Hello to all,
Been lurking here for a while and now I need some info/help. Our second Mini, 08 Clubman/6 speed (first was 04 Cooper S/6 speed) has developed an issue with the remote. Both keys stopped working all together in remote mode. Key wil manually unlock doors and start car, but remote will not lock/unlock doors and hatch. Batteries are good, transmitters are transmitting, no worky...
From what I have found here, it sounds like the receiver has failed. Sound correct? Also, looks like the receiver is in the rear view mirror...correct?
If this info is right, do I replace the entire mirror or is the receiver available as a separate part? Can I do this and reprogram the keys (if needed) or do I have to go to the Stealership??
Any and all help is appreciated. The keys worked one day and not the other. The car has been mysteriously draining the battery and wife did have to jump it. No crossed cables or intense arching, but did jump it off of a jumper battery. Anyone else have mysterious battery drain??
Thanks for the help, Doug at 8000'

 

I had this same problem. I disconnected the battery for 30 minutes to force a reset of all the cars computers (minimum of 30 minutes). After reconnection the remotes started working again.

Cant be sure it will work for you but it is worth a try.

Remember these cars are fully computer controlled and if the computer gets corrupted sometimes all it takes is a full reset.


This is a problem that many have seen totally randomly. If it continues to happen regularly then the car should go in for a full reprogram at the dealer.

 

Thanks for the input. Have the pos terminal disconnected as we type. I had searched the drain issue before and found a thread than made reference to a specific TSB number to reference when talking to the Stealership. It basically said they knew of the issue, but didn't want to issue a recall due to the expense of such an act, and that the problem is very random.
I'm a mechanic by trade and find it incredibly frustration talking to service writers, many of which know NOTHING about repair or diagnostics (my apologies to those out there who are knowledgeable and helpful). I could not find the thread when I searched again, anybody know what I'm talking about?? D@8K'

 

Left battery unhooked for an hour. Hooked it back up and no change. Any suggestions on where to go next?? D@8K'

 

FYI: this is an incorrect procedure for modern electrical systems. Always remove the negative terminal (ground) from the battery in these instances. And when changing the battery, negative comes off first, gets reattached last... Removing the positive terminal with the negative terminal [still] connected to the battery risks shorting out the battery, if the positive terminal should accidentally make contact with a ground source somewhere in the engine compartment.

Regarding your original problem: It's a long shot, as the chances of both fob batteries dying at the same time are pretty remote; but do you have Comfort Access? If so, the fobs are not rechargeable, and require new batteries from time to time.

 

Thanks for the input. The fobs do not charge, and I have replaced batteries and tested them with the RF transmitter testing gizmo at the local autoparts store. Still puzzled...
Not to be argumentative, but if the pos terminal is disconnected first, and the ground is left on the battery, how can letting the pos cable come into contact with a grounding surface on the car cause a short in the battery? There is no continuity between the pos cable and the ground still hooked to the battery. I can see how this might create a problem with some other system that holds a charge (radio memory??), but the battery is not in the loop due to the fact that one of the cables is not hooked up...
D@8K'

 

Not argumentative at all. One has to ask questions in order to learn. Bear in mind throughout my explanation that, although I do have a degree in engineering (mine is aerospace) and had to take some basic (very basic) electrical engineering (EE) classes to earn that degree, that was quite a number of years ago -- and EE was never my strong suit...

Here's an online repair tips page from Popular Mechanics that covers the topic of battery do's and don'ts, albeit not particularly well -- their explanations are a bit vague, but again, they recommend removing the ground (negative) first and replacing it last. And for good reason.

Wikipedia provides us with the principles of operation for electro-chemical batteries -- in deeply scientific terms, if you feel like wading through it; here's another site that provides a bit more of a basic description of what's going on.

In short (no pun intended), the terminal labels on a battery are a bit counter-intuitive to what's actually taking place. Electricity is the flow of electrons (negatively-charged particles); batteries create this flow through a pair of chemical reactions in which the negative particles 'group' on one terminal (the anode), and positive particles 'group' on the other terminal (the cathode). Then, when the terminals are connected by a circuit, the electrons flow from where they have accumulated to where they are naturally attracted; thus, the electrons actually originate at the negative terminal and travel to the positive terminal (through whatever circuit provides the least resistance) -- and the markings on the battery terminals ("+" and "-") are actually indicating the resident particle's charge.

So, if one was to remove the positive terminal from the battery, then accidentally allow it to make contact with the metal part of the frame or engine block, electrons would begin to flow from the battery to the contact point, and possibly cause something like this.

'Ground' in the sense of a vehicle electrical system, which is clearly not grounded to earth, is probably just intended to infer a reference point (voltage) for the vehicle's electrical system; in any case, it's not an absolute ground in the sense that your house wiring is grounded. Again, the terminology is confusing, so I may not be explaining it very well -- and as I said at the start: not my best subject.

