I held down the trip odometer reset button when I was on the main tach screen (forgot you have to use the turnsignal button first). Nothing happened so I kept holding it and lo and behold the VIN comes up. Push it again and the build date, BMW part number, and some coordinate location (?). I can't find the "things you didn't know about your mini" thread anymore or I'd post in that.

Cool!

Very cool.

Linky to the thread

Yes I just tried mine, and it works. if you continue to play aruond with that button you can get into quite a few areas of interest. I think you have unwittingly unlocked one of the inner secrets of the Mini computer system. spread the word.!!

Nice. Thanks for posting that.

Great find!

Next we need to hack this thing!

Let me know when you figure out how to return the burble.

oh coolness!! i kept hittin the button and it showed empty preset slots (i guess)... i bet this is where all our new cool shiznite gets put... excited am i... i like the IP TEST tho... makes all the lights come on and all the gauges go all the way up and back down again... neat... :-D

Cool, mine was built 19 Dec 06 . . .

They should put the happy b'day jingle into the ECU

A transcription and some guesses about translation:

01.00 VIN

01.01 K-NUM OD/SP

01.02 BMW PART NO

01.03 COD DIA

01.04 IP PROD DATE [date of conception?]

01.05 HW CHNG IDX

01.06 SW [software version?]

01.07 CODING DAT

01.08 CAN [regional variant = Canadian?]

Oh, and first of all: what seems to be a couple of icons indicating the first service / oil change date.

I cant find the IP TEST all I get is VIN, Build Date, SW Version, etc

:-/ suck... try holding it, wait till the vin stuff comes up, then let go and push and hold again... if IP TEST pops up, let go and then tap the button once...

Wonder if there's any pattern to the software version. Mine shows "73.51.00" for a March 5 build date.

What does it show for the rest of you R56 owners?

Owners with the Nav system...I burned a data DVD and tried it out on the regular CD player...as I figured, it didn't work. Then I took out the Nav DVD and replaced it with the audio DVD and it played it! 4+ gigs...that's like like having a NANO!

Sorry about the post...i had a couple of windows open and posted this in the wrong one!

I am guessing CAN is the CAN Bus version (if they still use that in this Mini). Most all of the body software modules use this bus to communicate to each other.

Don't mean to bump for no good reason, but are we sure IP PROD DATE is actually the build date, or when it got into the system? Min says 20.12.2006, and I know I ordered mine around that time, but that seems a bit old.

Although, that may be right. I picked it up in late February.

[edit]

Well, I can see from a post I made here that I ordered it on 23 December 2006, so it looks like it was already queued up somewhat.

So it would seem the build date here doesn't mean the day it was finished, but the day something got started.

My MA told me they didn't start building the US '07s until January.

I don't think it is the production date, Skeeter was built over two months after the date his system shows.

my date is bang on from what my MA told me. Now, playing around with this tonight. Go to #19.00 and let it sit for a second. It will say
LOCK:ON
SET:00
if you push the button again the SET # will change and go up to I think 43. I have no idea what that does, and I played with a bit and nothing really changed.

Well that's the info I have.

My production date was 12/12/06
Software 78.50.00 (probably not be the original since I had the MFSW added and they had to reflash it)

if you keep going thru it, you will get to 19._ _. Drop into it and it will say
"LOCK:ON". Does anyone know how to unlock it? It used to be simple as lock and unlock on my Z3.

What a coincidence this thread is! Just this afternoon I also took 15 minutes and got into the CPU the same way and noted the many "empty" menus (after 1.xx and 2.xx, the rest do not display a name).

There are of course programmable menus there and the trick must be getting 19.xx to read "unlock" rather than the default "lock", as you say R56mini.

This is where we need some help from R50/R53 guys that played around with the CPU settings!

Yes, on my Z3 I was able to unlock and go to #20 and tweak numbers so that the MPG was accurate.