My car told me that I should change my brake pads. I was skeptical at 24k miles, but bought a kit from FCP Euro since they will replace consumable parts. So if I need to change my pads often, I'll try their "life time replacement". I got Zimmermann rotors and Akebono pads (Front Pads/Rotor Kit; Rear kit).

Prep your car (no photos):

1. Loosen the wheel bolts on all the brakes that you are changing. It's a 17mm bolt.
2. Jack up the car. There's different ways to do this, especially because an F56 only has 4 side jack points. But I did the following, which worked well:
   1. Drive the front up ramps
   2. Used a low profile floor jack on the front jack point (A)
   3. Lower on jack stands on the front side jack points (1 and 2) (with an adapter so you don't bend your jack points)
   4. Jack up the back using the rear jack point (B)
   5. Lower on jack stands on the rear side jack points (3 and 4) (again, adapter... thank you BMW)
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3. Remove the wheels

Front Brakes (Pads and Rotors):

1. Remove caliper bolts (13 mm - A), you may have to use a wrench (17mm) to hold the pin (B) in place (it may spin with the bolt):
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2. Repeat with the other bolt/pin:
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3. After the two caliper bolts are removed, you should be able to remove the caliper. I bungled the caliper to my springs so it's out of the way and would stretch the brake line.
4. The above photo has shows the brake sensor (brake sensor is on the driver side front and passenger side rear). It's clipped at a few places, which you will want to unclip to give you space. When you remove the inner pad, you can unclip the sensor.
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5. Remove inner and outer pads. I was skeptical of the wear, but it turned out that my inner pads were fairly worn. I also saw that the inner side of my rotors had deep grooves, which may have caused this​​​​ uneven wear.
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6. Remove caliper bracket bolts, which I needed to use my trusty pipe to give more leverage.
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7. ​​​​After the bolts are out, you can remove the caliper bracket.
8. There is a Torx screw that you can remove that allows you to remove the rotor
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9. Remove your rotor. The deep grooves on my rotor which likely contributed to my uneven and fast wear:
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10. Take your new rotors and install:
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11. I hand tightened the Torx screw as I didn't know the torque value.
12. Next clean your caliper bracket (I used an old toothbrush). Using a little bit of brake grease, lube up the caliper pins and reinsert. Make sure the rubber protector fits snuggly and over the lip:
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13. Next, you can reinstall your caliper bracket at ~80 lb-ft (110 Nm) torque on the bracket bolts.
14. Now you have to access your brake fluid reservoir, which isn't as easy as just popping the hood like most cars (thanks again BMW).
15. At the battery, you can gently remove the rubber liner and 3 screws:
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16. Wiggle that piece of plastic off, then remove two bolts and three plastic half turn screws:
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17. Finally, the brake reservoir is accessible! Open it so it's easier to push fluid back into the reservoir. But make sure to monitor the fluid's level. You don't want it to overfill since it's corrosive. Also, if you are not going to be performing the next steps promptly, close the reservoir since brake fluid will absorb water.
18. Go back to your caliper and squeeze the piston with a clamp. I use the old brake pad to push evenly:
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19. At this point, I recapped the reservoir since I was going to switch the brake pad sensor. It was good, since this part took much longer than I thought it would.
20. If you follow the sensor wire, you'll see it goes behind a plastic cover. It's a large piece, but if you remove 1 screw and 1 of those plastic push clips, you can gain access. I used a plastic tool (from Harbor Freight) designed to remove those plastic clips. I used to get very frustrated, so it's probably worth the few bucks to buy one:
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21. So I spent a LOT of time trying to feel around and remove the sensor. Eventually, I found the easiest way to trace the sensor wire up and loop it over the plastic piece. Then you can what you're doing and use two hands/tools more easily. It's one of those push to unclip things. I think I ended up putting a screwdriver under the clip and just pulling the sensor out. Probably not the design of the mechanism, but worked:
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22. Then you can clip the new sensor there, run the wire properly, and reinstall the screw and clip, etc.
23. Next, you can go back to your caliper. Place the brake pad in the bracket. Note that the notches in the pads pretty much make it so you can't install the pads backwards (inner on the outside, and vice versa). So if you are having issues, make sure you are arranging your pads properly. The front pads have metal clips built on, so make sure they are properly seated. You'll also want to add brake grease to everywhere that the pads/clips touch the brackets/calipers. I also added some to the spot where the pads will get squeezed. So beautiful:
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24. Replace the caliper. You should have plenty of space now that you compressed the piston in the previous steps. Again, if you are banging against notches in the pad, you may have installed them inside/out:
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25. Torque the caliper bolts to 25 lb-ft (35 Nm), using the wrench.
26. Clip the brake pad sensor to the inner pad with the bump on the rotor side:
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27. That should be one side. Do the same on the other side (minus the brake sensor).

