i've had my 03 cooper for a few weeks now an have noticed a few bizarre shorts.
-holding the blinker lever back locks the doors while turning on the high beams
-unlocking the doors with the toggle switch turns on the high beams
-holding the blinker lever back while left turn signal is on rolls down the windows...

lol i'm not sure if this could be fixed via changing the computer settings or if it's a legitimate short so any help would be appreciated.

 

bump

 

Well, since nobody else has responded, I'd be the first to tell you I understand car electrical system on older car, where wires were single-purposed (i.e. specific wires run from a wiper switch carrying power your wiper motor, or from a window switch to your window motors, and they do nothing else). Simple to understand in concept.

But MINIs have a modern CAN Bus system which is a multiplexed wiring system used to connect intelligent devices such as Electronic Control Units (ECUs). A big advantage is fewer wires used throughout the vehicle. I don't fully understand CAN Bus, but this is how I believe it to work: CAN Bus doesn't so much as send power down wires, as it does send a signal down wires to ECUs for power to be sent to used for a device (e.g. wiper motor, blinkers, etc.). Since CAN Bus is multiplexed, a single wire can carry many different signals to activate different electrical devices.

To me, it sounds like part of your car's CAN Bus system is sending bad signals and some devices are responding to them when they shouldn't be doing so. (e.g. blinkers are getting the bad signals, high beams etc.) You are seeing the results of bad signals in the strange behavior you mentioned. I am no expert, but I suspect a faulty ECU.


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makes a fair amount of sense, I'll look into new ecu's but i'm also going to go cash in my freebie at the bmw/mini dealership and have them take a crack at it. Ecu's are expensive lol