Battery is dead - How do I open the hood?
 

The battery is dead on my Mini Cooper. How can I open the hood so I can get it jump-started?

What year is your mini? I think pre-2007 the hood release is on passenger side. 2007 and later it is on right hand side. Both releases are on the wall about where your calf is. Both models have a release under the hood once you pull the release. It is on the right hand side, you can feel it when you try and gently open the hood

A+
What year of car?
If battery is over 3/4 years it is probally time to replace it.
Mini's require a lot of electrical juice to keep everything working like it should.

Do you mean you can't unlock car?
 

Hood release is mechanical lever of course by the driver's footwell. Door remote (that unlocks door to get into the car) has the built in removable key that you can then use to open the door lock the old fashioned (key) way.

If it's a 1st Gen S, the battery is in the boot. I believe the manual rear hatch release is under the rear seat.

That is correct, you must lift of the center front edge of the rear seat and there will be a little black ring. Pull that and the boot will open.

Unless it is an 02 - they did not come with the emergency release ... appeared somewhere along the line in 03. There was no retrofit to the earlier cars.

So one would use the key to manually unlock the doors then open the bonnet and hook up jumpers to the engine compartment points provided for this, then you could pop the boot.

If its an s and the battery is in the boot and you want to jump start it, pop the hood (passenger footwell) and hook the jumper cables up to the positive terminal next to the air filter, and ground the other one. You dont have to open the boot.

Nik