Hi, I just purchased a 2008 Mini Cooper S. I replaced my parking lights to brighter LED ones and now my warning light on the dashboard is on. Does anyone know how I can clear that or what lights i can purchase to avoid having this light on my dashboard? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

By parking lights I assume you are talking about the upper bulb in the fog light housing correct?

You have three options if you want to keep your LED bulbs without the error light.

The cheapest option is going to be a set of RESISTORS. They're the cheapest and worst solution. They definitely work but they get pretty warm and they're just not ideal. Thousands of people drive around with these on their cars with no problem tho. I used to run them on my old car and never had any problem. They have a wire sticking out of either end, each wire gets spliced into one of the two wires going to the LED bulb. It basically increases the load on the wire fooling the car into thinking nothing has changed.


The second solution is to get a set of CANBUS proof bulbs. Here's a set of 5K White and a set of Amber. Not sure what color you're after. I've never used these but many, many people have. They bulbs basically draw enough power to not need a resistor. I believe these will work for you. If not, v-leds has a great return policy.


The third option is to keep your current LED bulbs and "code out" the error. There's a program called NCS Expert which can enable/disable factory options on your car. Search NAM for "NCS Expert" to find out more. This method will just tell the car to stop checking for burnt out bulbs and will turn off any bulb-out warnings. You can pick and choose which bulbs to do this for so you can disable the checks for your parking lights but keep the check on for your taillights if you'd like. You can also enable a lot of other cool things with NCS Expert such as one touch open/close sunroof, enable alarm light on tach, disable door gong, etc. It would probably be easiest to find someone in your area you can pay to do this for you as it requires the investment of a $100 cable to get started. I offer this service in the Los Angeles area.

 

thanks call for help!

ive tried searching for the NCS Expert but where can i purchase the cable from? Or how would i even go about finding someone in the NJ/NY area who can program this for me?

 

No problem.

Cable you need:
HERE
Do NOT buy a cheaper cable on eBay or Amazon. Every other cable out there is incompatible. This is the only cable users have found to actually work.

NCS Expert threads:
-NCS For Beginners
-NCS Expert DIY
-NCS Expert Comlete DIY

Here's a directory of people who offer coding. Just browse through to find someone in your area then PM or email them.
NCS Expert Directory

 

Hey Folks,
'Not sure if this is the place to post this question on existing threads so moderators feel free to move it.
We would like to add some visibility to our son's 2012 Cooper Hatchback with some more powerful lamps in the parking lights with the existing harness if possible. His MINI doesn't have the optional fog lights, just the upper area of the light, (eyelid), is lit with some pretty dim lamps.
Anyone have any vendor suggestions for some brighter, (LEDs maybe), replacement lamps would be greatly appreciated. I know the Out Motoring site is expecting some replacement/upgrade lamps sometime in the future.
Anyway, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
. . .Burkey