This is the tale of a lunatic OBC (On-Board Computer -- the funny black box under the hood that gives the Mini all it's personality!)

OK -- my 2002 MCS has run mostly fault free until today. Elizabeth & I took in an early flick and she told me about a great Italian bistro in Columbia, so I crank up the MCS.

About 10 seconds after starting the Mini, the driver's side window rolled itself down. I start to flick the switch and the passenger's side rolls down (which was quite a surprise since it hadn't worked for almost a year!). Then the sunroof opens itself.

Started running the 2nd window & sunroof up, and the 1st window rolls itself down, followed by the 2nd window rolling down while the drivers window rolls up and the sunroof opens again.

This comedy repeated itself several time, and then stopped. We get to the bistro, I make sure all the windows are closed and lock the car. Of course, all the windows open as the door locks.

I locked the car with the key, which is also programmed to automatically close all the windows.

After a fabulous dinner, start the car, and the cycle repeats itself. This time -- only once .



So I got home and disconnected the battery for an all-night OBC reset.

Season Greetings to all our old friends -- Tom & Elizabeth

 

LOL great story Tom... maybe you should have tried to trick the OBC by telling it to put the windows down, so it would disobey you and put them up instead?

 

Happiest of Holidays to you and Elizabeth. I miss the Night Before Christmas science story..........this was a good substitute!

 

It probebly didnt like the thought of bistro. that plus you left it in the parking lot during the movie instead of going to the drive-in didnt you, no wonder the car had a fit!

hope you fixed the problem and MINI holidays to you

 

Well, putting the MC-S into an overnite coma (leaving the negative battery lead disconnected) seems to have cured the problem -- at least the wierdness hasn't happened again

For anyone who can explain it, the passenger side window is now working again -- Go Figure!

One word of advice. I disconnected the battery and then closed the back hatch. BAD IDEA! The hatch release is electric, which means there is no easy way to open the hatch. So I had to climb over the seats (which fortunately were down) to reconnect the battery. [This would have been less of a problem for cars later than my 2002 -- The Feds mandated that every car had to have a mechanical release (made of glow-in-the-dark material) to prevent kids & kidnapees from being locked into the trunk of Detroit Iron.]

 

We did the same thing when my battery died one day and we took the battery out of Michael's to get my running. We took the battery out of his MSC, seats up, and closed the hatch. Oops......it was quite funny watching him try to get over the seats to release it.

 

Tom, the OBC may have gotten wet. It is located in the right side of the passenger panel. This happened to me when we had the flood in our MINI. Also, the release cable is located on the driver side under the rear seats if I recall. I had to use it because I store my MINI and the battery was dead.

Glad things worked out

 

Jay, you are right about the manual hatch release on 2003 (or maybe 2004) and later cars, but remember mine is an antique 2002 car. Both Katie's my my car are from the initial year's production and do not have the manual cable release. [In fact, my car was Tate's first demo, and its the car that sold both Katie & me.]

You might be right about water, but the overnite catatonic state seems to have worked.

Jen -- I remember when you and Michael had your "incident". I should have remembered the consequences of pulling the ground cable, and I feel very embarassed !