How to Replace Front Brakes 2007-14 Mini Cooper S

Hi. I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. Today I'm going to show you how to replace these brakes in this 2007 Mini Cooper S. If you need these parts or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1aauto.com.

I'm going to raise and support the vehicle. We're using a two post lift. If you're doing this at home, you can do it with a jack and jack stands.

I'm going to take these two caliper bolts out. I'm going to use a 13 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Now, these caliper slides have a little area where there's a nut. You could get a wrench in there, but I'm just going to use a pair of pliers because the wrench doesn't really fit too well. Loosen these up. Just turn these pliers around. Take that bolt out. Do the same for the top. Pull that bolt out. I'm going to grab a straight blade screwdriver. I'm just going to pry the caliper out a little bit. That's just going to compress the piston a little and I should be able to wiggle this out. Slide it off. I'm going to grab a bungee cord. Slide it through the spring here. I'm going to support the caliper with the bungee cord.

Just slide it over here. Out of our way. I'm going to slide these pads out. Can use a screwdriver help you get them out if you need to. This one's in there a little bit. Just pry it out a little. Take those out. So, I'm going to use a 16 millimeter socket and a breaker bar. Just going to loosen these bolts up first. Get them started with the breaker bar. I'll use a 16 millimeter socket on a ratchet and take them out. Once they're loose I can do it by hand. I can grab the caliper bracket and just slide it off. I need to take this bolt out. This holds the rotor on. I'm going to use a T 50 and a ratchet. So I'm going to loosen this up. Take the bolt out and pull the rotor straight off.

I'm going to use a wire brush and clean up some of the rust on the hub. This ones pretty bad. We're going to clean this caliper bracket up. First we're going to take these caliper slide pins out. Take a little break parts cleaner and spray it on there. Take a rag, wipe off the grease. Do the same in here. Take the rag, get down in there. Clean this out. We'll take a little bit of brake caliper grease. Grease up this slide pin. Then we'll slide it back in to the caliper bracket. We'll do the same for the other side. We're going to take these pad clips off. Going to use a straight blade screwdriver. Slide those off. Our new brake pads come with new clips, although if you had to reuse these, you could clean them up with a wire brush.

Now, I'll clean this caliper bracket up right here with the wire brush. Once that's cleaned up pretty good, I'm going to take these pad clips and just slide them into position. I'll do the same with the other side. Here's our old parts. Here's our new brake parts from 1A Auto. New rotor, new pads. If you check out the pads, the pads are the same. Same size, obviously the new pads are a lot thicker than the old ones. The rotors are the same height. They have the same cooling pins in the middle. Get yours at 1aauto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

We're going to take a little bit of break parts cleaner. We're going to clean this rotor. There is a protective coating that comes on the rotor so that it does not rust. Flip it over. Clean this side. Just wipe it down with a rag. I'll take the new rotor. Just line it up with the holes. I'll take this little bolt. Slide this in. Take my ratchet and my T 50, I'll just snug this up. You don't want to tighten this too tight in case you ever have to do it again. Just snug. It's good. Next we'll install this caliper pad bracket and slide these bolts in here.

Take my 16 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Just snug these bolts up. I'll take a 16 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these to 81 foot pounds. One thing that's really important about these pads is there's an inboard pad and an outboard pad. So, this one is going to go on the inside. This is where the piston will push on from the caliper. It'll go on the inside. This one's going to be the outside. The difference is the outside has two little tangs right there. The inside one has them on the outer side. So, you don't want to mix them up. You want to make sure you put them in the right spot.

All right, I'm going to take a little brake caliper lube and just coat the ears of these brake pads. Just like that. Just a little bit. We'll install the brake pads right here. Do the same on the back side. All right. Now we're going to take the caliper, take the bungee cord off. I'm going to take one of the old brake pads, stick it in the caliper in front of the piston and I'm going to use this caliper compressing tool. We actually sell these at 1aauto.com. I'm going to slowly turn this. This is going to push the brake fluid back through the hose through all the lines, back into the master cylinder into the reservoir. It's a good idea to check your reservoir after you do your brakes just to make sure the level is good. Just do it slowly.

All right. Once that's all the way down, you can pull the tool out. Take the brake pad out. We'll grab the caliper. Make sure the hose is not twisted and then line this up. Install it over the brake caliper bracket. The caliper bolts. These do have a thread locker on them. You can put new thread locker on if you want. Comes from the factory with thread locker. I'll take my 13 millimeter socket and ratchet. I'm going to hold the stud from spinning, the caliper slide with some pliers. Do the same with the top. Next I'm going to take a torque wrench and a 13 millimeter socket. I'm going to tighten these to 25 foot pounds. Those are good.

When working on the driver side brakes on this vehicle, we have a pad wear sensor. Some of you may have a pad wear sensor on the passenger side as well. We will have to remove this before we remove the brakes. I'm going to use a needle nose pliers and just wiggle this out just like that and over here, retained over the bleeder screw. Just pull that. Pull that aside. If your pads sensor is in good shape, you can reuse it. If not, you're going to want to replace it. It's a good idea to replace it but then to reinstall, put this black in the bleeder screw. Just clip this back on. Take the needle nose pliers, line it up and lock it in place.

Now, we'll reinstall the tire. Line up the lug nut holes. Take one of these lug studs. Get it started with a socket. 17 millimeter socket. We'll drop it down and torque them. I'm going to torque these lug studs with a 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench to 88 foot pounds. We're going to do it in a star pattern or cross pattern to torque the wheel down evenly. Now, we're going to reinstall the center cap. There is a groove right here that lines up pretty much on any of these spots. So, just line that up. Lock it in place. After the brake job, we want to pump the brake pedal multiple times. This is going to take up the gap. There's a little bit of an air gap between the piston and the brake pad when you install them. This takes up that air gap. It's also a good idea to check your brake fluid level when you're done.

Thanks for watching. Visit us a 1aauto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping and the best customer service in the industry.