Rear brakes need servicing after 10800 miles?

[Electric Sheep]

My R56 Cooper is just over a year old and has done approximately 10800 miles. For the last week or so, it's been telling me it needs a service. After reading the manual today, I looked through the on-board computer information on servicing and it tells me that the rear brakes need servicing in 290 miles.

I called my dealer to arrange a service and told the service desk that I was seeing a rear brakes symbol on the rev counter in the service section of the computer. She was quite adamant that this was not the case, due to the mileage of the car.

I have checked the manual, checked the computer in the car, and it definitely says it needs its rear brakes servicing. After less than 11000 miles. Is this normal?

[PK5]

Take the key fob to your local dealer and they should be able to determine what the fault is. I wouldnt discuss it over the phone.

[scotty01]

must have been doing a lot of heavy braking! :P i had this problem at about 12,000 miles had to get my front brake pads replaced, sitting at 16,000 miles now and the rear ones need replaced in 2,500 miles

[rburna]

Quote: Originally Posted by Electric Sheep (original)

She was quite adamant that this was not the case, due to the mileage of the car.

dont listen to her, she doesn't know how YOU drive YOUR mini...

Quote: Originally Posted by PK5 (original)

Take the key fob to your local dealer and they should be able to determine what the fault is. I wouldnt discuss it over the phone.

^^ best advice.

[Electric Sheep]

Whilst I do drive it in a spirited fashion from time to time, I'm not hard on the brakes at every opportunity. Surely the fronts are where most of the work is done, so they should go first? All the other stuff on the computer says 2010 or 15000 miles, including the front brakes.

I popped to another dealer one day during my lunch break and they confirmed that the rear brakes needed servicing (they took my key fob and plugged it in to their box of tricks). On the way there, I'd had a symbol pop up in the rev counter (a red MINI on a ramp thing) and the (!) symbol is now on permanently. The service indicator now reads -300 miles or something like that.

When I got back to work, I called the original dealer (who supplied the car) who assured me that it was probably a sensor issue and that I'd probably be all right driving around with red lights all over the place for a week: the car is booked in on Saturday morning for them to sort it out.

[Electric Sheep]

Update: having taken it to the dealer today, it's still a poorly MINI. Brakes are fine. Apparently they would normally have gone into the software and reset the indicator so it shows up at the correct time (after another 15000 miles). Unfortunately, they can't do that, as a bug in the software is preventing them from doing so. So, it's going in again on the 2nd of November to be re-programmed with the latest version of the software. This will be the second one it's had, having had a control module failure a couple of months ago.