Hello all!

Ok, I have a 2012 Countryman (base) with 42K on it. Was experiencing some slight misfire issues, so decided to invest in some new plugs and coil packs. I had a little hesitation at load and one night it really stumbled and the engine light came on with codes (P0300, plus for other misfire codes for each cylinder). However next two days it drove fine again once I deleted the codes, outside of a few stumbles at low load rpms. I've never had any other problems with the car in the past until now.

I went to install the new coil packs and plugs last night and everything went well until I tried to start the car (ordered Mini parts from the BMWMini store out of Cincinnati)....they send me the Delphi packs with Champion plugs. Removed old plugs and packs and torqued plugs down properly and made sure the packs clicked on the plug. Then the trouble began.

Car would not start once I put key in and was doing some weird things when I put the key into the ignition (wipers were coming on without command, could not roll windows down, no headlights, etc. At times the radio would come on, but when I would hold brake and press start, power would go off or a key symbol would come on with an exclamatory mark. Car does unlock and lock but everything else is acting strange.

Today, I tried to jump the car and when I put the cables from a running car on the battery everything seemed to be working fine from a power standpoint inside the car (windows rolled down, all displays were working ok, headlights on, etc. but when I press "start" it would only click and not turn over or start. Once I removed the cables it went back to little power issues above with the same weird things going on above.

Couple other notes:

I tired to unplug battery cables for an hour to help reset things, but no change.

I also unplugged no other items when I install the packs and plugs.

Car was running fine before hand other than items listed above.

Any thoughts on what went wrong here? I've changed alot of plugs and packs on older cars of different models and I've never seen anything like this.

 

I also forgot to mention I reinstalled the old coil packs back into the car last night after the issue came up with the new install. Basically, the same symptoms applied that happened once the new ones were installed, so something went wrong from the time I pulled the old ones out and put new/old ones back in.

Thanks!

 

Just as an FYI....I have a friend that is a mechanic stop by and the battery tested out as basically toast. New one going in tomorrow, but he seems confident that is the fix.

Figured I'd pass along my experience so others know in the future.

 

I was going to say the battery, but you are already onto that...it is weird that it does that all of a sudden unless the new packs drew more current and basically killed the battery. let us know what happens with the new battery

 

Thanks for the reply. I will keep everyone updated.

Oddly, my car is always garage keep, but I did leave it outside for a few days at my grandma's house about two weeks ago in Chicago where it was cold overnight in that area. The night it went crazy with the misfires and engine light was a cold Sunday night in Indy when I was at my buddy's watching football.....so it's possible those few events might have leaked a lot out of the battery and putting the new coils in fried it. It's really hard to understand how it happened so quickly, but as the mechanic implied, these European cars are just hard to predict sometimes on the electrical side.

Holding out hope it's nothing more than a new battery.

 

Hey guys.

Just an an update - new battery and the car fired right up. Running very smooth with new plugs and coil packs as well.

If you ever have a problem like above, it's your battery.

Happy Motoring.