wow, what great response. i ordered the 3rd brake light mod (and a Glove Box Tidy) on Friday evening (Saturday morning actually) at 3:00 a.m.

came in the mail USPS monday afternoon. whee, they must have used a cooper s for the delivery.

great stuff. the brake light kit took less than 15 minutes to hook up, clear instructions. add $3 roll of friction tape to clean the wiring harness back up and it's done. i like the added visibility of the fog lighting up as a brake light.

the GbT is a great alternative to MINI's oem glovebox organizer, and much more reasonably priced. heck, you could buy several in colors to match your mood for the difference.

and it came with a note to me signed by alan. yea, its no big deal, but the effort and personal touch is appreciated.

thanks again, a class act.

oh yea, guess this is officially my first mod woot woot!

time to start saving up for a dfic...

 

Hrmm, what exactly is the "3rd Brake Light mod"? I've heard it several times....but am still clueless.

And congrats! Now your screwed....
-Cody

 

The 3rd brake light mod is where the rear fog light is hooked up to the break lights. In other words, you push on the brake pedal, the tail lights light up and so does the fog.

 

Ohhhh, I like that idea! Got a link!?

New mod for me!
-Cody

 

Be careful with this. There have been numerous posts about this mod affecting the MINI's control module and dealers not covering the expensive repair under warranty.

 

can you give some more details on that?

I have been considering this for our MINIS....

 

see https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...&highlight=bcm
and https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...&highlight=bcm
and https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...&highlight=bcm
and so on.

 

For the '02 to '04 version of the brake light mod, there have been a few reports of BC1 computer failure (which controls the lights). The speculation was that the failures were caused by the BC1 computer being unable to handle the increased electrical load. In '02-'04, the brake mod turns on the top (unused fog) bulbs in both tail lights. The tail and fog lights were redesigned in '05, and the mod for the new lights should be lower risk because of the proportionately less additional electrical load. I haven't heard of a failure for the 05/06 lights, but there is always some risk with modding. You can reduce the risk to very low levels by replacing the fog bulb with an LED bulb, which uses very little electricity.

For the rear fog mod carried to its ultimate conclusion, check out my rear fog mega mod.

 

read the threads, good stuff. if both rear brakes are on the same driver, then the fog on an '05-06 would only add an additional 50% load compared to the 100% additional load on the earlier lenses. but if there is a driver circuit for each side, then one is fine and one is still doubled. using the diode, tho, it seemed that the consensus was that operation was within the BC1's parameters. maybe an led bulb for the center fog is a good idea.

 

Was looking for another old thread of mine and found this one; just for followup, almost 8 years later BC1 is no worse for wear and tear from the 3rd brake light mod.


That was my first mod; I've changed a few more things since.

 

Same here, installed in Jan 2006 & all is well. 120,000 miles on my MINI & flasher.