Hey there my name is Douglass Enriquez. I am a 40 year old Pipe welder and father of 3 boys... Ive only had 1 car see 1 mechanic shop 1 time in all my years, but IN NO WAY do i think I know every thing. FOR FROM IT AS A MATTER OF FACT.... My point is that i know my way around a car OK but every one can use a hand from time to time. I now own a 2005 Mini Cooper S r53 and An 04 E55 AMG Mercedes W211 and have done well thus far maintaining them.

That being said, I'm honestly starting to thinking my name should probably be, bad luck Chuck. LOL
A few weeks ago the fan resistor switch went out on my Mini Cooper S ( or so I thought ). The Cooling fan on the radiator stopped working as well as the AC compressor.
After that I Started to notice the stereo sounding odd, a sort of a distorted sound through the speakers a light ground loop sound, and no sound through the mids in the doors, tweeters worked fine. At the time I was working 10 hours a day 6 days a week with a 2 hour drive on each side of work daily! SO just no time to look into it. Shortly thereafter my heater core went out on my way to work. I got it back home after it had leaked a ton of water into the floorboard of the car ( from stopping and putting water in radiator repetitively on my way home ) not really thinking about the fact that it was all going into the carpet, it was a long week. Went through the process of changing out the heater core and resistor switch on the cooling fan. AGAIN not thinking about the fact that the car had gallons of water in the floor, it was still jacked up when i started It, everything was fine the next day I went to start it and now NO POWER to the interment cluster. I mean the interior lights come on and the dash lights Illuminate but NONE of the warning lights come on when its turned to the 2nd position like it normally would....! I immediately started to try and figure out what was up...... unhooked the battery made sure it was fully changed and it was, so i hooked it back up and still nothing, No sound from the fuel pump no ticking from any relays ONLY parking lights, interior lights and radio come on and along with that when the car is completey off ( no key in the ignition ) the radio still comes on and the PASSENGER side parking lights are on as long as the battery is hooked up. EVEN when there is NO KEY in the ignition! which I know it did not do before. Could anybody please help me with this situation?

So: 1 Cooling fan resistor switch went out ( stereo started acting funny around that time )

2 heater core busted ( water in the floor. GALLONS OF WATER )

3 No power to anything except the interior lights and dash light. Can't hear fuel pumps come on no head lights, no wipers, ⁶



no power to anything.

4 except the stereo which now plays with out a key In the ignition


For all the Grammer police out there, I'm fully aware that my spelling is terrible, along with my punctuation. so I greatly apologize if you have a hard time understanding my point, due to a lack of sentence familiarity. Im a 40 year old father of 3 and a pipe welder with ADD, dyslexia, among other literacy related problems so thank you for your patience......

Really Im just hoping somebody else may have already been through this and be able to point me in the right direction..... Id really hate for this my beloved Mini Cooper S R53 to be a total loss..... PLEASE HELP ME!!!

 

Hi I've not had this issue, but I'd start with testing the battery. Is it good?

 

Check first your Body Computer, passenger side down, for sure is floaded.

 

I have checked the battery and yes its good but thanx for the reply

 

I'm not positive but I don't think any water had made its way into the right side or passenger side foot well, but did notice the computer looking thing on that side and am guessing that is what your referring to. How would I go about checking it, im guessing just look for signs of moisture?

And thank 🙏 you as well for your assistance. Any and ALL assistance is greatly appreciated. Considering I don't even usually get any response on these things so thanx MUCH!

 

I can help you with one tiny part: It's normal that the radio will play with the key off. Both of mine do it as well.

That's all I good for.

 

the body computer was my second guess, as adriancl said. it controls so much

 

The Body Control Module (BCM) is behind the right hand kick panel in the passenger side footwell. Many owners have had all sorts of electrical problems if water gets into it and causes corrosion/shorts. I'd check that for sure before looking at other possibilities.

 

common issue if your floor is flooded from your leaking heater core then most likely cause is the big 42 pin connector under the fuse box on the driver side under the carpet. it most likely got wet and corroded the pins that is why nothing works. i would check there.

 

My BCU was clean and dry but somebody had spliced several wires to it that looked flaky and I redid them.

I think there is a similar controller on the drivers side near the fuse box. As I recall, it is for the anti-theft stuff. I recommend removing the left side panel and look for corrosion on connectors.

Also recommend drying everything out and spraying contact cleaner on all connectors.

Lastly, and hopefully unrelated, I had a host of bizarre problems with my ‘05 R50 that were caused by a problem with the tachometer. It would overload the CanBus wiring communication and caused several unrelated electrical problems. I removed it and they went away. I didn’t even get a new one. I got an old tach off eBay and it has been fine ever since. Go figure.

BTW, I have an ‘05 E320 CDI with 240,000 miles and love it. Good luck with your W211.

Good Luck,
Peter

 

I just wanted to say thank you, to everybody who commented on this thread. Just to let everyone know it ended up being the BCM. But its fixed and everything is good to go, as of now anyway. So I have my Mini Cooper back on the road and running like a champ, as well as my E55. Well now if I can just keep them both that way I will be a happy man. Lmao!

SO again. Thank you all for any and all assistance!
There's no such thing as Bad help ( unless somebody's intentionally trying to give somebody bad advice I suppose ) in my book, if a person takes the time out of their day to try and help me, then I'm grateful. Weather it helped me or not, because when it comes down to it. We all can us a hand some times. a
And if the world did a little more helping each other, and a little less bitching at each other. It would be a much better place......

But thank you all again hopefully you can all meet at a mini show one day.