So my 2003 Cooper S doesn't have lights when the doors are open, to light up the ground when I or my passengers step out, so I thought I'd add that functionality! I don't recall if newer models had the lights, but I thought they'd be a nice addition.

Using the Bentley Manual, I removed the trim door panel.


I did a quick mockup of where the light strip should go. These are just daylight white LE 12v LED strips off of Amazon.


I wanted to feed off the footwell light, since that turns on when the doors open or when you turn off the ignition. I removed the glovebox for ease of work, but you could leave it on if you're a contortionist.


Then I quick spliced the leads, used the trusty voltmeter to get the positive, and quickly hooked up a small bit of the LEDs to it.


Then it got dark, I wired up the strip through the door panel, and voila! White light. I'm going to have to swap out my interior lights for white LEDs to match! The car door lights glow up and down just like the footwell lights do! It's not this bright, the exposure makes it super bright.


Now I just have to do the drivers side, which will probably be more difficult because the steering wheel! Stay tuned!

 

Nice, how did you get the power into the door? I think the 2005 and later had this feature. I thought about upgrading mine like yours. But don't want to see the wires and curious how you did it.

 

I wanted to look clean and kinda factory, so at first I tried to go through the existing loom. It contains the mirror electronic signals, car locks, and speaker cables. Unfortunately it was a really tight fit, and I couldn't do it after spending a long amount of time at it.. So instead, I cut a small notch into it so I could feed a smaller, heatshrunk cable through. The cable goes between the weatherstripping and the frame, and then into the loom to get inside the door.
On the underside of the door, there are convenient soft rubber caps which I made a small notch and fed the wire through that to get back to the underside of the door. The only things I cut in the vehicle were rubber bits.

It's not as clean as going through the loom from the interior of the car, which I don't think is a possibility without taking off the door.

 

Very nice and clean install job!

 

Yes the 7/2004+ MINI got the door puddle lights. Nice mod for the pre 7/2004.