Hello everyone. I have recently purchased a low-mileage R59 Cooper S in very good condition. The top looks still 100% new. This Mini was someone's weekend car. The car is Eclipse Grey with black interior. My experience is with mostly VW and Audi cars and this is my first Mini/BMW. I generally do all maintenance and repairs as much as possible myself. This new-to-me R59 has been maintained well but will soon require rear brakes and a new battery. Judging by the videos I have watched a brake job is very similar to what i am used to working on. And here comes my first question regarding battery replacement. This is still the original battery, going on 8 years old. I wonder whether I can simply replace the battery on my car or if the ECU must have the battery specs programmed to allow proper charging. I read in a post that one can tell by what is connected to the battery poles. I have attached a picture of the battery below. Is that the negative terminal connector with IBS? Thank you for any input!

 

Hi. Nice purchase!

Well, you'll be able to swap the battery however when you change the battery it is usually preferable to reset the battery adaptation.
I have the Scwhaben scanner and was able to do a reset myself with it when I changed the battery.

Believe it or not the computer record the health of the battery so it adapts to the battery aging in order to make it last a little longer and keep the charge optimum (I think).
So if you just swap the battery without resetting the adaptation it might treat the new battery like it does the old one. Likely not a big deal. Just not the best. That's just my guess...
Reseting the adaptation isn't a difficult procedure, but I agree it's annoying having to have some special equipment or go to the dealer for that! it should be part of the consol setting in my opinion as it should be treated as a general maintenance item.

PS: I actually had a hard time finding a battery replacement with similar specs when I changed ours. I'll have to dig in what I got...

Edit:
I found what I got the last time. It's the Duracell SLI48AGM which is made by East Penn. It's been a reliable battery so far.

 

Welcome! Your R59 looks just like mine. Congrats! The previous owner had a Diehard H5-AGM battery installed. I recently replaced it with the same battery. After research on our forum, I replaced it myself and reset using the Carly device. Works so far and I haven't gotten a low battery warning in about 6 months.

 

I thank you both for your replies!

 

this is a BMW IBS .... looks like what I see on your battery. My 15 R59 for sure has IBS.

Unfortunately a dealer will charge as much as $100 for this 'coding' .... This OBD scanner with the BMW/MINI special load will do the job and can be worth the $160

https://www.foxwelltool.com/wholesal...installed.html

you can load additional make's 'special loads' as well (at a price)

 

Worth calling around independent MINI/BMW shops to see if they can do the reset. I found one near me that did it for $15.