Rear Brakes
The rear brakes are pretty much the same procedure except that you need to turn of the braking break and you need a tool to compress the rear piston (it spins while compressing). You can borrow them from free from local auto parts stores like Pepboys or AutoZone. I heard you can also use needle nose pliers to manually spin, but I've never done it so I can't talk about how easy or difficult this is. But if you can borrow the brake kit for free, why not use that? This will be less detailed (mainly photos and comments).

Similar removal of the caliper bolts and unclipping the brake pad sensor.


Same removal of caliper and pads. Also everything is much smaller on the rear brakes (overwhelming majority of braking is the front brakes). Also note that the metal clips are separate pieces (not part of the pads).


I found removal of the brackets more difficult since the space was very tight. I had to maneuver my hanging caliper a lot. This took much longer than the front for me.


The rotor comes off the same way.

Clean (underneath) and replace:


Clean the bracket. Lube the caliper pins, and reinstall the bracket (same as the front).

Compressing the piston: Open the brake fluid reservoir. The brake compressor kit is basically a clamp that has specific notches that align with your piston. Then you compress/spin until the piston is compressed. it's like an more official version of the clamp method, but since the spinning is important, tool is needed (probably could have taken better photos):


The sensor is easier to change in the rear. Again, following the wire, you can remove one plastic nut and it's much easier to access where the sensor links. Remove and replace like the front (but easier):


Since the metal clips are separate, lube them up and attach them first:


Add the pads afterwards (with brake grease):


Replace the caliper and torque the bolts (same as the front):


And that's it!

Finalizing

1. Reinstall your wheels (101 ft-lbs). This is also a good time to rotate your wheels before replacing.
2. Before you drop your car, press on your brakes to rebuild pressure. (And if you haven't, before this step, close your brake fluid reservoir and reassemble your battery area.) Pull up your parking brake before dropping your car.
3. Jack up your rear to remove the rear jack stands. Carefully drop the rear of your car. If possible, block your rear wheels since your brakes won't be their strongest.
4. Jack up the front of your car. Remove the front jack stands. And carefully drop the front of your car.
5. The rotor/pads have a break in procedure (consisting of several slow brakings from different speeds). Just remember that the rotors need to wear off the anti-rust coating before they brake optimally.

And enjoy the thought of the money you saved ($1-2k maybe?). I think it may justify upgrading my suspension with the savings?

 

Very in depth. Great job and Thank you! And stores really let you borrow?

 

You have to ask yourself why the inside pad wore so much more than the outside pad on the front right(?) side. Usually its because one or both of the guide pins are seized or one of the brake pads are binding in the caliper bracket. The pads should move easily in their guide slot. You don't want to have premature wear on the new set.

 

@miniRogue1 Stores like Pepboys or Autozone typically have a tools program that you can put down a deposit and borrow specialty tools. I think it's like $50 or something for the brake kit.
@RudeJoe The uneven wear was really weird, especially if you look at the rotors, they were grooved on the interior. When I checked the caliper pins, they seemed fine (lubed and moved well). I'm not sure if it was a rotor issue, or if something wore those grooves. I thought the sensor was a pain, but I guess I can't complain now.

 

I did the rear brake pads on my 2022 Cooper S F55 with the adaptive cruise option which is important because it’s a different part with that option for some reason: https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...kebono-eur1762

FCP Euro was great btw. I ordered the wrong set of pads at first (for minis without this option) and they sent me the correct one for free.

Newtis didn’t have diagrams for my car with this option but several other BMW and mini cars have rear brake pad diagrams that look like mine. I used the F60 rear brake pad instructions. Really the only difference from what I’m used to is it said not to mechanically scrub the caliper, etc. surfaces to clean them. Instead you’re just supposed to wipe them with brake cleaner. It also said not to lube the caliper bolts, only to clean them.

At 28k miles, despite the brake pad sensor saying this needed to be done (starting 3 months ago even), the brake pads were only about half worn and the rotors were at stock thickness or maybe 0.1mm less. Could’ve gone months longer without changing them but eh.

Another difference is the piston compression kit available at autozone, etc. didn’t fit these. I used this one:
I also used the bimmerlink app with the OBDLink CX Bluetooth adapter to put the electronic rear parking brake in service mode.

Caliper bolts are hex head. I used a 7mm.

Went really smoothly once I had all the right tools and pads!