Mini Cooper with dodgy electrics (what’s the next step)

[Vince70]

It will work off the separate switch and I only be able to use them off main beam with the switch  but I was thinking of connecting them directly to the main beam wiring and doing away with the switch altogether.

The only reason I bought them was I saw them on this lovely mini on the way to work.

[Parky]

I want another one.  Luckily Parkette has decided she might want to learn to drive after all, but only in an automatic.  

Mini Autos are CVT’s and the unanimous view on these is run away.  I have read literally scores of horror stories about how they will break you.  Needless to say Mini Automatic now a saved search.  WCPGW apart from most things?

[BorniteIdentity]

1 hour ago, Parky said:

I want another one.  Luckily Parkette has decided she might want to learn to drive after all, but only in an automatic.  

Mini Autos are CVT’s and the unanimous view on these is run away.  I have read literally scores of horror stories about how they will break you.  Needless to say Mini Automatic now a saved search.  WCPGW apart from most things?

Just stay in the shallow end. That way at least you can disembark without your pants around your ankles. 

Maybe just around your knees. 

[Tartan58]

CVT = bonus shite points but yes I've heard nothing but bad things about these, makes the Midland's gearbox look reliable.

Did consider one myself for go-kart giggles but thought better of it

[Parky]

I remember hearing a girl gunning hers away from the lights in LA.  She was changing manually and it did sound rather good!  I suspect that the box would have shat itself by the next junction mind....

if I were to go that route, a CVt fluid change and a new battery would be job number one.  Apparently many box problems can be traced to the electronics freaking out when the battery loses oomph.  But no, as a mode of reliable transport the autos make very little sense.

[Vince70]

Today I had another free repair on the old Bini as my CD Boot changer never worked so I took the thing out  and then put it back in again to see if turning on and off would make it work again but it didn’t.

So I found an old cable tie in the boot and put that down the side of the CD magazine and managed to pop the cartridge out and now it works without any issues.

It even had 6 CDs already in the thing but modern dance ain’t my thing so I now have six table mats lol.

I was wondering if the spare Cooper ECU I have will work in my brothers 04 Mini One as I might see if he wants a free remap from 90bhp to 116bhp.

I will say though that mini are tight buggers when it comes to wiring as the CD wiring didn’t have much spare when pulling out the CD changer.

[Tartan58]

Vince my best pal, would you be able to do me a small favour at your convenience...could you tell me which dash lights come on (and then go out) at start up?

While doing some final pre-mot checks I noticed that I have no ABS or Airbag lights coming on, all the other ones I'd expect to see do come on (and disappear as they should.) I'm kicking myself as I've never noticed whether they worked before or not having not driven the car since I got it and I can't say I noticed one way or the other on the test drive other than that there were no warning lights on once running (more fool me for not paying attention).

This is what I get with the ignition in position 1:

From a quick bit of internet research it could be a BC1 issue, although everything else electrical works perfectly.

These lights also don't come on when putting the cluster into test mode either nor does the speedo do a sweep as it should which suggests to my limited mind that it's a cluster issue but slightly more worrying is that it may have been tampered with to mask a fault.

A second hand speedo cluster is under £15 on ebay so that may be the first port of call after I've inspected mine for any funny business.

So looks like Friday's MOT is off until these issues are resolved.

[Vince70]

Sorry I didn’t get back sooner as I’ve been away from the net today.

My car works the other way round as I can’t get the abs light or handbrake light off on my car as my car needs a new abs unit so I bought a secondhand one as supposedly they are plug and play and rule of thumb is get and abs unit from a car the same year.

On the first click of the key I have no lights whatsoever and this is what it looks like.

Then on the second click it looks like this but all the lights go out after a couple of seconds except the abs and handbrake light but my code reader can’t connect to the Abs unit to find the fault so handbrake and ABS lights on mine are stuck on 

[Tartan58]

Between us we might be able to make a fully working car! Seems like your airbag light isn't doing the start up check either if it's not coming on at all so that's one fault we have in common.

It's annoying that normal code readers wont read abs or airbag faults, cheapest ones on Ebay that claim they do start at about £80.

Looking at your photo I seem to be missing the handbrake light and oil pressure light as well.

Started to take the dash apart this evening to get the speedo out so will see what I find, wondering if it would be worthwhile investing in the code reader if I can't see anything obvious.

[Vince70]

I think we both just have to try and look on the bright side as at least we have working engines  and gearboxes.

I had a quick drive of my brothers R50 one the other day which has the standard suspension and 15 inch 175 non run flat wheels and it was a far nicer car to drive than our big wheeled run flat Mini’s and I find the sports plus suspension bloody crippling going over bumps but I can’t get him to swap motors lol.

And going to work again today I got the smell of binding brakes on the back and a shake in the steering when braking  so it looks like I’ve got to fit the new pads and disks on the front and sort out the binding rear this weekend which the garage couldn’t do.

So when Mini said have a Mini adventure in their advertising I now know what they mean and that is spending every weekend working on the car lol.

[stuboy]

keep meowing on with it..................

[Tartan58]

At least you get to drive yours - I'm MOT-less!

As I've said before though I bought mine for the 'pleasure' of having something to tinker with so I'm not too disappointed, it's all a learning experience which was the whole purpose of it. Plus it's saving me money on tax and insurance!

I'm interested to see what the sports suspension feels like when I finally do get it on the road, I keep telling myself it can't be all that bad and I'm used to driving classic Mini's in the past. I'm currently on 15s as the 17s that came with the car had illegal tyres and could do with a refurb, I'm keen to get them back on though (with non-runflat tyres) and see how it feels but I'm limiting myself to only spending money on essential maintenance for the moment.