I have a 2004 MCS, with the 16% pulley, Alta intake, and a few others. Nothing extreme, and I don't put on the track (usually). No e-brake turns, no hard braking--I tend to downshift, in fact.

I was unaware that the brakes were warranteed at first, so when the brake light when on at 18k miles, I bought some slotted and cross-drilled rotors for front and back, along with green stuff for the front. I had to pay to have the front ones installed, but they installed the rear under warranty, as the rear pads were gone.

Those cross-drilled lasted up until about 46k miles. At 34.5k I had to have the rear pads replaced again, the green stuff front pads lasted up until 46k, and would have lasted longer if one of the calipers didn't sieze up this January. The cross-drilled rotors were pretty badly pitted and worn, so I replaced them, along with new pads. In less than two weeks, the front right rotor was worn over half way down and the pad down to the steel. I brought it to Classic Mini/BMW, and they replaced the front pads and rotors under warranty. That was January. Yesterday the brake light went on, the rear rotors and pads are worn HARD. They are about 3 months old, and less than 4k miles. NO hard braking.

Classic is saying they can't find anything wrong. They saw the brand new, factory rotors in the back in January, and the now-worn to nubs rotors, but everything else appears to be fine; no siezed calipers, etc.

I think there's some serious bias problems, but they won't consider that.

Not sure what to do. Waiting to see if they are going to cover it under warranty, and if so, what they'll do about it. I can't go on replacing rotors and pads every 3 months.... that'll not only **** me off, but run me broke.

Any ideas? I'll probably write to MiniUSA, although I am not sure how much they'll care about that. Perhaps I'll be forced to buy a brake conversion with bias option, although I really don't want to spend any money on the car, as my project car is already doing that pretty well.

Nate
SteyrTMP

 

Is your parking brake not disengaging fully, (which would only affect the rear brakes)?

 

I know in areas that use salt on the roads in the winter, that the parking brake cable can seize up, due to corrosion. I've had this happen to me in my 2000 Golf GL. The parking brake never fully disengaged, causing premature rear brake pad wear. They had to replace the cable to fix the problem.

 

The only way to see what is going on is to connect a pressure gauge to each caliper and measure the hydraulic pressure and also see if any of them are holding pressure when the brake is released. Usually on four wheel disk brakes there is no rear pressure reducer. The braking force distrubution from front to rear is usually designed in by the size of the caliper pistons.

YD

 

I had a faulty rear caliper that dragged the pads on the right rear. It was eventually replaced by MINI, but only after Global Imports in Atlanta botched the job twice by not fixing the problem and only replacing the pads and rotors. Despite how obvious it was that there was a problem with a single pad repeatedly wearing away to nothing in a very short period of time, the mechanics at Global were not capable of diagnosing or fixing the problem. It took a complaint to the NHTSA to get them to fix it properly with a new replacement caliper.

You may have a similar situation. . .

 

Wow that is some very serious brake wear. Either you drive like an absolute animal...not likely...or there is a problem with the pads dragging. Have you jacked up the car & turned the wheels? If not do it & you will see if they are dragging.