hard as you possibly can over and over again. And if it does, remind me not to ride anywhere with you.

Hawk HPS

Price – ~$170/set

Noise – Low

Use – Street & Track

Dust – Low

Your humble author has personal experience with these pads and has used them on the street, track, and autocross course. In his estimation they work very well, but are definitely louder than the OEM pads. After a while, you get used to the squealing. In the words of one fellow driver, "The squealing is how you know they're good."

Akebono Euro

Price – ~$160/set

Noise – Low

Use – Street

Dust – Low

Akebono is very proud of the "EURO" nature of their brake pads, even though they come from Japan, which I don't think is a European country. Origin aside, they do come highly recommended by shops for their pedal feel, noise, and dust. They are ceramic pads, so even though all brake pads shed dust, at least the dust with ceramic pads is lighter in color.

Carbotech XP10

Price – ~$400/set

Noise – High

Use – Track

Dust – High

The Carbotech XP10 are the magical unicorns of this review. They are by far the most expensive, and likely to be the noisiest as well. For reasons of price, your humble author has never tried them. If the literature on these pads from Carbotech is to be believed, though, they are of unparalleled quality. If you are going to take your car to the track and drive it as fast as you possibly can, these are the pads to have, especially if your wallet is especially thick.

EBD Redstuff

Price – ~$170

Noise – Low

Use – Street/Track

Dust – Low

Another great aftermarket pad, the EBC Redstuff enjoy what appears to be high satisfaction from their customers. Given that they share their price point with several other offerings, it might be worth it to give them a shot and see if you agree.

Related Discussions