I searched a bit and found some information but i think starting my own thread will help me alot more.

First off, my car is an 05 cooper s and i bought it used about 1 year ago. I had one service where they chaged the pads and rotors. It was about 5-6 months ago.

All of a sudden, my rear breaks have started makeing some noises. Theres noise whenever i am moving, if i go by a wall i can hear it, the faster i go, the faster it is. Like the pad keeps hitting somthing. The next thing that happens is on turns. It sounds like pure metel rolling in the back seat when i apply the breaks, when i let them go it softens or dissapers. This has now started happening even when im not turning. I took the wheels off and the pads are all touching the rear calipers, and the wheels are difficult to spin. I didnt disasemble anything yet because i do not know much when it comes to brakes. But i plan on learning about them from this problem. I've used the parking brake to make sure it was the rear ones. The front wheels spun freely.

If anyone has any ideas let me know and ill try them out. Thanks.

 

Who did the brake job? Have you taken it to them? If so what was the out come? How many miles are on the MINI? Have you been on salted or rocky roads of late?

 

Prestiege MINI. I have not, warrenty is up and i have 51,000 miles. It started happening before the snow salt was being put down and ive barely driven on that. Cold weather just hit hard if that has anything to do with it.

 

OK, thanks for the info. I'd start with removing the rear caliper and make sure the inside rear pad clip is on all 3 sides of the caliper piston. If they are then check the rear hub.

 

I had some similar squealing, unable-to-rotate-rotor symptoms last winter when I thought that one of the rear calipers was binding and when I went to replace it, I couldn't get it off. Upon taking the center console apart I found that the e-brake cable was what had seized. If the metal sound is a pulsing and not a constant sound, the rotors could be warped or there could be a dead spot. Are both rear rotors equally hard to turn? If it is only on the rears, have you attempted to adjust the e-brake cable tension under the e-brake handle to see if that is forcing the calipers to put pressure on the rotors even with the e-brake not engaged?

If you had the brake job done at Prestige I'd take it back at least for a consult. MINI dealerships warranty their work for 2 years. The rear pads and rotors shouldn't have worn down in that time and I'd call ahead and say that as it is a brake issue after a recent brake job which is under warranty, an examination should be covered.

 

I am having a problem with the parking brake not releasing at 130,000 miles on the calipers. New park cables installed and it seems the calipers are not retracting all the way. New calipers are $300.00 each!! Not sure what is causing it or what the fix is and I see no other references to this problem yet. Maybe this is the same problem.

 

My cables had to be replaced at around 60k which was disappointing and one of the many reasons why I no longer have that MCS. In regards to your issue of the calipers not retracting all the way, it could be the calipers have failed possibly from the stress caused by the seized e-brake line however my intuition says it is something else. There would have to be some force preventing the caliper from retracting. I don't know if too much brake fluid/pressure would cause this but my guess would be too much tension in the e-brake line or cables that are short. You can adjust the e-brake cable tension easily from the cabin or as another test you could disconnect the e-brake line from the caliper to see if the piston retracts all the way.

 

I think ill try the last idea first. Can i remove the e-brake boot to find them or is this gonna require removal of the whole armrest area? Now the noise is there most of the time if not always so it had to get worse or mabe i burnt down the pads. Its still a pulsating metal scraping sound that goes faster when the wheels are turning faster, and slower when they arnt moving fast. Like theres a bump somewere and it keeps hitting. I'll try to check the break lines tommrow and see if when removed, the cailpers loosen up the wheels.

 

Can you smell the rear brakes cooking once you stop?

The handbrake boot comes off easily with a plastic spludger to get under the plastic retaining clips or with a flat-head screwdriver if you're careful. To adjust the cable tension there is a nut just below the brake handle. That would be the first thing to try. The way I found out one of my cables had seized was by removing the center console cover and bracket and the single cable which comes out from the hand-brake splits into two whereas you can examine or completely disconnect the terminating ball-heads of each of the cables that go to their respective caliper.

 

Regarding the parking brake issue- with the cables removed- the calipers do not retract all the way on their own. I have had both calipers off and on the workbench, and tried to free them up. They are stiff but I cannot see anything else wrong with them. They are both exactly the same. I sure hate to waste $600.00. I actually modified them a little to give more spring pressure, and that worked for about two weeks. I have an '06 in the garage for the winter with 32K on the odometer, but I hate to take that apart to see if there is a difference, but it may be worth it to troubleshoot this. I thought for sure some one would have an answer for this probelm by now.

 

Sounds like more than one problem here, but for the binding cable possibles https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...rake-drag.html. Be aware allowing the trailing arm to hang freely will put tension on the parking brake cable.

 

Ok i just read over my old service papers, turns out they only worked on the front calipers. It is a pulsating sound, there is no burning smell at all after long rides with the noise occuring. I will try the e-brake idea today.

 

I loosened the nut a whole lot and they didnt free up at all. I only checked one wheel when i did this. I screwed that back to normal then looked at the brake myself. Where the parking brake is conected to the caliper, is that suposed to be semi easy to remove when parking brake is off? Because i tried to remove it and it wasnt budging even when i used alot of force.

Could this problem still be related to the parking brake? Even though i loosened that nut under the handle and it didnt help.

Thanks for the help guys.