I thought they had these things fixed

today my wife drives the car, I'm in denver, and I get a frantic call, 78 miles on the car, and the check engine light comes on

I sure hope they can get this fixed, I'll have to emission test this car in 3 years, and if there's ANY codes stored, it will fail, I really dont want to be bringing the car into the dealer every month for the fault light to be reset

should the new ones not have the newest code? This car was built in july and delivered last thursday

 

PS we have not even put gas in the car yet, at the dealer we were shown how to make sure the gas cap is shut, it's not been touched yet

 

Dealer will reset everything for 3 years.
Then you buy a computer...

 

so waste 2 hours every time, and get a loaner for the day

that sucks

I'm recording how often it does it, lemon law if it keeps up

 

dump it now. thats a bad start. karma is a....well, you know.

 

i picked my car up last monday and i had a CEL turn on a few days ago. My car is at the dealer right now getting the software update (MCSa)

 

Join the gang, its just a software glich.

 

mega72, what type of cooper do you have?? It seems the automatics are the ones that need those updates. If it's not an automatic then usually there is something else wrong with the car.

 

mine is a mcs, ordered july 5th, got it last wednesday

you would think they would ship them with the current software!

I just had my mini usa survey

in one word how would you describe your mini

my word was "broken"

 

not a very responsible statement to hear fron a r53 owner to a new r56 owner. shame on you

 

Beloved picked up Blue Mini this morning. (non-turbo'd automatic, arrived at Momentum Mini in Houston on Monday morning)

178 gleeful miles later and we're pulling into the driveway. I get out to move my car so she can park under the non-ejaculating tree for the night and as I shut the passenger door, the CEL comes on.
My old OBDII scanner won't link with it (which is a bit peculiar, OBDII is a _standard_ people. Well, ok, it's three standards, but you know what I mean.) so I have no idea what the unhappiness is about (if indeed it's even readable though OBDII, which it probably isn't.)

Sounds from what I'm reading here like the latest batch of Minis coming in may be coming with a bad firmware (or getting one flashed to them before we're picking them up). I know there were mutterings about problems w/ the initial software load at the dealer on Monday before we could take delivery. Well, I guess we'll see what they say about it tomorrow...

(For the record, the first thing I checked was the gas cap, which was on as tight as it seems to get, though it does seem to be a very loose fit normally. Nothing else was unusual about the days motoring. Standard break-in babying)

(Also for the record, turns out my OBDII scanner isn't working because it doesn't support the CAN bus interface that Blue Mini uses. <sigh> Time to buy new tools. </sigh> )

 

taking back the loaner car today, we have a older MCS as a loaner

I sure hope this fixes it, I dont want to have to add myself to the list of folks that have constant CEL's

 

Ok, interesting update;

The code stored was DME 278A, according to the mechanic (and off the top of his head, though he seemed quite sure).

DME 278A, according to another post here has to do with fuel mixture adaptation (approximately what the tech described it as.) I'm buggered if I can find a list of Mini specific DME codes online so I'm taking that on trust. Sounds a lot like running rich or lean to me. At any rate, the mechanic's (off the record I would imagine, though he didn’t disclaim it as such) response was that we had a software problem and that he was seeing the same problem with lots of 07 Automatics (non-S) (it was inferred, though not stated, that it was a majority of them.) The fact that it has not been a problem for the turbo’d ones suggests that it probably is genuinely fuel delivery related, or possibly that the standard software load for the turbo ECU doesn't have the same bug. I’m guessing the engine is running lean and spooking the ECU into believing that the Cat is going to get starved, which would account for the “they run too clean” claptrap other owners have been hearing.

