Had strange occurrence today, which has never happened before - while shifting into reverse and turning the wheel to parallel park I barely caught it but the entire car's electrical system shut off for a second then turned right back on. The engine was still running and didn't cut out as far as I could tell, but I lost power steering for the remainder of my parking job. Went back to the car later and turned it on, no problems going into reverse. No idea what could cause such a failure - there were no warning lights at all, maybe my power steering pump is failing?

2005 S with automatic transmission if that would matter.

 

You can lookup your VIN here or call a dealer to see if it’s part of the power steering pump recall or anything else like the passenger occupancy mat recall:

https://www.miniusa.com/owners/tools...rt/recall.html

If the car is new to you and has already had the pump replaced, it still might fall under the original MINI parts 2 year/unlimited mileage warranty.

 

I had the occupancy mat recall done in September of last year and didn’t have any immediate problems after that. So there’s no open recalls on it right now according to Mini.

I’m just concerned that the electrical system might shut down while I’m driving on the highway, or power steering cut out at a critical moment.

VIN: WMWRE33555TG97575

 

First thing that comes to mind is to check all grounds

 

I just had it happen again, the engine ground strap seems fine but I'll have to check the battery and near the lights. So weird, it seems to happen only when shifting from reverse to drive or vice versa. The gauge cluster lit up with all the warning lights for a split second, then returned to normal. Had to shut it off completely just so I could get the PS to come back after it kept shutting off.

Edit: Forgot to note the trip computer and clock got reset as well.

 

Any ideas? Had this happen in heavy traffic today, except no changing of gears. Lost power steering and everything electrical for a few seconds, the OBC reads about ~13.8-14 volts while driving and dips to about 13.5 but never below while reversing.

I should note I have a backup camera installed and connected to the OEM SatNav screen, however I checked the ground wire for the camera and it was secure. I'm not sure it would even draw enough power to cause the electrics to shut off completely.

 

Have you checked the crank pulley or belt length? It could be failing and occasional quick slips are causing a loss of power from the alternator stopping briefly, or maybe the belt is stretched leading to the same issue.

I don’t think the backup cam could be causing the issue either. Interested in the setup though... what backup cam are you running and do you have any details on the module used to interface it to the OEM screen?

 

That's a good suggestion, the crank pulley is one of those Alta lightweight ones (PO put it on) plus I installed a 15% pulley on the supercharger the belt is a stock CONTITECH one because the old one was fraying. What should I look for in the belt when I turn the car on? Wobbling of the pulleys?

I can show some pictures later. It's a NAVIKs unit that sits underneath the passenger seat where the nav computer is, it plugs right in there. Then the backup camera is plugged into that and wired for power from the reverse light. The picture on the OEM screen isn't too shabby at all, nice to see the car behind you so I can get every inch when parallel parking.

 

It’s the stock rubber core pulleys that normally fail, so the crank pulley probably isn’t causing the loss of power. A stretched or wrong sized belt could still be a possibility though.

Pics and details on the NAV screen module and backup cam setup would be great. I’m mostly interested in using one to display auxiliary gauges from an app like torque or Dash Command, but the camera info will also be helpful, especially for convertible owners.

 

Unfortunately getting access to the NAVIKs module itself is a pain, I'd have to take the seat out. However these are images of the camera and image output:

 

Looks like you got tired of the buzz/rattle from the NAV trimpiece!

Do you get audio from the NAVIKS?

This is about the only use I've found for the factory nav.....

 

Oh yeah, christ that thing would not stop rattling. The clips broke on it and it was driving me mad so I tossed it.

I think you can get audio from it, there is an HDMI input and I think it has to be connected to the 3.5mm aux jack through some kind of adapter.

 

Battery? I have an R53 and never experienced crazy things like this, but I have read lots of crazy stories about stuff that goes crazy when batteries get low on voltage...

 

That's what I was thinking too, but the voltage read out from the OBC menu in the tach always seems to read between 13.8-14v while the car is running. The battery seems fairly new, but perhaps it has a bad cell? Not sure how to determine that.

 

Flip on the high beams for a bit to remove any surface charge. Then stick a multimeter on the battery. A battery with a bad cell is usually down about 2 volts from full charge, so around 10.5 V or so. Alternatively, just use a battery load tester.

 

Easy.

Put a multimeter on the battery (or other reliable power connection) and mentally note the reading.

With the meter still connected, start the car (or at least engage the starter) and watch- the voltage WILL drop as the battery is under load from the starter. The question is how much? If it drops to 11 or 10.5, not a big deal. If it drops below 9 or 8, your battery is toast.