2010 JCW w/ 1300 mi

Supposedly the tint guy pulled the positive terminal and was also in the engine bay fuse box pulling fuses to get the windows from going up/down the 1/4" when you close the door. Ugh....

None the less now my a/c is not cooling and only blowing hot air. I cannot feel the compressor kicking in. The snowflake light is on and I have the a/c set to low. I put a fluke meter across each fuse in the engine bay and the passenger side fuse box and all fuses are good.

Here is a pic of the engine bay fuse box. I realize that some of the fuses missing may be intentional due to specific options, but if someone sees something amiss please let me know.

 

I have a 2010 S, but not a JCW. I just checked my fuse box and it looks like maybe your 50amp fuse is in the wrong spot, plus maybe a missing relay. I guess it does depend on the equipment though. My S is pretty loaded electrically. NAV, PDC, DTC, H/K, alarm, auto a/c, Sat radio, no sunroof though. The 50amp fuse is for the radiator fan or condensor fan. It's one in the same since there is only one.

 

Before I saw your post I called my mini sales mgr and he looked at the fuse box of a jcw on the lot. The red 50A fuse was in the left side was in the wrong spot as your pic pointed out. However the big green relay looking fuse in the center was missing on his jcw as well. Thanks for taking the time to reply so quickly!!!

 

Tell him next mini to just leave the door open and us a screwdriver to close the latch in the door. This makes the window pop up and stay up.
I think you are missing a relay too. The condenser fan it looks like which is AC related.

 

Hey device manager,
Hopefully you have your problem fixed already. But if not, I know when checking aircraft fuses/current limiters, you have to isolate the piece you want to test by disconnecting one end. Otherwise the Fluke will read the entire circuit as continuous and give you a false reading.
Good luck, Scott aka Black 'n Blue.

 

Odd, I had windows professionally done by an awesome guy from Boston. He does many cars owned by players for the New England Patriots.

He never disconnected my MINI's battery, played with fuses or relays to install the tint and the job was fabulous.....perfect in every respect.

That was two years ago.....so far so good.....me thinks the installer was a bit inexperienced.....maybe he has the parts (relay) back in his tool box ?

BTW: Nice work MINIDean

 

Thanks again for all of the feedback. I am pretty ticked off at the tint co., but in the end at least the engine didn't overheat. I also saved a 3 hr. trip to the nearest MINI dealer.

What is the correct name for that style of 50A fuse, and is that style available at a local parts house such as Napa, Autozone, etc?

I found it here: http://www.allminiparts.com/showAsse...ssembly=197147

 

Not sure what the name of that fuse is. Just a heavy duty one. Were you able to move it from the incorrect spot to the correct spot? Does the A/C work now?

I'm curious as to why I have the extra relay and the JCW models don't. Seems odd.

 

@MINIDean, yes once I moved the red 50A fuse on the left up two spots to FL9 the radiator fan kicked on and the a/c started cooling.

As far as the green relay looking fuse in the R2 location it appears that may be for the cold weather package which I do not have.

 

Well, as it appears the black cloud of doom is still following me.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that the "tint shop" in question does more than tint. They sell a lot of redneck truck accessories and have a good rep around town. They've also been in business for quite some time.

I decided to wash the car on Sunday and I noticed a small ding on the lower drivers side door. When I say small I mean about 1/4" in diameter. None the less I can see it so I the annoyance factor on a scale of 1 to 10 is around 9.999 I cannot prove the "tint shop" dinged it, but I have not been anywhere that someone was parked on my drivers side.

Monday afternoon I was on the way to the tint shop, so I stopped at the body shop across the street since the paintless dent guy was there. He was able to massage the dent out by rolling the window down and carefully sliding his tool down the inside of the door skin. After about 10 min he was done and said "no charge". I gave him $40 anyhow because time is money and I was delighted to see the dent (for the most part) disappear.

The tint shop used Llumar film, and I noticed a lot of trash in the tint that were the source of tiny bubbles. The passenger side window had a small piece of fiber in the corner that may have come from the carpeted hatch cover. The back window was the worst and had a lot of sand/trash in it. When Monday rolled around I drove to the tint shop and spoke with the sales guy. He was very apologetic about everything and offered a refund if I was not willing to let them try and fix the tint. Considering all that has happened I told him a refund would be the best option. At this point I got a free tint job for the hassle because they did not remove it.

My OCD was still in gear, so yesterday I went to a different tint shop where the only service they offer is tinting windows. The owner looked over the tint and said that he's seen worse (obviously), and that he was surprised about my experiences with the other shop. He uses 3M film exclusively and said it would last a lot longer than the metal-based Llumar that I had now. He recommended carbon-based 3M™ FX Premium - 30% on the font and 15% on the side and rear. The cost for removal of the old tint and installation would be $250. He also said that he would not touch the battery or fuse box. He already knew the door jamb trick to making the MINI's windows roll up after the door is opened.

I dropped off the car this morning. He steamed off the rear window to minimize damage to the defroster. While I see a few specks of trash here and there it still looks nice and clean. Between all of the damn road work going on in the area and west Texas sand floating in the air it's got to be tough to mitigate the "trash". It's still too early to pass final judgment on the tint though.

Is it nearly impossible to get a flawless tint job?

 

I would say it is nearly impossible to get a flawless tint job, but good pros are able to get it very close. I had mine done in my '06 MCS earlier this year. It does take a short while, even a couple of weeks, for all the bubbles and dimples to go away (even though they say you can start rolling the windows down within two or three days). I have a couple of small specks in the tint, but they are very unnoticeable. It's one of things that you would notice it but not the casual passerby. You may also notice how the tint did not seal perfectly around those little dark dots on the inside of the rear glasses.

The only other things that will occur are from normal wear and tear. These are for me; different tint brands may wear differently (sorry, I don't recall offhand what brand mine is). One occurrance is a possible small wrinkle in the leading edge from the glass sitting inside the rubber seal above the door. Another is eventually you may notice a small, mild scratch pattern at the upper front corner of the glass, also from being inside the rubber seal. You may also notice a mild scratch pattern at the bottom edge from the window going up and down to relieve the pressure when you open and close your doors. The last, which has not occurred on this MINI, is a wear spot about 2" inches from the top edge of the glass near the same front corner. This one is due to the guides inside the door, for which the glass rests on when it's rolled all the way down. My guess is they have a felt cover that eventually wears off.

I do agree with the sand/dirt factor. I'm sure the plains states get their fair share of wind storms. Technically, being inside a garage with the doors shut should prevent that problem. Cool on the ding removal and good gesture giving the guy some $$$ anyway.

 

THE HORROR! At least someone had a worse tint experience than we did....

I researched tint shops and thought I had this upscale European only shop. Got there and he (1 man operation) shared the space with a dusty detail shop. You most def want a tint shop that only specializes in tint. Did not listen to inner self and let him do it anyways. TERRIBLE craftsmanship looked like a bathroom window for all the water bubbles and a 2" crease or pucker in each door. 2 days later most of water gone put puckers still showed. Got a full refund and ran to a better shop...... Complete removal and redo..... BTW - Redo had not a single water bubble showing.

Even then had one door redone that still had a fuzzy distortion 2 weeks later and was just redone yesterday. At least neither shop jacked with the fuses, I hope....