I have an '06 R52 JCW Mini that I picked up last year. I was getting the little things that needed to be done inside and noticed that the lighter socket was loose under the heater controls. I went to Mini dealer and got the amber luminous ring for the lighter socket..... what a job to install....

Now, my question, is there no light or bulb socket that attaches to the light ring under the console? I looked all over for the light and holder, could not find it..... if you say that there's one under there, I'll have to pull the console again and dig deeper. I do have little orange lights under the heater controls, but still wondering about the luminous ring being lit up by itself.

Bryan

 

 

Yes, I understand that, my '04 R53 has that for the lighter.

My main question is does the '06 R52 light up the same? Or does it rely on the little two orange lights under the heater controls.

I had the console out today trying to get the lighter secure and didn't see any bulb holder under the console, only the two wire connector for power and ground at the bottom of the lighter socket. If there's supposed to be a bulb and holder attached to the amber luminous ring under the console, I guess I'll have to take it all apart and try to find the bulb holder under there, somewhere.......

If there's not supposed to be one on this car, I'll let it ride for now

Bryan

 

I think the lighter assembly is the same in all first gens, but ECSTuning can probably give you the answer as he owns an R52 and almost always has the answer to questions regarding them.

 

The wiring for the lighter bulb was removed (I think starting in '05, for the hardtop as well). To make it work properly, the bulb should be connected to night illumination wire (gray with red stripe), which can be found in the center console at buttons and modules that light up when headlights are turned on.
https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/r...nation/s34qU8k

 

Yep, this is the socket that holds the little wedge bulb inside it:

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...346915065~oem/

and this is the ring:

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...h/51167052720/

 

Yes, the blown apart image ... if yours doesn't have the bulb holder (item 5) on your illumination ring (item 2), chances are it is loose flopping around under the center console somewhere. You can see that the wire connector for the light is on the bottom of the holder, so chances are it is still plugged in but the holder (item 5) has been separated from the ring (item 2).

Best of luck.

Motor On!


EDIT: What? Not There? Well that makes sense, did I ever tell you about the time when a design team decided that they would build an item they designed and was approved without Flat Washers,? They claimed by removing the Flat Washers they saved 3 lbs off the weight of the build and $12.00 in parts per unit .... to bad they forgot to tell the Technical Writes, and they had to go back into the Service and Parts Manuals and rewrite and illustrate ALL the manuals and recalculate all the RAM (Reliability and Maintenance) data to reflect the changes at a cost of $25,000.00 ... what a great way to save $12.00 per unit ... oh, and only 12 units were built for a savings grand total of $144.00. Yeay!

 

Not in an '06. The bulb holder and wiring were removed from factory build (as I said earlier, I believe this change began with '05).

 

I had it in my early production 2005 MCC. So maybe it was 06' MCC?

 

There have been threads on the topic:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...led-light.html
https://www.mini2.com/forum/first-ge...-light-up.html

 

My '06 does not have the bulb holder (item 5) attached to the illumination ring under the console.....at least not that I could find....I didn't pull up all the carpet to see if it was tucked under there somewhere......if it was removed from production for my car, I'll just stop worrying about it.....

The only other way is to pull the console completely out and poke around there and under the carpet to see if it indeed is either not connected or not installed in the car.....which I really don't wanna do......

Bryan

 

Sounds like my car (production date 9-13-06) is right there in the production time frame where it didn't get the bulb & socket.......good, I didn't want to tear it all out anyway to find that it was never there in the first place

Thanks....

Bryan

 

Yes, weird think it was a production change thing

 

 

It's a real pain to change the ring, at least for me. The console needs to either come out, or lifted up enough to get your hands under the console.

I'll write up how I did it tomorrow from my computer, I'm on my phone now

Thanks for letting me know that your car doesn't have the light either

Bryan

 

Here's what I had to go through to replace my broken amber light ring

With yours being an '06 also, I am going to assume yours has that extra little cubby tray and rubber liner under the heater controls, that will have to be removed by taking our the one torx screw in the front holding it in.
You will need to remove the shifter console, or at least raise it up enough to get your hands underneath it. Take out the heated switch and remote mirror switch panel. There are 2 screws under there for the console. Also remove the two screws in the front cup holder bottom as well. Lift up the console enough to get your hand under there to move the plastic tabs and lift the shifter ring off the console top.I never took my shift **** off, just took the shifter ring loose so I could angle the console enough to see what I was doing. If your amber ring is broke, either push the lighter socket out of the ring or break off more of the amber ring to remove it from the console......you will not be able to remove the ring with the lighter socket still inside it.

Now that it's all apart at this point.....take your lighter and new ring and notice how the socket goes into the ring.....it will only go in one way. The rails on one side of the socket must go into the rail guide in the ring......so to re-install, put the ring into the console, then put the lighter socket into the ring making sure the guide rails go in the ring correctly.

Now this is the important part, before you push the lighter all the way into the ring, you will need to look at the underside of the console and you will see a "gap" in the area where the assembly goes into, the gap is facing the front of the car......you need to make sure that the large part of the ring that the bulb socket would attach to (if our car had the bulb socket) goes inline with the factory opening in the front part of the underneath side of the console. If you don't get this lined up correctly, when you put the wire connector on the bottom of the socket, you will not be able to put the console top back down on the floor because the lighter connector will hit the console bracket that is still on the floor. Once you are sure all is lined up, then you can push the lighter socket all the way into the amber ring......it's a very tight fit...I thought I was gonna break mine pushing it into place. Now put your lighter socket wire connector on and put the console back onto it's bracket still on the floor.

Put your 4 console screws back in, re-attach your heated seats and mirror connectors, push the switch assembly back into place, then fight that little cubby plastic piece back in and attach with the one screw. The plastic cubby piece sits on top on the front edge of the console so it goes in last

If you need anything else, let me know....if I fergot any steps here, someone will

I also might add that if you plan on keeping your car for a long time and working on it.....I will suggest on getting the large Bently service manual for the first generation Mini Coopers.....you can usually get a good one for $65 - $100

Bryan