I bought my '03 R53 Mini about 5 weeks ago now. Generally love the car to bits, but it's had some issues that needed some love; bypass valve spring was broken, needed a wheel bearing, some customary oil leaks, etc.

I should have been more suspicious when I was looking at the car, but failed - the DSC light and switch were visually inoperative. The PO assured me they did work, and said that when the roads were wet or slippery is was really obvious, just the light didn't work for some reason. He seemed like an honest guy, and without another way to test it on the spot I took his word.

After I got the car home, I discovered that the trip odometer reset button didn't work, either. I asked the PO about it, and he said it worked when he reset the service interval when he did the last oil change, but that it was a little fidgety to get to work.

I finally decided to open up the speedo and see what was up with the reset button. I discovered that the carbon pad on the end of the button was completely missing; there was NO WAY AT ALL this button has worked in some time. The missing piece was not inside the housing at all.. it just gone.

But this was the bit that was dirty pool -->



You can see LED 9, 12 and 13 are suffering various degrees of being destroyed or completely missing. LED 9 is the tire warning light, 12 is the brake warning light and 13 is ABS.

It's pretty obvious to me that the PO MURDERED these LEDs with a soldering iron to hide the fact that the ABS/DSC doesn't work. What a dirtbag move.

So to feel like I had made SOME progress at least, I did a little mod to get the button working. the button I used is one of the spares I bought for my keyfob remote fix. One button, some really teeny fly wires, a little hot glue and a steady hand - piece of cake. Ugly cake, but cake nonetheless.



Anyway, I now have the cable and the BMW applications to scan and figure out what gives with the ABS system, so I'll get that sorted soon. If I'm lucky I just have a dead wheel speed sensor or something. After I get the codes cleared I'll replace the dead LEDs.

Caveat Emptor.

 

Looking at this again now, it looks like maybe he actually drilled out LED 9.. I didn't notice when I had it apart, but those traces on the board behind that LED might be broken.

Anyone have a used Speedo they want to part with extra cheap?

HAHAHA.

Yeah.. I know. I made my own bad luck.

 

Well, no one offered up a freebie instrument cluster, so I.. let's be honest here.. I got impatient and went to the wreckers. HAHA.

Trouble is, the wreckers around me NEVER have MINIs.

Instead, I went after other German cars. I ended up with an instrument cluster circuit board out of a late 2000's Audi. I wanted to get a BMW cluster, but in every single BMW that was there the instrument cluster was gone. Must be a market for those.

The LEDs used inside the Audi cluster were pretty much identical to the ones in the MINI. I used the diode check function on my meter to light the diodes on the Audi dash to find the right colours; the Audi dash has green, red, amber and bi-colour LEDs. I just unsoldered the ones I needed from the Audi dash and soldered them to the MINI dash (mind the polarity - it matters!).

In all, I had to swap out 4 LEDs; 3 in the main cluster and one in the tach. Now that I have fixed the VIN on the replaced ABS module (NSCExpert), calibrated the steering angle position sensor (ISTA+) and cleared all the codes I have a fully functional ABS / DSC system with no fault lights and a happy sense of accomplishment.