Actually from what i understand, the lighter socket (at least the front one), is off unless the car is started. This is a "feature" and even in cars without comfort access, they work that way.

 

I need to go out to my car and check, but seriously, I only remember one real **** and if I have the radio on tuner, it changes the channel, if it's on cd, it changes the track and if it's on aux, it does nothing.

 

Nope--you've got 2. You're turning the wrong one!

 

Alrighty then, I'm a total noob and I guess I'll just have to leave the office now and go check it out.

Funny, I could hook my sat. radio up to the antennae connection under the passenger seat, but can't find a volume ****.

 

Ah, but what you DID find was MINI's version of the BMW I-Drive!

 

Okay, after getting in my car, I, of course, immediately noticed said second ****. Pretty foolish I know, but I didn't notice it before. It's a little inconspicuous I think. You would think the smaller speaker and larger speaker graphic on either side would be a dead giveaway, but I guess it wasn't obvious enough for me ;-)

 

Don't feel bad, I am still grabbing the wrong ****, long after knowing better.

 

I didn't know my automatic wipers aren't automatic. It rained yesterday for the first time since I've picked up my car and I realized that I have no idea how to get the so-called automatic wipers to work. I skipped out to my car, started it, and sat there waiting for the wipers to kick on. The manual just adds confusion. The only settings I can get are manual: too fast and really too fast. Hmmm.

 

If you do have AUTO wipers it one pull up. Then its in auto mode. It will very the speed of the wipers on rain fall on the windshield and speed of the car. One thing that it does not do is it remember the setting. So once the car is turned off the auto mode is off also.

 

Well, I supposedly do have Auto Wipers (at least I paid for it and it comes with Auto Headlights which I do have). I read the manual and when I do one pull up, I get "too fast" which keeps going at a pretty regular rate (although depends on speed of car) and keeps going even if there's no more rain. I was led to believe that auto wipers would self regulate their speed to the amount of the rain and that is certainly not happening here. I don't see anything "automatic" about it.

Hopefully it will rain again soon, so I can try it again. It's kinda hard to examine the stalk and refer to the manual while driving in the rain and dark.

 

On the newer build cars, there is now a setting on the OBC to control the speed of the auto wipers. We have it on our new MCS (week 34 build), but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet (and we do indeed have auto wipers). Thus, maybe you just need to slow down the rate of the auto wipers using that setting???

There's also a push button for controlling the wipers on the very tip of the wiper stalk that our MA said is new as well (i.e. the early build 07's don't have it). Again though, I haven't messed with it (since it hardly ever rains in So CA) and so I don't really know what it does either.

Starting to wonder why the wipers have all these crazy settings??? On my 1st gen MINI with auto wipers you simply turn the wiper setting in to auto mode (just as you do with the headlamps) and they work great. Now I have to read the darn owner's manual just to figure all this silly stuff out. Oh, and BTW, I just checked and it looks like the owner's manual hasn't even been updated to reflect all of the new settings yet. Thus, MINI sold me a car with a bunch of undocumented features and I'll never be able to get my wipers working now.

 

don't push it all the way up though or you'll go into high speed. Just up about halfway. don't go past the click.

 

Ok. You don't push the stalk up AT ALL for automatic wipers on the newer cars. You just push in the button on the end of the stalk and that 'activates' them. You have to do it everytime you start the car though, they don't stay on auto forever.

Close examination of the end of the stalk in the cold morning light reveals a very tiny little wiper graphic with a wee 'A' next to it. Eureka. You press it in, and the wipers go once, and you are activated. I kept pressing it and since it wiped once, I thought it was the one wipe thing which you also get when you depress the stalk briefly.

The manual is totally wrong.

 

I didn't know the dealer was going to ask $1070 to install Sirius.

 

Are you talking about a late build 07 MINI? If so the button on the end of the stalk must be something new.

 

Yes, that's what I mentioned too... The little button on the end of the wiper stalk is indeed something new that only the later build 07's have. Our week 34 build MCS has the auto wiper button on the end of the wiper stalk (and no mention of it in the owner's manual).

@pjo1966,

Thanks for the description of how the little button works. I'll have to go and check it out (before it actually begins raining).

 

Yep, mine is a week 34/35 build. I think they started it somewhere in the 30's. The manual has the old info. Now I'm glad I got auto wipers, because even the slow setting is too fast, I think.

 

wooo hooo I get my car next weekend!

 

Wooo hooo! Congratulations, you're gonna love it!

 

I didn't know there was going to be an additional sun visor on the drivers side.

 

Yeah it's nice. Too bad there isn't one on the passenger side, my wife is jealous!

 

You could always just let her drive . . . wait what am i thinking!

 

I didn't know that if I posted a gripe about some feature of my MINI I didn't like, that I would be attacked like I was insulting someone's wife...

 

it's secretly a transformer

 

If your tire pressure monitoring system throws a code (even erroneous as tire pressures were within 1/2 lb of recommended) you can not reset the trip odometer.