 

Interesting info. Especially the pos-neg current flow. I don't argue that perhaps removing the neg terminal first is good policy, but I can assure you that if you disconnect your pos battery cable (where there is nothing connected to the pos batt terminal, and take the pos cable and connect it to the neg battery terminal, or the frame, or any other grounding point, you will not get a dead short (at least not on a '79 Jeep CJ7 or a '95 Ford F250 truck, tried both as guinea pigs). The video demonstrated a dead short from pos terminal to neg terminal. It the case we are talking about, nothing is connected to the pos terminal, so no short will result.
Regardless of if we can agree on this matter, and I do appreciate your input, let us return to my no-locky issue. Any other ideas before I head to the Stealership??
D@8K'

 

put one of the fabs into the ignition. then at the same time start the car and hold the unlock/lock switch until there is a ding ( about 10 seconds). try that. Sometimes it works, its just reprogramming the key.

 

The reason to disconnect the positive (+) last is if your wrench were to contact a metal part of the engine/body (negative -) sparks won't fly.

 

Jaque Mate: Thanks for the suggestion, tried it and it did not work. I will try a couple more times jsut to make sure I did it right.
bilk: Now that I can agree with. I was thinking about it last night and remembered a story a mechanic I used to work with who told me a story about a guy in the shop who was changing out a battery. As he disconnected the pos terminal, the nut on the terminal yielded to pressure, the wrench came around and his wedding ring came into contact with a fender brace. The ring was connected to the wrench, the wrench to the terminal and the neg to the ground. Given the excellent conductivity of gold, the ring lit up like a branding iron virtually instantly. They had to cut the ring off and the resulting burn scar made it where he didn't even have to wear the ring to look like he was wearing one! Like timfitz63 pointed out, removing the neg first sounds like good advice. D@8K'

 

One other VERY IMPORTANT note for you is also that there is a battery monitoring system on these cars. It can be damaged by incorrect battery disconnection procedures. And removing the positive first and bumping it against the chassis can cause this. It is rare but it can happen.

On these and many other Computer Controlled car the negative MUST be disconnected first so as to not cause any problems with the computer equipment. This will eliminate any difference in potential that can be caused by corroded cables and ground points which can cause can cause discharge of built up charge in the capacitors of the computer circuits possibly destroying them.

As to your original problem if it is not corrected by disconnecting the negative terminal for more than 30 minutes i would say you need to head to the dealer. they have ways of checking to see if the car is responding to or seeing the fob. If the fobs are sending out RF that does NOT mean that it is correct for the car in question. If the data in the RF is not correct then the car will not respond to it.

But i must admit that both fobs going bad at the same time seems very suspicious and leads me to believe that the problem is with the car and not the fobs.

 

So, I am yielding to peer pressure and now have the battery completely disconnected, neg first, then pos, both leads isolated from the body and each other. We will give it 30+ mins and see what happens. Hope for the best...Doug at 8000'

 

No change...Does anyone know if an Autologic scanner will figure this out?? Doug

 

Instead of waiting 30+ minutes when you disconnect the battery, just step on the brake pedal. The brake lights will drain any lingering charge and you can get right to testing.

 

Only in the Foot Well Module and not the others like the CCC and some others that will need to be bleed down.

But it also did not help the OP so he should head off to the dealer and they can check the coding in the fobs and the car to make sure they are seeing each other etc.

 

What does the CCC control? I'm guessing stuff like interior lights? If so just turn everything on. :D

It is definitely an interesting problem but I'm betting on module failure.

 

Foot Well Module controls lighting circuits. and pressing the brake does a great job for clearing that but not the rest of the computers.

CCC or Central Car Computer controls most other aspects of the car except the engine which has its own control modules that report back to the CCC for display purposes. There are other computers in the car but most of them are connected to the CCC somehow or another.

 

Update...Spoke with 2 service writers so far. Both were not overly helpful. Neither knew anything about the recurrent drain and both said they thought the car had just lost programming and didn't have any idea why that would happen. One is supposed to get me in touch with a tech. On the upside, my buddy with an Autologic sez he can test the remote receiver with it. Stay tuned...Doug

 

Update:
Went to dealership the Sat. It is a 400 mile round trip, but that's my problem for living in Mayberry..
They had the car for 4 hours. Replaced both fob batteries ( I told them I had done that, but that's what they did). They replaced the mirror with receiver from another car that they knew was working. As an aside, one service writer said the receiver was VIN specific and the one on the day the car went in said they were not. I assume the tech knew. They scanned the car. Nothing came up as the issue or fixed the problem.
Now they are saying that they think they need to order a fob (VIN specific) and try that. They did not try to re-address the existing fobs to the car. They say the car has to be hooked up to their computer and linked to the Mothership BMW America, in Virgina I think they said?) to assign the fob, and they do not know if you can re-address an old fob to the car that it was originally assigned to. They also say that they cannot get any intel on if this re-assignment of old keys is even a possibility unless they have the car hooked to the computer and they are linked to the Mothership. The tech seemed genuinely frustrated with this situation.
If I order a fob and it does not fix the issue, they say it is mine regardless, which I told them repeatedly that I was reluctant to buy a part that did not fix an issue. They say that there are 10 keys made for each car, giving the car owners 10 chances to lose keys of get more. After the 10 keys are used, a new computer has to be installed to get access to more keys...sounds strange, but that is what I was told. So if there are 8 more keys to my car sitting in a dusty box in the Tomb of Extra Keys, why can't they get one, try it and if it does not work, send it back, unless the key portal is only operational on way?? I have to wonder if the Mothership computer can only assign 10 keys as some sort of Bavarian Security System and after 10 assignments, the programming is no longer available.
So ultimately, I have to take the car back, make time for them to have the car for at lest 2 days, and MAYBE they can fix it.
I was not charged and they offered a loaner for the week if I wanted to leave it then, but they said they were super busy (they looked busy) and bringing it back in a couple weeks might be better. I can understand that a and appreciated their no charge/loaner offer.
Still looking for help and info, any additional info out there???
Doug

