Just got a call from the wife while I'm on an extended trip abroad. The car has become possessed Just curious what I should try to diagnose remotely. I will make her scan the car with the BavTech tool, but that'll take a few days, just curious to bounce some ideas in the meantime. This is on a 2009 R56. No electric mods on the car. AccessPort flash.

Things that happened today:

- both blinkers stopped working.
- left window went down by about 2cm. It no longer operates.
- right window operates fine.
- roof operates fine.
A car restart did not seem to fix these. I'm considering asking her to disconnect the battery completely for an hour or so to see if this 'reboots' the ECU.

About 2 weeks ago, while driving, all my lights suddenly started turning on and off - IRRESPECTIVE of the light switch position (on/off/auto/parking). Headlights and parking lights just turned on / off / on / off. I had to switch to park, shut the car off, remove the key, wait a few seconds, then restart for it to go away.
- at that moment, half-blinker wouldn't work (for the 3-blink cycle) - even a half-press would indefinitely turn the blinker on. It would not turn off - but it would switch to the other blinker if requested (so it was permanently blinking either left or right).

Any thoughts welcome. Could it be something as dumb as the battery going? (original battery). Or am I looking at the ECU slowly wasting away? What the hell, heh.

 

Just talked about the battery in another thread, check for a weak battery and have the battery load tested. When the battery is on its way out it can cause all kind of electrical issue due to low or weak charge. Then if the battery is ok, check the cables going to the battery and the starter for a bad connection or corrosion.


After that , do you have a sunroof ? If so make sure the drain tubes are not clogged and water did not leak and get into the front kick panel where the footwell module is.


Thanks

 

Thanks. Where are the drain tubes on the sunroof?

 

Welcome,

Drain tubes are in the front corners of the sunroof gutter when the sunroof is open.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ater-leak.html

 

Original battery in an '09? It's way past life, I'd start by replacing it..

 

An update.

1) Used a multimeter to test the battery. Idle was around 12V, starting the engine it dropped to 9V, then immediately back to 13-14V and stayed there.
2) Bavtech scan gave the following faults:

Car Access System 3:
A0B1:
SG input P N

Control panel IHS R56:
E72B:
IHS: No message (position EFH passenger's door)

E72C:
IHS: No message (position EFH driver's door)

I've never seen these. Any ideas? Still the battery?

[edit] gah, I didn't think of clearing these codes, but as far as I remember they are new, as I scanned the car about two months back and I would have remembered seeing these.

 

This is the best advice given so far.

Until you either replace the battery or have it load tested you're spinning your wheels.

 

I see. So it looks like what I did as a 'test' wasn't actually useful, after all.

I don't have any easy way of load testing the battery, and I don't want to pay a shop to do it, since I might as well just replace the thing at that point anyway, so I guess I'd better get on that ASAP.

 

Nope, what you did wasn't a load test. If you don't want to load test your battery then your only option is to replace the battery, I suggest you just buy the OEM battery and install it yourself and pay a fee to register the new battery with your IBMS or Intelligent Battery Monitoring System to maintain the new battery. If you buy a battery that's smaller in capacity it won't be enough, if you buy a battery this is larger in capacity your charging system won't be able to keep up with the larger capacity.

 

Understood. If I buy a non-OEM battery, I can do the registration myself via either Bavtech or INPA? Or should I try to find a more or less identical spec battery? I seem to have seen a number of threads of people buying aftermarket batteries and not going to the stealership to register them.

 

You know I also read a lot of member's buying OEM and aftermarket batteries without register them, in my opinion they don't want to pay the fee so they don't do it. Question is there's no way to know for sure if that's going to have bad consequences later, perhaps a shorter battery life. My original battery lasted 7 years and even then didn't need replacing, it was negligence on the part of my body shop leaving lights on in the cabin that killed my original battery.

They bought me a new battery from my local Mini dealer last November and installed it themselves and since then I have notice in cold weather my starting power and power windows were very weak, now that it's much warmer I seem to have more power from the battery. The IBMS charging rates are based on battery temperatures, that and my IBMS still thinks I have my original battery since it hasn't been told otherwise.

I have to drive for at least 20 miles for my power windows to have any kind of full power, after starting the engine they seem strained with low power for awhile. There are other places that have access to the same diagnostic computers that Mini has access to, I wouldn't go to the dealer for any type of service!

Check around for other places that charge a lot less for things like registering your new battery, throttle actuator etc.