Why hasn't this happened yet?

With as many intelligent and talented people we have here on NAM and tons of good vendors, why hasn't anyone come with a way for us to control our MINI's ourselves?

Now your thinking "what does he want to hack?" the small stuff. Like all the custom adjustments and options each MINI comes with that is controlled by the ECU. Why don't we have some interface or product to let us change these options without having to deal with a MINI service dept? Especially since alot of MINI owners don't have imediate access to their dealer without a 30+ mile drive.

I got to thinking about this because of IAN's MINI circuit, thats just simply a GREAT product. Could something like this be just as simple? I can imagine we have programmers or somebody on here that could do this? Who knows what other options we may find and other things we may be able to control once we have access to all the options.... Maybe we can unlock some Euro options that are disabled through software and such like that.

Anybody?

 

There's a couple of people here that have discussed this ... check out Ross Tech which is a company that could develop such a thing - I think they were planning it at one time.
(there is/was an Andy@Rosstech user here - not sure of the exact screen name and can't find him in a quick search)

The problem is such a tool requires a lot of development work and there is not enough MINIs / demand for a company to develop such a thing.

Back in 2003 I spent lots of time trying to decode the rear fog lights restriction (before we were allowed rear fogs in USA). Seems there is a combination of both "on/off flags" for different features in the BC1, and a "country code" in the IKE!