This is odd. There’s 2 seemingly related issues. They both started after a bumper repair (not sure if related)

1 - infotainment screen randomly turns off for a bit when driving. The radio stays on but the screen is off.

2 - randomly loses clock & date. Doesn’t happen every time you get in the car but at least once a week

Updated to the latest firmware, no dice.

Suggestions?

 

Who did the repair? Car still in warranty? How old is battery? Possibly ran down the battery while doing the work on the car. Lots of possibilities.

We had work done by a certified MINI/BMW collision shop (recommended by MINI) and they made so many mistakes when they put parts back on the car. The dealership wanted to charge for correcting those mistakes the next time I was there for service. That was the last time I ever set foot on MINI of Portland property.

 

Good question. I think a random body shop (insurance) did the repair. We bought it CPO a couple years ago but the warranty is expired at this point.

I have noticed that sometimes it struggles to turn the starter over. The battery is never _dead_ tho. The car seems totally fine aside from these issues.

 

I have a 2019 F57 with the navigation and the unit seemingly reboots for no reason, but everything will cut off and it's a full reboot. A month or so ago I was driving and the screen rebooted several times in a row and then eventually shut off 'til I restarted the car later in the day. The dealer said did some reprogramming and told me that it's a known issue that has to do with emojis and connected cellphones, claiming that if emojis are "used in anything on the phone" it can cause the unit to reboot. WTF, that makes no sense at all! They said if it continued happening after the reprogramming they'd replace the head unit once and after that if it continued it was a software issue with my phone not the head unit itself. I told them that if simply having a cellphone connected via bluetooth is the cause, then the problem is that MINI's software is the issue, not the cellphone as cellphones are ubiquitous at this point. They didn't like that, no surprise. Not sure if this is at all related to your issue, dprestegard.

 

Not sure about the clock and date, but maybe the screen saver is on.

 

Finally took this to the dealer (Mini of Universal City in LA).

They diagnosed the issue as low voltage from the battery. This is what I figured, since the clock often resets as well.

So they're going to replace the battery for a cool $400 (yikes) but they said they think the head unit is damaged from this low voltage situation.

That smells like nonsense to me. I've never heard of low voltages damaging equipment. I can see the software being messed up, sure, but not hardware damage. I've heard people say that the dealer can reload the software - is that any different from me just installing the latest firmware? Any suggestions on how to manage? They suggested replacing the head unit of course, which is $3k LOL

The car was CPO and is out of warranty.

Thoughts?

 

Find a good indy shop. Battery is less than $200 and coding it should be 15 minutes max in labor, just because they probably don't bill in 5 minute increments. For $400 you could buy the battery and a coding tool and have money left over.

You can buy a used head unit if you actually needed one on EBAY or some sellers on this forum for a lot less than $3K. Depending on what unit you have in your car.

Scam alert at MINI.