Has anyone taken their rear panels apart to determine if the wiring for the now defunct 12volt outlet in the bOot is still there in the 2003 models? Does anyone know why this was deleted from the new production cars?

 

A recent thread on MINI2.com describes how to install the rear power outlet in '03 models. Click here to get to get there.

 

the part numbersd helped. I don't know if I want to wire the outlet direct hot to the battery. I would rather find the appropriate stock circuit, and the addditional circuit for the lighted ring. I bet the "stereo guys" could think of something cool to do with having a circuit tied to the interior lights in the boot.

 

I would sure appreciate if someone with a factory outlet could post a picture of the wiring connection. You can reach up inside the rear cubby to feel the back of the outlet and follow the wire down.

 

Sorry guys. I just looked at my factory boot outlet and it has dedicated wires that are bigger diameter 14ga than the 16ga for everything else in the rear. There are no connections behind the panel the wires run straight to the fuse box. Wire colors are brown for the ground red with black line and yellow spots for hot.

 

does th 02 model have the lighted trim ring, and is it controlled with the dash lights?

 

the front one is i dont know about the back since the boot lights come on when its open. it does have the same amber ring around it though.

 

ryhtomit, does the power wire run forward toward the front fusebox? Also, is the ground cable is bolted to something inside the cubby or does it run forward as well?

 

When I install mine, I'm going to run a wire for the ring from the boot light on the right hand side. More secondary wiring, but it will allow the ring to illuminate when the hatch is open, which is the only time I care about it.

 

both the ground wire and the power wire are 14ga (for 15amp load) and run to the front over the wheel well in the wire harness with the tail lights etc...

 

I dunno guys, there's going to be more to it than you think. I tried to use the leads from the boot light for my stereo lighting. Thought it would be fun to have the trick lighting come on when the boot opens. Problem is that it didn't register any power?!?! You're going to need a specific relay I'm guessing, as it doesn't like ANYTHING but the stock bulb in the power loop or it doesn't work at all.

FYI.

R

 

Thanks ryhtomit. I'm surprised that the ground wire runs all the way to wherever. I'm sure not going anywhere with mine -- just a couple of inches to that transistor that's bolted in there. I suppose the third wire for the illuminated ring runs forward as well huh?

Davbret: I'm not surprised that your stereo wouldn't light from the boot light source. That has a fancy dimming circuit on it and may not even be DC (which may explain why you read 0V). It should work fine for the lighter though because the lighter bulb is incandescant and is only 0.5W -- a reasonable addition to the 5W boot light.

There's a couple of loose wires back there toward the rear of the cubby. Anyone know what those are for? The H/K amp maybe? I'm hoping that maybe they can be used to power the lighter ring.

 

No, I just was underlighting my plexiglass oval window over my amps. Small LEDs with relays. Not the stereo.

R

 

O.K. Just returned from a voltage check. The boot light power is close to 12VDC but it is about 0.7VDC lower than battery voltage and has a 1.3VAC component operating at 250Hz. The red wire is hot and the brown is pretty close to earth. I verified that the light will function (and dim properly) with a standard chassis ground in place of the brown wire. There'll be no trouble running the lighter ring from that. I can't imagine why your LED wouldn't work Davbret? The AC component is minimal and unless you ran it without a diode and the AC component fried your LED, it should have worked. You do know that it automatically powers off after about 10 minutes right?

 

Well I've got a fun little project now for this weekend! Whoo hoo! Thanks Vespa. With that data I can now get the proper bits and make a funky LED lightshow.

Just to give you an idea what I'm talking about, I'm going to backlight this with some orange and red LEDs with a relay to have them randomly on/off. And so as to not hijack this thread, this is a picture that shows the power outlet.



R

 

OK, All done. I connected the socket directly to the battery (I prefer it that way for charging electronics or maintaining a cooler overnight.) The illumination ring is connected to the cargo light so it only comes on with the interior lights.
I detailed the installation here.

 

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for the instructions. Worked great. One note if I may. I have the H/K stereo, and there's a big amp in the compartment where the hatch light is located. I could not remove the light with the amp in the way. But I just used a wire tap-in to connect the wire for the glow ring and it worked great. FYI, it's the red wire w/yellow stripe. Thanks again.

 

I was starting to think I took all those pictures for nothing. Thanks for the feedback robertlou.