My 2015 F56 automatic is less than 150 miles old. Yesterday I was coming home on a crawling stop and go highway. Coolant and oil temperature were all warmed up all the way and I set it in Green mode. I had idle stop/start disabled too.

I don't really like how it feels when you stop and then you let the brakes off to creep a little bit and brake again. It feels pretty harsh, and the moment you let go the brake, it squirts twice more gas (0.5 gal/hour). On stop, 0.25 gal/hour. Anyways, another creeping getting to maybe 10 mph (no brake, only slight accelerator), it made a big bang noise, like as if one of the tire stepped on a brick or something. No there weren't anything on the road. I think I saw the engine RPM dropping from something like 2000 rpm to 1000 rpm and going back as if it was a software glitch. After that, it's like it never happened. I checked error codes too but there's nothing stored in the ecu.

Anyone know what this might be and how to deal with it?


Also, another time I was playing with coasting in N. One time I wasn't able to put it back to D from N while coasting at about 40 mph. I either had to press the button on the transmission stick and/or press the brake a little to put it back in D. I think these are definitely software glitches.

 

How about setting it to regular mode rather than green? I am guessing something wrong with green mode.

 

Our AT MINIs do not like have a foot on the gas and braking at the same time... most noticeable when the car shifts down from 2nd to 1st. Seems to confuse the electronic throttle and transmission controllers resulting in a very harsh downshift that feels like you have been rear-ended. Earlier cars like mine experienced this all the time as well as poor cold motor drivability. After I put 1000 miles or so on it (Sept 2014), I took it to the dealer and they updated the software resulting very good cold engine operation and excellent shifting performance. This task takes several hours and I was provided a loaner. Plan ahead when booking your appointment to avoid being inconvenienced. As for the need to touch the brake before shifting into D, this is a safety feature to avoid 'unattended acceleration' and subsequent litigation due to driver error. My guess is that this is tied to Fed DOT regs as all of my other cars of recent vintage have had this 'feature'.

 

I never step on brake and accelerator both at the same time. If that happens, brake takes precedence over accelerator. I don't use my left foot unless it is for the clutch. Mine is a 2015, so the software updates should have been all done. I doubt it really takes hours. It'll be 10 minutes max, but it's just that they don't want to promise anything because the lines could get long in a busy day.

Touching the brake before shifting into D is not a safety feature. It is required when you go in to R, but not D. Maybe from P to D it requires brake but I don't know. But I know for sure you can freely shift between N and D any time coasting in highways or in the neighborhood.

Again, I think it's a bug in the software algorithm since verification is pretty hard, and I'm pretty sure it's all related to cost savings.

 

Good thing you mentioned it was an auto transmission. I was worried that electronic nannies have limited heel-toe downshifting!!

 

Someone else started a thread last week about something like this, a big THUNK while driving. As a vaguely recall the dealer told him it probably had something to do with the auto shutoff feature (I think). Personally I would have paid extra to not have that on my car at all, even though you can turn it off.

 

Well, auto-stop-start is not that bad. It also means you get beefier battery and a starter motor. The problem is that there's more software verification to be done for the product which adds more to the cost and was probably skimped.

I'm using my idle-stop once in a while when I'm expecting over a minute of waiting. When it's time to start the engine, I just flick the switch instead of foot-off-brake because this feels less jerky.

 

We had the same issue. Called the dealership and they told us we needed to come in for a software update as this has been happening to other minis. We took it in and they updated the software. It's been running perfect ever since.

 

You mentioned that you disabled "start stop" in Green mode. In my '15S auto, I can't disable start stop in green mode. ????????????

 

Really? I do have to disable it every time I switch to Green Mode. So, yours doesn't even do this?

 

After they started the update on my car (computer hooked up to it), it took 4.5 hours. So he's right on the length. Also there are new updates related to a recall that's supposed to start Feb 1st:

BMW of North America, LLC (BMW) is recalling certain model year 2014-2015 MINI Cooper Hardtop 2 Door, and Cooper S Hardtop 2 Door vehicles manufactured January 6, 2014, to October 17, 2014. During service appointments, dealers may have inadvertently reprogrammed the transmission control unit with software that may allow drivers to exit the vehicle when the transmission is not in Park. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 114, "Theft Protection and Rollaway Prevention."

 

As someone joked about it, are they really reinstalling Windows 95 using floppy disks on our cars, and then installing drivers one by one? That would be stupid. I can't imagine updating a single car taking up 4-5 hours for just a software update. If the battery is not hooked up, it'll drain the battery for sure in that time. I hope they don't keep the engine running during the whole time they re-install the OS of the car.

Maybe they update the software, and then after couple hours when they find time they double check and make sure the car starts and nothing blows up. Just the update itself shouldn't take that long, even at dial-up modem speed transfers.

It's good there's a software update coming. I hope they fix the gas surging when creeping forward from a complete stop. I can feel the engine is badly fighting with my brakes trying to go forward and wasting gas.


edit: I've been told it really does take that long (4-5 hours) to update everything by a coding expert, which is what the dealer is probably doing.