My 2012 MC has just over 11,000 total miles. I bought it used, 4 months ago with 8,000 miles on the odo. Recently I have noticed the startup service indicator to be counting down rather quickly. I assumed it to be the oil change and ignored it. Today the service indicator turned yellow and showed the graphic for Front Brake Service. Hmmmm...

This is my first MINI so I don't know what is "normal" but I certainly expected to get a lot more than 11,000 miles from a set of front brakes. Heck, I have not even had an oil change yet. I know that brake pad life is a function of how & where the car is driven but how many miles have other people driven on a new set of brake pads ? Does 11,000 miles seem low or it about average ?

 

I replaced my front brakes around 48k miles, rear are coming due soon(original), currently have 67,800 miles on it. But, as you said, it depends on driving conditions. Also, you need to examine pads, the computer is only an estimate.

 

The Mini's do seem to eat pads up quicker than most typical cars I've owned. It's also a higher performing car than your Corolla or Civic, so keep that in mind. If the previous owner, or yourself, or both drive more spirited in the sense that you might brake later and therefore, harder, I wouldn't be terribly surprised at all.

The good new is, these cars are not any harder to do brakes on than most other cars and the parts can be had cheap. Rotors and pads for the rear of my 07 S were under $100 total, and some decent ceramic pads on sale, replacement rotors, and a new sensor in the front, after 5% off at RockAuto.com(where I get all my replacement parts for any normal daily driver I ever work on), came to almost $100 on the dot.

If your rotors aren't in need of replacing or turning, pads can be had for $8-20 depending on where you buy and what you get. That sensor can be had for about $8+cheap shipping as well. It's a wire that breaks when the pads get low, don't buy into any high dollar name brand sensor lol.

 

Sounds like you are way overdue for an oil change as well.

 

I'm hard on the brakes of our MINIs, but in an MC I've never managed to wear out the brakes in under 11k without doing a few track days.

When you noticed the count down accelerate that was probably when the first stage sensor tripped. That's at about 6mm. The light comes on when the second stage sensor tripped, which is about 3mm. So you probably went through 3mm in the last 3k miles, which is fast going.

 

I've replace the front & rears twice, last rear job was in April. My 2008 MCS has 93,000 miles..

 

If the odo was turned back 20,000 then you should be due. BS aside the stock pads are very grabby but they seem soft as well. And you have no idea how hard the first 8,000 miles were...

 

Then it could be just the brake pad sensor.

 

i would check to see if your brake pad sensor is broken. i had an issue not long ago where i replaced my rear brakes and then about 10,000 miles later it was saying they needed to be done again. it turned out my brakes were fine, my rear brake sensor had just broken and caused the warning light. apparently the sensors are very fragile. i believe the front one is on the driver side front tire and the rear sensor is on the passenger side rear tire. just poke your head under and see if its hanging there.

 

Yeah, but the computer says 6,000 more miles to go !!

 

How thick are new oem pads ?

 

do a visual check of the pads...

Depending on which wheels you have you might be able to just look thru but in this case I'd probably pull a front wheel, or both, so you can get a good look at the inner and outer pads to check for even wear.

Know what to look for? The rule of thumb is to replace pads when the pad thickness is less than the thickness of the pad backing plate.

Here's a picture of a nearly new GEN2 MINI front pad. I put a little white paint on the backing plate to make it show up



Here's a worn pad with similar white


Note that the wear sensors are only on the left front and right rear wheels, and then only on the inner pads. I find them pretty useless and have jumpered them....

btw on the good MINI pad you'll note the edge bevel .... now look at the worn pad ... for these MINI pads, if you can see bevel you'd appear to be OK ... no bevel = time for new.

Lastly, I'm a pretty easy driver, I only average about 20 miles a week on my car now a days (retired) and I get about 42,000 miles on a set of MINI pads (I actually use EBC). On my Miata I changed the original pads at 100,000 miles just 'cuz I found it hard to believe they had material left .... they did ... about 30% I'd say.

 

11-12mm in my experience.

 

Between my first post and this post, I figured out I could see the pads thru the wheel. Pads appear to be 2 to 3 times the thickness of the backing plate. From what I have read, this is more inline with 11,000 miles of daily driver commuting. Guess I will have the Dealer figure out if the computer got it wrong or the front left sensor failed.

 

And pay for an oil change while you're at it Or you may be due for a free change every year regardless of mileage.

 

Just a followup:

Dealer says front pads are all fine. At only 11,000 miles they should be.
Dealer also says the wear sensors are also OK.
Dealer performed something called a "CBS Correction", including a "CAS update".

So, the brakes were always OK but it sounds like the software telling me if the brakes are OK or not OK needed to be rebooted / reloaded (or some-such). Don't you just love technology.