Hi all,

Bought a used 04 Cooper S a couple weeks ago, and trying to get all the little issues sorted with the car. It came with the auxiliary driving lights installed, including the switch on the left side of the steering wheel.

Unfortunately, I've not been able to get the lights to work.

First I noticed that one of the lights didn't have a bulb at all, so I replaced that one. I also checked that what I think is the fuse is good - tracing the wire back from the auxiliary lights, it looks like it's above the brake master cylinder on the drivers side.

What throws me off is even when I have the high beams on, the auxiliary light switch doesn't show the green LED toggle no matter how many times I push it. It is backlit though, so it seems the switch is working correctly. Any ideas where I could troubleshoot next? Thanks!

 

The green light on the switch should turn on when you push it. That indicates the lights are 'armed' and they'll turn on when you turn on the high beams.
If it doesn't turn on, likely you're not getting power to switch, or there is a fault in the wiring somewhere. The backlight comes from a tie-in to the head unit wiring.
The wiring is pretty straight forward.
You can see the install instructions here:
Driving Lights(official)

 

Thanks for that install guide! Will be super helpful to track things down.

The green light not showing is weird, makes me wonder if the switch is broken somehow. Might try hotwiring the harness that plus into the switch to see if that's the problem.

 

+1 eric is one top of it.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4261759

 

having installed a few sets of the GEN1 driving lights

you'll probably find it easier to just rewire them to a simple toggle as compared to debug the overly complicated MINI wiring ..... it's the way I'd go ....

 

Yeah, that doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Think I'll poke around with the install guide tonight, but if I'm not successful I'll just rewire them. Would be nice to not have them only work on high beams anyways.

 

This thread is to funny. I just bought an 04 Mini Sunday and have been working on the driving/fog light issues also. Getting close, good luck and post up some pics. Here's mine. Cheers!

 

Looks clean! A lot cleaner than mine, haha. Your driving light issue looks pretty easy though, just need to replace the driver's side bulb.

So I got further testing it, tested all the inputs going into the driving light control relay are correct (high beam signal, radio 12v, power from driving light fuse) I've narrowed it down to either the relay being bad or something further up in the wiring. Bypassing the relay and sending power directly from the battery to the driving light harness (pin 2 on the relay) still doesn't result in any power to the lights, so it sounds like it might not be the relay and maybe some wiring issue further up.

 

I've been wanting to change the bulb in one of the driving lights. Today I tried and almost striped the screw to open the driving light housing. Is this a special screw? My philips head screw driver will not fit just right?

Thanks

 

Those screws are pretty exposed to the elements so probably rusted in there a little bit. If you're starting to strip the screw head, use something like an impact driver to get the screw started.