When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
My fiancee recently purchased a beautiful 2006 r52 convertible (non-S), with the automatic tranny. We spent time looking at different cars and researching what he was interested in. I was surprised and happy that he ended up picking the Mini. I'm a big car nut, and have always had a place in my heart for mini coopers, but never had one in the family. He's been really enjoying the car, and loves driving around with the top down. He uses it to commute to work and school during the week (~25mi/day).
A little backstory on the car. It was a trade-in at our local BMW dealership, and we found it a local car lot. The carfax showed it as 1 owner, but had spotty service records. It has 94k miles, and last service record (oil change) was at 85k. No service records for major repairs. The car looked really clean inside and out, and drove beautifully. The roof works great. The engine bay looked clean up top. Down below, I could see some signs of leaking fluids, but it didn't look that recent. We did notice the power steering fluid reservoir was below minimum though.
We had read up on what we could find about maintenance issues for the mini, and saw the transmission issues. This one didn't turn up any pending recalls or maintenance bulletins from BMW, so we figured it looked like a good car and bought it.
We've had it just over a month now, and just this weekend the EP light came on. Fiancee said the car still drives fine, but we want to be proactive about this. I read some stuff online, but nothing definitive about what to check other than the battery/voltage. (It read normal)
He took it to a local transmission shop this morning and was promptly told to just take it to BMW. I want that to be the last resort, but obviously don't want to cause more damage to the car by not dealing with the issue promptly.
Any suggestions? Or any Sacramento, CA folks have a shop they could recommend?
Thanks for the reply. I did that when we first looked at the car, and no open/pending recalls for it. I've since checked with the local Mini dealership, and the only service record they have is servicing a recall on the seat recognition sensor for the airbag.
I'm assuming if there's no pending recall that it's been done. Is that safe to assume?
Also, we decided to take it to a local repair shop that specializes in European cars. They pulled the code and found it to be a brake light switch malfunction. They replaced the switch, cleared the code, and said the car was gtg. However, I was driving behind the car on the drive home and noticed that the brake lights weren't really working. They'd come on every once in a while, but not all the time. And then the EP light came back on.
We're taking it back tomorrow, since we are having the same issue and already paid them to diagnose & fix it. But I'm wondering if the EP light is specific for the transmission? Are these unrelated?
Once we had it back home, I was playing with it a bit, and noticed when the car was in park, I could hear the audible click of the brake light relay turning the light on. And it seemed to work fine. But once I had the car in drive, I couldn't hear the click anymore (even when the lights came on). Also, is it normal for brake lights not to come on when the car is completely turned off?
You here the click just when taking out of park and into drive, its the neutral satey switch that works with the brake light switch.
On the brake lights not working most of the time its the brake light switch, maybe they did not clip the new one in all the way.
Do you have any other light issues ?
I hear the click when it is in park and I press the break. I don't hear the click when the car is in drive and press the brake. However, sometimes the lights come on when I don't hear the click. Would the neutral safety switch potentially cause the brake lights to not function when the car is in drive?
No other light issues to speak of.
The EP is tied to issues with the CVT.
So the CVT was not replaced. I would push to see if the MINI dealership will change it out or check it out.
Could a faulty neutral safety switch cause the EP light? Or are you positive the EP light is a sign of a bigger tranny issue?
Quick update. Spoke to the mechanic at the end of the day today. What he said was there's a service bulletin for the power steering fan that says to replace the fan or harness or something about a diode (I'm a little hazy on his explanation here), and also recommends replacing the brake light switch as part of it. He said something about the brake light switch being a magnetic switch whose signal is fed into the computer.
He also said he sent the diagnostics log to a Mini tech and is waiting to hear back on if they find anything else.
Took the car for a spin this afternoon in the 90º heat. I drove the car a little hard to see if it had any of the telltale signs of transmission issues. The car performed like it always has. I took the revs almost up to redline, and the car took off. The only transmission thing I noticed is a slight lag between pressing the gas at a complete stop to the car moving forward. Maybe half a second.
I've read up on shaking or stalling, and we haven't had any of that. Also read some battery issues could cause the EP. Tested voltage and it's about 12.3v engine off, and 14.2v engine on. Voltage dipped to 13.98v when the A/C fans kicked on, but then crept back up.
I'm starting to think maybe the BC1 is faulty, since both the brake lights intermittently working started the same time as the EP light coming on. Could that be possible?
Yeah, I saw posts about that diode. Checked out the wiring from BC1 back a few feet, but didn't see diode. Read further in a thread that the diode on 2006+ was in the BC1 and not the loom, so assumed this was the case for my car. I looked at the BC1 connectors, and they looked good. I didn't pull the BC1 and open it up though. I'll do that next if the problem persists.
After the dead end on the diode hunt, I decided to reset the ECU through the odometer screens. The ECU reset, but the EP light was still on. I borrowed a friend's OBDII reader and connected it to the port. It didn't find any error codes, so I did a clear codes, and the EP light went off.
I took the car for a drive, and the EP light never came on. Checked the brake lights, they seemed to be working. I did that on Sunday, and so far the EP light hasn't come back on, and every time we've checked the brake lights while driving or parked, they look to be working fine.
I'll post an update if/when the ghost in the machine returns.
05-23-2016, 01:44 PM
Fiancee said the car still drives fine, but we want to be proactive about this. I read some stuff online, but nothing definitive about what to check other than the battery/voltage. (It read normal)