 

So I took the car to the dealer on Sat. After 3 hours with it, replacing the fob batteries, changing out the mirror (and replacing mine after the new mirror had no effect) and scanning the car, they still do not know why my remote lock/unlock won't work.
They are unsure if they can re-address my current keys to my car or if they have to go with new keys and address them. They currently are wanting to order a new key (which is VIN specific and I will have to buy regardless of if it resolves my issue). I was told that there are 10 keys available for any Mini, and after that, a new computer has to be put in the car to get more keys. Like they give you 10 chances to lose your keys and then you have to start over. I'm guessing that the Mini main computer in Virginia (?) can only assign 10 keys. It makes no sense that there are keys sitting in dusty boxes somewhere waiting to be purchased by forgetful Mini Owners.
They did not charge me and offered a loaner for a week. I went ahead and brought the car back home (200 miles each way) and will have to take it back for more diagnosis...does it have to be this hard??
Any input is appreciated, Doug

 

Sorry, that I can be of no help. I've been following this conversation and find it very interesting.
Please keep us posted and good luck to you.

 

Would highly suggest trying a Battery Tender before doing anything drastic.

Had similar issues with vert top not opening, comfort access only working some of the time and occasionally getting the "increased battery discharge" message. Took it to dealer first time with the vert top issue and all they could recommend was reprogramming the computer, but told me it would take several hours. Couldn't leave the car or stick around so I planned to do it next service. Next time I got the battery discharge message, I plugged in one of the Battery Tenders I have on hand for my motorcycles. Left it overnight to fully charge and the next day, everything was working as normal. When I went back for my annual, the service technician noted that this type of behavior is normal when the battery starts getting low. He said that with all the alarms, sensors and everything else, these cars' batteries drain fairly rapidly when just sitting for a day or two without a lot of longer drives to keep the battery recharged.

You can buy these everywhere, but just for reference:

http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender.../dp/B00068XCQU

 

Thanks for the ongoing support. I agree with the issues that low batteries can cause on these cars and have charged the battery on a low amperage charger to no avail, but thanks for the input.
I spoke with my wife last night reference "just when did this start". She told me it all began when she had to jump the car one day at work due to the battery drain issue. I quizzed her to see if she had perhaps crossed the jumper cables and brought his issue on, She swears she did not and is very mechanically inclined, so I have to believe her.
Regardless, you ought to be able to jump your car, if done correctly, and not have some strange and elusive issue come on. I know power surges can wreak havoc with new computer controlled cars, but she was using a jumper battery we keep around and was careful. Just does not seem right...
Anyway, I have searched and searched and have to conclude that there is no way to re-assign the keys to the car without the assistance of the BMW computer.
I asked the tech if he could look into the question of if the old keys (fobs actually) could be re-assigned to my car. He told me that the Mini Mothership (once again, Virginia??) HAD to be connected to he car via their dealership computer so they could "talk" to my car, and they would not even talk to him about issues unless the car was present and connected. He looked genuinely frustrated and I told him that was one of the more non-cooperative protocols for manufacturer/dealer/customer relation I had ever heard of.
Like I said earlier, I'm a mechanic by trade and while I don't have the computer to talk to my car to any major extent, I do understand what they are saying, and find it ridiculous.
I would really like to hear from someone who has had this same issue, there must be someone out there, but I sure can't find them on any of the other forums. Doug

 

I have tried the battery tender and low amperage charger approaches to no avail, but thanks for the suggestion.
I was told by a very frustrated looking tech that the Mini Mothership (once again, Virginia??) would not even talk to him unless the car was hooked to their computer via the dealership computer. Seems like a very non-cooperative troubleshooting protocol for a manufacturer/dealer relationship. I know it sure looked like it frustrated the tech.
I have to think someone out there has had this same problem, but I sure can't find anyone who has had the same issues I'm having.
I know this all started when my wife had to jump the car due to the battery drain issue. She used a jumper battery we keep around and is very mechanically inclined and swears the cables did not get crossed. I have to believe her. Seems like you should be able to jump your car off without opening a can of worms like this.
To add insult to injury, while in "the City" the car took a door ding while in a parking lot...talk about frustrating!
Thanks for the support, Doug