Brake Job on the Mini
So I’ve been changing my own brake pads for a while now. It’s a very easy job, take off the tire, undo 2 bolts that hold the brake caliper on and then take the caliper off. The old pads then slide out. After that you use a ‘C’ clamp to press the piston back in and then and the new pads slide right in and the whole caliper slides back onto the roter and you put the 2 bolts in and replace the tire. Voila it’s done. Not even 10 minutes if I have help 20 if I don’t.
My dad asked me to help him do the brakes on his Mini. Sure, they’re not that bad, I figured with help we’d have it done in 30 minutes. Heck with the mini you don’t even need a jack, he could lift up one side and I’d put a jack stand under it.
Apparently disk brakes on European vehicles work differently than those on American and Asian made cars. After an hour trying to take the caliper off I finally decided that since the pads were going into the garbage I’d destroy them and use a hammer to take it off. That worked, now to compress the piston. After going next door to borrow a clamp big enough we tried and tried and it didn’t compress. After playing for a while we discovered that if we activated the emergency brake the piston would come all the way out. We took the boot off and the piston twisted off. The piston screws on, that explains why we couldn’t push it back into place. At this point we have the brake caliper completely disconnected. With the help of a pair of needle nosed pliers we got it twisted back into place. After we completely reconnected it we went to do the other side. We couldn’t get that caliper twisted back into place until we disconnected the brake lines and drained the fluid out. Still the second brake only took about 15 minutes, well 20 after we found the small leak at the connection of the brake line and got that fixed. After bleeding the brake lines we logged more than 5 hours for a 30 minute brake job. Apparently all we needed was a brake caliper rewind kit and it would have taken the 10 minutes per brake. I guess since one of the brakes was to the metal and we’ll have to replace that rotor before long we’ll have to get that set and save ourselves 4.5 hours.
I learned a lot. I still don’t understand why BMW charges $1,000 for a brake job. We could replace all the pads and rotors for less than $300. If they really make $1,400 per hour I need to be a BMW mechanic. Maybe I should open up my own shop and charge $1,000 dollars per hour. Heck even $100 per hour would be nice.
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3 Responses to “Brake Job on the Mini”
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Yeah, please get that kit before you say yes to your dad the next time he asks for help, will ya?
I’ve learned my lesson, I will check the Chilton manual before working on a strange foreign car again. I should have known that everything would be strange on a car the size of a large marshmallow.
Hey, can you add my email address to whatever so I can get your comments in my email, too? I just found your comment.
You’re funny! 😀