Good afternoon kids,

Recently had my R56S serviced at the dealership because it came with the maint. package till 100k. I started talking to the service adviser who happens to own a Chrysler producrt. When I asked him if he himself owned a Mini and he abruptly stated, NO! anyways..... I started talking about general maint. and what was covered under this maint. package, and that I would be doing all the services he was going to have done to my car if it weren't for the package. He told me that anything that gets done to the car had to be done there because "even if the battery dies, you have to bring it here, if you don't and the battery happens to have an overcharge or an undercharge it will mess up the computer in the car". This cannot be true. Can it?

 

no dealer in the usa can require maintenance to be done at the dealer to keep the warranty active

that said, any maintenance not done at the dealer that is done improperly does not have to be repaired by the dealer under warranty

the dealer has to prove the maintenance was done improperly and that said maintenance caused the failure

 

Someone owning a Chrysler product should have made you pause for a second. The only people I've found that own Chrysler products are those that eat lead paint chips and Funyuns for breakfast. Yes this includes Jeep Junk Each and Every Part

 

Somebody is angry. You do realize that the R50/R53 MINI's used Chrysler engines, right? Are you saying that all R50/R53 owners eat lead paint chips? Oops.


As for the original question, in the USA the OEM cannot legally force you to use the franchise dealership for service. Soooo, that guy was just talking out of his butt to fear-monger you into being a customer. Thumbs down to him.

 

Oh wow, I was not aware of this.

 

My first car was a 98 Chrysler and after I got my Cooper, I was told this fun fact by the owner of the Chrysler forum I was apart of... It is true folks, your R50/53 is part British, German, AND American... And if you own the Automatic R53, it's also part Japanese! lol

 

That series one Chrysler designed engine was made in Brazil

 

I'm fully aware that the R50/R53 engine was a joint venture bastard child. This explains why it leaks oil like the Exxon Valdez.

 

Yep. Before BMW bought the rights to MINI, they were wanting to getting into the small hatch game and were going to release this car. At the last second, someone suggested just buying MINI and after running the numbers, that's what they decided to do... They sat on MINI for years going back and forth on whether or not they were going to go forward with this plan, but after seeing the success that VW had with revitalizing the Beetle, they decided to revamp MINI. Problem being that all BMW had available was I6's and v8's to put into these little cars and they knew nothing about making a great I4. At the time, Chrysler a damn good 2.0L they were using in the Neon's and Stratus's... So BMW put in a call to Chrysler and got a sister engine to the 2.0L made for the Mini's... Bottom ends are VERY similar on these engines.

And don't forget that Chrysler was owned by Mercedes during the early 00's too...

 

Back to the original topic.

The service advisor is referring to the process of registering a battery to the cars computer so it will charge correctly.

However not all models have the intelligent battery system and those that don't aren't required to register the battery. So the SA is wrong.

As other said, you or anyone can do the work without voiding the warranty.

 

Off topic I know but what about the I4 in the original M3, and the F1 engines that used the same block... yes it was peaky and needed revs but the original M3 is a legendary car.

sorry but I couldn't let that one pass.

 

the carly app can register a new battery

 

Wrong thread.

 

What is that?

 

http://www.mycarly.com/product/bmw-battery-reset/

Check to make sure it does your model before buying.

 

"Registering" a battery and all this it will damage the computer if its undercharged or overcharged sounds like nonsense to me.
Other than BMW/MINI figuring out a way to make things overly complicated and overly expensive, can anyone explain to me the purpose of this?
I apologize in advance if this offends anyone, but I wasnt born yesterday and this wont be my first car. I also am not the type of person that just gets in the car and drives it till it doesnt work anymore, then gets a new one. Ive only ever owned 1 new car (truck) and I didnt even take THAT to the dealer for maintenance stuff. I did it myself.

 

It should be called the Not So Intelligent Battery System. If it was truly intelligent it would sense the battery that you put in and read its condition and adjust from that. Having to tell it what you put in is a revenue stream for Mini. That being said, there are certainly people who have not done the process and been ok, whereas others have had short battery lives or other electrical issues.

 

Check the forums here for threads on registering the battery. It is real. For whatever reason, the car with the IBS seems to need to know the capacity and size and such of the battery.

I doubt that failing to do so would damage the computer, but it certainly could cause the charging system to not properly charge the battery.

 

+1 If the system requires registration (has IBS) and if the battery is not registered, the charge program will be incorrect, shortening battery life.

 

article on IBS

http://atlanticmotorcar.com/bmw-ibs-...at-does-it-do/

 

Thanks for all the info guys and the history lesson 👍🏾 the only reason I Hadda bring up the Chrysler thing is due to the amount of issues friends have had with their jeeps. One guy had a wrangler with 40k with a rear main seal leak. Wth? Any ways

Thanks again

 

Some have the IBS and some do not. You will know if you have it by looking at that terminal linked above. And not you dont have to take it to the dealership unless its a warranty thing and don't want to pay out of pocket.