As the title says, I have an identical light to the one shown below. AFAIK this is typically a result of the Brake Pad Warning (BPW) sensor touching the rotor after wear. Well, I popped the brake pad off and its got plenty of pad left. My car is a May of 2002 R53 meaning it is pre-BPW-sensors, so I don't have any of those to worry about. Any ideas? tried resetting the light via ignition for 30s

updated picture, had wrong one

 

Isn't this the traction control light? Meaning an ABS sensor might be bad. If you have an odb2 scanner hook it up, look for the individual wheelspeeds and drive the car around the block to see if one sensor is reporting a different value or stays at 0.

 

i’ve updated the image. had the wrong one. mot at home atm so i pulled a pic from google.

 

Well the image posted/ I see above is (as far as I know) definitely the brake pad wear indicator warning light. But then again; I have a pre-facelift '04 R53 that has the brake pad wear sensors.
Just curious - If you are not the original owner, perhaps the previous owner did away with the bpw sensor wire by either cutting or tucking the wire away under the inner body panel.
Perhaps take a look?
From what I've read from other posts some owners have cut the bpw sensor wires and either connected a resistor between the 2wo wires or simply twisted them together to disable the warning light altogether.
Just something I recall reading some years ago.

Hopefully a seasoned Mini contributor will correct me if I'm wrong or offer a more reliable technical solution.

 

If the brake pad wear sensor is extracted from the pad intact, then the circuit is not broken. It can be inserted in a new pad or, if you prefer, just fold the wiring up and secure it under the rubber bleed nipple dust cap retainer. With the warning light on, this indicates that a sensor's circuit has been broken. With the OP's early version having no sensors, I would check the brake fluid reservoir to see if the level of brake fluid has fallen, setting off the warning light.

 

what's curious is that i had the broken odometer issue on my original instrument cluster, and this light only showed up after switching in a new cluster. is it possible that the donor cluster is faulty in some way? on the dealer wiring diagram for the instrument panel, pin 17 yellow wire controls the light. might just de-pin it.

 

Is the replacement cluster the large speedo in the center or the dual cluster on the steering column?

If the large cluster,I’m pretty sure it needs to be programmed to a specific car with VIN, mileage, and car options. A dual cluster is supposed to be “dumb” and plug-n-play, but there are different versions depending on the build date of the car.