Before I get into the story at hand, here is some basic info on my car. The car is an MCS hard top (6-speed), built in november of 2004 for the 2005 model year. The car has around 99,700 miles on the clock as of today..

A few weeks back, the "service engine soon" light came on while I was driving. I immediately pulled over and checked all the basic fluids and fuses and nothing was out of the ordinary. The car started up just fine and I drove to the local autozone to have the code read. At that point I was not aware of the software weirdness of the 1st gen minis, and how they are not compatible with most OBDII readers. When the reader did not work I drove to another autozone to try again, same sort of deal. I even went over to a buddy of mine's house to use his bluetooth reader, and still I had no luck.

At this point, I called the dealership to ask them what their take was on it, and they said to check the ground of the port and the fuse, both of which are fine. I then delved into forum posts and other technical resources and learned of the changing OBDII standards in 2008, and how the Mini requires it's own special tool. I then purchased a peake r5/emx tool from a fellow forum member, and once again I am out of luck. The tool powers up fine, but reads an error message (E10) that essentially says it can't communicate with the car. Just to be sure, I pulled the F3 fuse (powers the OBDII port) and the reader went dead, so it definitely has good power. One other fault I considered was the notorious BC1 module moisture issue, yet I have had no issues with locking or other BC1 functions that would be impaired if that were the case. I suppose I can take the module out and inspect all the connections, but I am going to seek advice first.

Perhaps the strangest thing with this whole ordeal is that the car is driving absolutely fine. Power is there and everything else is working well, so it's not like the car is in limp mode or anything. I haven't noticed any changes in performance or fuel economy either. If I were to just speculate, I would say that the service indicator first came on for the second scheduled inspection, which coincides with the mileage of the car. I am just seeking help on a possible solution to my problem.

 

For what it is worth, I have a 2004 MCS and on one or two occasions in 150K miles my CEL light has come on. I had no difficulty reading the code with a generic OBD reader. In my case, it was an O2 sensor code. I reset it without difficulty.

 

I wish it were that simple, but I tried three generic OBDII readers to no avail.

 

Maybe simplistic but did you power up the car? Mini unlike my other cars needed to be on to read the codes. My sometime mechanic was scratching his head until I told him to turn the car on.

 

With every tool I tried every position on the key and started the car as well. I also varied the plug in order just to be safe. Still nothing.

 

Buddy of mine had a 2002 MCS for which he couldn't read codes. If I remeber correctly, he found out that part of the OBDII wiring had corroded: I believe some of the ODBII socket pins were bad. They also found out later that there was corrosion in some other parts of the car's wiring which involved quite a bit of work to fix.

 

The actual electrical connector for the obdii port can be slid out of the trim so you can inspect it. It uses remarkably thin wires with no strain relief...

The dash panel folds down to give easy access. You should be able to find video on YouTube if you haven't popped it open before.

 

I have popped the panel out several times to inspect the connection without taking the OBDII connector out. Do you know the specific procedure for taking the connector out?

 

I'll post pictures in the AM.

 

Here's the obdii port seen from the top with the dash panel popped open. Slide the blue plastic part to the front of the car and the whole center piece will lift out.

I leave it out of the housing, as I leave it connected to my scan gauge all the time and can keep all the wires hidden in the dash this way.

 

Popped out the connector and this is what I found:


Scan tool on the bottom, has one pine in a different location and appears to be missing two more. I am going to try and track down a wiring diagram to find out what each wire does.

 

This is the connector from my car and the cable from the ScanGage II I use all the time. Not all pins are used. It looks like the same pairs are available as your picture.