At any rate, they couldn't fix it at the time because their system that flashes firmware updates was out of commission (confirming what I was hearing on Monday, my guess is that we have a Mini with stock factory firmware, though why they persist in flashing them at the factory with a bad image, I have no idea)

I offered to take a look at it to see if I could help fix it (now that, that I'm qualified for ) but no dice. Standard x86 PC (HP/Compaq in this case) running Windows XP Embedded, and getting stuck after booting the kernel and the GUI but before the dedicated software could finish initializing. Not a hang but not a gracefully handled exception either. Presumably the mothership pushed out some update to the field offices that hosed their systems, or perhaps it’s as simple as sick hard drive. Being XP Embedded, there were no tools readily available to me to diagnose/troubleshoot. That and it was locked down tight, even booting into safe mode was blocked (system just rebooted itself after the kernel loaded. I’m guessing BMW really really don’t want unauthorized people (like me) playing with it)

<sigh> So much for that. Remembering that discretion tends to be the better part of valor, I didn't push the issue (my next step would have been to pull the drive and mount it on a good PC to test it, which is a bit invasive) for fear of getting the tech in trouble or generally pissing people off. My relationship with these people is a young and fragile thing. I don’t want to get banned from the service bay or talking to the mechanics. I like talking to mechanics!

Anyway all very interesting. If the MIL comes back on before (or after) I get the software update, I'll check back in.

Dermot

PS, does anyone know any easter eggs for the Mini itself to get it to admit to what software versions it's running on the various modules? I'd be interested to know.

 

Just got my car back from the dealer, CEL was fixed and the dealer threw in free tint for my car! Not bad

 

we have the car back, it's not thrown another fault yet

I really cant get over how they are still building the MCS's with old firmware, with known bugs


I really hope it was really a bug, and not a software change to address a hardware or sensor issue the car has, companies have been known to do that

 

What, like Microsoft has been doing for years now with every version of Windows

Seriously sometimes these kinds of issues crop up during the initial period and if it's a one day thing then that's not such a big deal in my book.

Glad you have the MINI back and driving.

 

well, it's a big friggin deal to me, and if it does it 2 more times the car is gone

my wife had to take time off work TWICE to get this fixed


I'm still very pissed off about the whole deal

 

Fair enough. Did it happen once or twice?
I guess I have learned to live through the minor quirks of any car (and being 50% British the MINI has at least double the quirks of other cars )and realise that sometimes, despite everyones best intentions, machinery fails or problems that were apparent during testing crop up.

Hopefully you don't have to sell the car.

 

once so far, and I would not sell it, I would lemon law it and force them to return my money

 

I knew this sort of things can happen in the 1st model year cars and I was just hoping that it wouldn't happen to mine. It hasn't. But I knew it could but still I committed. I still hope it won't happen to mine. I still know it might....

 

Sorry to hear about your problems.

Have you noticed how hot your bonnet gets just after parking the car? I have an IR thermometer and this morning it checked in at 191F around the hood scoop; 168F around the passenger side washer jet. This was parked outside with a breeze.

Another thing you may want to keep and eye on is the driver side footwell by the gas pedal. Mine was 135F after I parked this morning.

I've only had mini a week and 5 days and probably wouldn't have noticed the excessive heat buildup after parking if it wasn't for the NAM forums.

Other then the heat, I haven't had any problems (fingers crossed). I hope Mini adjusts (increases) the fan runtime after you turn the car off. Others have reported temps as high as 235F. It has to be a safety issue.

 

Could you even get a car lemoned for something like this?

 

yes, if it fails 3 times

or 1 time if it's a safety system, like your brakes or steering

this may only be for georgia, not sure

 

I thought it had to be something more serious than a code getting thrown.

 

I've also had my car in at Momentum Mini here in Houston for the CEL on my MCSa. I picked up my car the second week of May and within 7 days the light had come on. Upon bringing it in they gave me the same excuse that there was a code stating the computer was unable to maintain a stable fuel mixture and it was running lean.

Anyway, they reset the light telling me that the software update hadn't come out yet and that by the next time the light came on they should have it and would reflash my computer. Well sure enough it came on about 1500 miles later and they still couldn't update my computer.

If you have a MCSa and have definitely gotten your computer updated recently please let me know. Thanks.