I just finished replacing the brakes on the mini. After finding a couple websites with photo-guided instructions (not quite step-by-step, but close), I decided that I too could do this. So I set in, and slowly and meticulously proceeded, making sure to study each picture closely and read each instruction three times...

...I only made two mistakes. Thankfully, I made the first one, or I probably wouldn't have found out about the second. The first (and big) mistake was putting one of the pads on backwards. Yes, the pad part to the caliper and the metal part to the rotor. This is a bad idea (in case you couldn't have figured that out on your own). Luckily when making this mistake the car produces a hideous grinding metal-on-metal sound whenever applying the brakes, and in my particular case a less hideous grinding sound all of the time. As it turns out, the metal part of the brake pad is bigger than the pad part, and as such it was actually hitting against a lip on the inside of the rotor. This was a good thing in my case, as it prevented the rest of the metal portion of the pad from ruining the rotor. How did I make this mistake? As it turns out, simply carelessness and failure to double check my work. I didn't even notice it right away when removing the wheel to look for the source of the noise... it took removing the caliper for me to notice the error (note that I could have seen the error even without removing the wheel).

The second mistake was more the fault of the instructions, on the rear brakes one of the pads clips onto the piston. The instructions simply didn't say anything about this, and when I removed the assembly the pad came unclipped before I had a chance to see it. Word on the street is this would have caused that pad to wear out more quickly. I found this error while reading the rest of the comments/replies to the article in search of what may have been the cause to problem #1 and finding other people pointing out this omission.

All in all, a successful job. The two errors were rather quick to fix. Doing it again, I think I could get the job done in about 15 minutes. I probably spent closer to 45 minutes per tire, plus another 45 minutes to fix the two mistakes). I also spent more time to clean up the wheels and tires.