Installed an Alpine cde-103bt head unit, MB Quart onx216 components up front, Alpine MRP-F300 4 channel amp, removed rear speakers.
We ran the 2 RCA and one remote/on line down the center of the car under the console to the amp in the rear, and the speaker lines to the front doors back up the passenger side. The crossover is in the front doors and we left the factory wiring harness in the car and ran all new lines for our stuff.
2 of the amp channels will be bridged for a sub in a few days.

The car is an 06 with HK in it, I removed the factory head unit, front components, and amp over a week ago and drove the car around with no issues for a week everyday.

The new audio equipment sounds stellar, but, this morning...
-when starting the car it was a tad slow to start, a second or so
-I now I have an airbag light on
-a setbelt light on
-warning light that my hood and trunk may be open
-my one touch on the sunroof no longer works
-the gauges have no backlighting
-and my AC doesn't get cold or work the same way as before.

During the installwe removed the passenger seat but the keys were not in the ignition and they were not put in until after we put it back in and plugged everything up, same rules as when I've done this in my BMW's.
We removed the rear seats and side panels as well as pulled the lower trim below the door for running wires, but didn't have any problems removing or replacing.
Since we weren't using the factory harness or amp we didn't hook up the speaker leads and a couple of other wires to the new wiring harness, may be the issue but I can't see how since the car should be needing a signal from the head unit to tell the dash backlight to come on with the head lights...

Also, we ran the positive line to the battery and the ground from the amp was run up inside the passenger rear compartment to one of the studs that holds the HK amp on, is this ok?

My brother has installed countless audio systems in many cars over the last 20 years and I've probably done 10 installs in mine and friends BMW's over the last 10 so we are by no means complete amateurs but the Mini is new to us obviously.

Any thoughts?

 

Please tell me you didn't splice anything into the main harness? The Minis electrical system can be very temperamental. We have a car in the shop that even the dealer can't figure it out. It's has a CVT problem that they have never seen before.

 

Nope, used a supplied wiring harness.
Noticed at lunch that the automatic headlights come on during daylight hours and the turn signal indicators inside the car do not function.

 

OK, I did a BCU reset (hold the trip reset button while in key position 2, etc.) and that got rid of the hatch open light on.
I then left the negative terminal off the battery for about an hour and a half and nothing else is changed.
I checked the dash fuses to see if that might be the gage backlight problem but no luck.

 

Do you have access to some kind of a code reader? Sometimes you can even go to Kragen or the like and they will read for you. You might want to invest in a code reader, they always come in handy. I have a Scanguage. Might not help you in this situation, but.......? BTW, have you unhooked everything that you originally hooked up?

 

Not yet, will unplug the head unit tomorrow.

The problem may be what I didn't hookup between the alpine and the wiring harness. I didn't attach two of the CAN/BUS leads between the radio and the wiring harness, will find out tomorrow.

 

OK, update, I did the Body Control/deash reset using the trip meter button and it got rid of the open trunk light.
I still have the SRS lights which I need a tool to reset and the gage backlights do not come on with the head lights, also the sutomatic headlights stay on regardless of daylight when the car is on.
Also, the cigarette lighter backlight and the orange LED's in the doors are not lit up and when I hit the AC button the compressor doesn't kick on.

 

If all your wiring, (besides the amps and speakers), is in a plug-in harness to the stock radio harness, then I would definitely start by unplugging that. If none of the problems go away, then the car's body computer probably needs to be reset.

Is it possible that you hooked the car's illumination lead up wrong? That could explain the gauge light confusion.

I did a search for CAN Bus and found where it is on the MINI's radio wiring harness. CAN+/I-Bus is the white/red/yellow wire - pin 9 on the radio's 16 pin connector. There is also pin 10 which is labeled CAN-/Telephone-Mute. I know that you had two wires left from your new head unit and one was CAN and the other Phone Mute. Did you attach these to the wiring harness? I'm asking because I couldn't find any posts in the forum that said this was a good thing to do. The only posts I found said not to attach to these, unless you were hooking up an adapter for the MFSW.

 

I did not attach those wires, I am going to unplug the harness and if that doesn't fix it than I'll do a body computer reset again with it unplugged, and if that doesn't fix it then I'm clueless.

 

OK, so after work when driving home the radio isn't producing sound, head unit comes on and functions but no sounds, amp light is off. When I get home I turn off car and then turn ignition back on and amp powers up and works fine.

