Hello,

I was wondering if anyone has had an issue where the dashboard backlighting stays on after the car is turned off, the keys removed and the doors locked. I never noticed it before so I am unsure of this is normal behavior. I have checked to make sure the headlights are off and the dimmer is not in a strange position, but I cannot seem to turn them off.

Any help is greatly appreciated in this matter.

 

It may help if you tell us what year your MINI is....

For my 2006 MCS that is not normal.

Welcome to NAM....

 

Sorry. It's a 2004. for some reason, I don't think it's normal, but I'm not sure what may be the cause of it. I checked the fuses as they relate to the dash (or what I think the symbol means), but did not see any problem. One thing I did notice, is that the dash dimmer doesn't seem to be doing anything. Does anyone have a wiring diagram handy? perhaps I can use percussion engineering to fix it.

 

An update:
I ran into an issue where I did not drive the car for a couple of days and the battery died. After jumping it and going for a ride, it seems to be working fine, but I have taken out the fuse that is keeping the lights on. This seems to be affiliated with fuse F21. I ordered a book, "Mini Cooper 2002-2006 Diagnosis Without Guesswork" which may be a very useful book with a lot of expensive diagnostic equipment. also, there is no diagram of the circuit involving this fuse. It seems this might be much easier to solve if there were a wiring diagram to determine what is using this fuse. does anyone have something like this available?
I have seen other posts that say this fuse is being used by a control unit. I think this might be only partially true, because if I turn the car to position 2, I can perform 21 test functions associated with the control unit.

 

Was it only the speedometer that lit up? How about the tach and buttons on the center console (e.g. A/C controls)?

 

It seems to be all the backlighting for all the instruments, but not the radio. This includes the light around the cigarette lighter. Also, I should mention, if the fuse (F21) is removed, the tachometer does not work. Although, the self test (test 2.0) seems to allow all the display setting to light up (including the tachometer). I did notice that the dash dimmer doesn't seem to do anything as well.

 

I have an 04 MCS with Nav and the MFSW Stays lit for a while after everything is turned off and I pull the key. Has not caused any dead battery or other problems to this point

 

All of the backlighting is on the same circuit and driven by an electronic module inside the speedometer. Unfortunately, if the module has gone bad I think the only way to fix it is replace the entire speedometer, which would be quite expensive. It is possible to disconnect the backlighting entirely, but this isn't desirable either.

 

All circuit diagrahms here :-

http://www.mcaw.info/wds/mini/us/r50/index.htm

MUST install Java & Adobe SVG Viewer to work though......

 

Thanks for the link, but I cannot get it to work. It seems my machine thinks it's a security risk and will not open it. Possibly because Adobe SVG is no longer suppoerted app?

 

You can download the software and install it on your local machine: http://www.mcaw.info/wds/MINITIS.zip (46 MB). You have to use Internet Explorer (not Firefox or other browser) and allow it to continue when it gives a security warning (click on the warning bar). The Adobe SVG plug-in works fine. My previous comments about the backlighting circuit was the result of looking at the wiring diagrams.