After reading a few of common misconceptions about the MINI and its features I figured I put a up a thread with the popular ones explained.

1. Myth: MINI learns your driving habits.
Fact: No. What MINI DME(Digital Motor Electronics) learns is oxygen sensor values, and over time it will adapt a certain fuel/air ratio. Say if you develop a very slight vacuum leak, the DME will adapt for that leak, and will learn to richen up the mixture because it thinks it is running lean.

Now on the same token, the automatic vehicles does have a limited adaptive feature, but it's not really longterm, and isn't what most people term as "learning".

2. Myth: MINI key needs to be recharged.
Fact: No. MINI key has a battery for its remote functions. The car can be unlocked and locked mechnically w/o the battery, and also started without one. Newer BMW keys do have this feature, where it has a capacitor to store the charge to operate the remote function. It does not have a battery, and the car will let you know that your key capacitor charge is getting low. Now I don't know about the 05 and up, but the old style MINI keys definitely do not recharge.

3. Myth: MINI DME/ECU can be reset by disconnecting the battery.
Fact: No. What you're resetting are the bus systems in the car. It basically makes all the control modules go into their default states when you hook the battery back up. But this happens only after all the charge left in the modules have been used up, which is why you must leave it disconnected for about 15mins, or simply short the negative CABLE to the positive. DO NOT short the posts of the battery together.

The DME still keeps all its oxygen sensor adaptation values, hard faults etc in the memory even after the battery has been disconnected. Only way to reset the DME is to either reprogram the DME or clearing the oxygen sensor adaptation values, which can only be done through the BMW/MINI diagnostic machine.


That's all I can think of for now.