Now, I pulled the head unit and disconnected the wiring harness and remote amp turn on line and VOILA!!! Everything in the car works as normal again.
Obviously its got an issue with the harness or something in the wiring of it.
I currently only have the following hooked up between the Alpine harness and the aftermarket harness
-Red (ignition)
-Orange (illumination)
-Yellow (battery)
-Black (ground)
-Blue (antenna power)

None of the speaker lines are connected between the 2 harnesses as I'm using the RCA for signal, the blue/white line for remote turn on is going to the new amp and the pink/black wire (audio interrupt in) is not connected to anything.

After the car was functioning normally I then connected the wiring harness back up and the remote power lead, everything still operated normally and the head unit powers up but the amp light comes on for a second and then fades out.

I have run the power line from the new amp to the battery and the ground to a screw behing the panel in the rear fender where a stud is for mounting the factory HK amp.
Shoudl I pick another ground location?
Should I ground back to the battery?
Should I go ahead and hook up the speaker leads even though I'm not using them?

Thoughts?

 

What do you mean by "Alpine harness" and "aftermarket harness"? So the OEM harness was completely disconnected and not involved at all? Where did you connect each of those lines on the car side?

 

Here is how I assume you hooked it up, with your Alpine wiring colors on the left and the MINI on the right:

-Red (ignition) ------------> PIN 16 - Accessory - Purple/Blue
-Orange (illumination) --->PIN 14 - Illumination - Grey/Red
-Yellow (battery) --------->PIN 15 - Battery - Red/Brown
-Black (ground) ----------->PIN 12 - Ground - Brown
-Blue (antenna power) -->PIN 13 - Power Antenna - White

It looks like you hooked it up correctly, based on what you put in parenthesis.

But, if you used that blue wire out of the Alpine to turn on your amp then that might be why the amp light only lit up for a second if you played a CD. It may only have power on that blue wire when the radio on the Alpine is on. The Alpine has a separate wire coming out of it that is blue/white that is used to turn on the amps, and you said you were using that.

Also, Orange into the Alpine is for it's DIMMER, not illumination. It is to make the display on the Alpine go DIM at night when you turn on the car's dash lights. Did that work correctly?

Connecting the speaker wires that you're not using won't do anything. Testing with a new ground for the amp might. Is the ground that you're using for the amp clean bare metal?

Any other wires you've hooked up?

 

One more thought: did you tape over any bare ends of the wires that you are not using, to prevent them from hitting ground or each other?

 

The aftermarket harness I'm referring to is the one provided from the online retailer that plugs into the factory harness, the Alpine harness is the one that came with the new head unit, I would NEVER cut the factory harness, I always use an aftermarket piece to go between the factory and head unit harness.
Yep, the blue/white line is the remote amp turn on I referenced earlier, its running to the back with the RCA's for the new amp.
I taped off the ends of the unused wires with electrical tap so no problems there.
And I know about the orange wire for dimmer, ilumination is just what its labeled on the wire when I got it.
I know now that I have everything hooked up correctly but I am going to double check my ground location and quality of contact. I may also try to find the wiring harness online thats got the MFSW controls built into it, I think its a UK retailer.

 

Maybe you should also bench-test the new radio and amp while you have them isolated to make sure they're not short grounded. Also, recheck the adapter harness to make sure the pins are actually in the right places. To me, this sounds like an equipment problem, or wiring problem.

 

That would be NewMiniStuff: http://www.newministuff.com/new/shop...products&cat=3

The CAN bus is the only way that the audio can cause all the symptoms you mentioned. I'm guessing a short must have happened.

 

Thanks!

 

Finally fixed it, it was a combination of things.

First off I resorted the wiring harness and found that the ant power line as shown on the aftermarket harness install instructions was going to the wrong location, basically when you do this in the future ignore their directions and use the wiring diagram on this site to match up locations on pin-out.
Second, the ground was dodgy, I ended up sanding a bare metal spot and putting it inside the rear fender with a new sheet metal screw.

VOILA!

Everything works perfectly and is mostly put back together. I'll start a new thread for future reference with my review on the upgrade but we'll be doing a .6 cu ft sealed box for a 10" sub this weekend and it'll be done.

Thanks for the help guys, it was invaluable for bouncing trouble shooting ideas off of.