New owner here - just traded for a 2004 Mini Cooper S JCW a few days ago. Car has 122k miles, needs a little bit of work (windshield cracked, needs some snow tires fitted and want to fix electrical problems and add cruise to it)

Car runs and drives great, it will take off with no lights on the dash other than the brake wear indicator light (which I'm sure is due to needing to give attention to the brakes), after anywhere from half a mile to around 10 miles past starting and pulling out of the driveway the speedo will fall to zero and stay there, brake & ABS light come on along with the DSC and TPMS lights. Doesn't seem to matter what kind of driving or what speed I'm going, always shuts the speedo down and lights up all the malfunction indicators within 20 miles of starting a trip.

I don't have a scan tool which is specific to Minis and their subsystems (looking for recommendations as it doesn't look like I can get a mini cartridge for my Bosch Mastertech) so at current time I can't read any codes from anything other than the ECU.

I found a youtube video with identical symptoms suggesting the cause was likely due to a plugged drain under the hood where the ABS module lies causing water and corrosion damage but I checked that out and the drain is clear and no leaves or other debris or evidence of it holding moisture in that area. Pulled the ABS module connector loose to inspect for corrosion or other damage and it looks good so I reassembled it.

Wondering if anyone has experienced similar symptoms, also wondering if I got ahold of a junkyard ABS module and installed it do I need to have a dealership code it for me to make it play nice with the rest of the car? Want to get this sorted soon, reason I got this car is because my commute got a lot longer and driving the 3/4 ton is going to cost me way too much in fuel, along those lines I'd like to put a multifunction wheel and other necessary parts in so I can get cruise working since this car wasn't originally fitted with it but I'm assuming that the combination of no speedo and all these error lights is likely to disable any cruise functionality.

 

 

 

 

 

Battery is <2 weeks old. Haven't checked ground locations yet.

Don't know about the R53 cruise options, some reading suggests that it had to have the multifunction steering wheel in order to get cruise control buttons and a lot of the JCW package cars didn't get that steering wheel. I am in the US (Colorado)

 

On sale now for $122.37 with free shipping on any order over $50 so I bought it, should arrive later this week.

Having driven the car a bit more I now realize there's a sequence to the lights coming on before the speedo drops out completely, shortly after starting and sometimes driving the DSC light comes on (speedo still works at this point) then the ABS and TPMS, and then the brake light, when the ABS and brake light come on the speedo drops out. Not sure if this is useful information but figured I'd throw it out there. Will post error codes when the Schwaben comes in and I can get it hooked up.

 

If you need a schwaben scan tool now is the time.:

Click HERE to shop the MINI Cooper Scan Tool

 

In 2004 that car started life as a "regular" R53 with whichever options were ordered for it. The JCW kit was added as a dealer installed option in the R53 and R52 S until 2006 when it became a factory installed option. The MFSW was only like a $250 option unless added with I forget which package, but you'd be surprised at the number of folks that said "nope" to cruise control and steering wheel radio controls.