Sorry for creating a new thread but I couldn't find the old ones on this subject (I'm working on a Blackberry)...

I stopped by my MINI dealer yesterday (1/24/08) to inquire about illuminated door sills. Having read abour them here, I was expecting around $600. I had to pick my jaw off the floor when they told me $835.00.

I got the price in two parts (1) Parts wanted $335, and (2) Service wanted 4 hours at $125/hr. I really like the idea of the illuminated sills, but that is a whole lot of money for a few glowing letters. BTW - the quoted parts price was for "MINI Cooper" which was a few dollars more than just "MINI." If I was going to pay for the mod, I wanted more than just four letters.

What surprized me more than their price, however, was the Service Advisor's appearant lack of knowledge about the car and the mod itself. He said I was the first person ever to ask about this mod at their shop. He also did not know "if power had been installed in my car" to allow the installation.

Has anyone had experience with MINI dealers in southern California? Perhaps one that would have a better price? I'm also guessing that for that amount of money, it would be possible to find a custom shop that could do a fancier job for less money. Any recommendations?

 

Here is the best price I could find on the JCW ones.
http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...catalogid=3751

 

I had mine done before I picked up the car, so I was able to negotiate the price down a bit, but yeah, they're pretty spendy. You might want to try buying the parts from one of the two dealers that offer a discount on parts (Classic MINI in Cleveland, or Morristown MINI in NJ) and then either do the install yourself, or call around to various SoCal dealers (since you're lucky enough to have a state w/ plenty) and see what their install rate would be.

They're very cool, but not $835 cool.

 

I have OEM illuminated door sills in my MINI (the JCW version). It was very pricey to install... because apparently it's a lot of work. They even have to drill holes to run wires & stuff. I talked to the tech that installed them, and he said mine were the first that they had installed. He said it was a LOT more work than he expected.

Mind you, my car is an R53, so the install may be a bit different for the R56, but I just wanted to indicate that it really isn't "plug and play".Yeah, but those are for the R53 (those are actually the exact door sills I have). The OP has an R56, judging by the location of this thread.

 

My mistake on the second generation door sills......

 

Heh - they're probably 95% the same design & parts anyway. If anything changed, it was probably just the exact measurements for a proper fit on the new model.

Useless trivia: For some silly reason, JCW decided to name this product "Illuminated Entry Strips" on their website - hence IES in my signature.

 

I considered them on my MINI. Was quoted around $600 from Otto's MINI.

Price aside, my issue with them is that (at the time at least) they are only available for the older design sills. Not the ~week 32+ "checkered" ones.

 

Thanks everyone for the responses. I'm not yet sure which route I'll take to get there, but it is quite likely that I will continue to pursue this until I get a set of IES installed. Does anyone have a few photos of the illuminated sills available. The few promo shots that I have seen look great but it would be helpful to see a real install also. Thanks again!

 

Difficult to take a pic at night with a mobile phone, but it should give you an idea. They are nice, make a high quality impression on me.
The car has been upgraded to Works kit I, Works brakes and steering wheel, so I thought the door sills would be nice as well
Regards, Alex

 

I don't have experience with doing this on a MINI, but from other cars it is possible to install yourself. Basically the directions just say to tap into the dome light, so when the doors open and close they will turn on and off with it. The wires were pretty easy to tuck and hide...

 

It really doesn't seem that it would be that difficult. Just like Salty said, tap it into the dome and tuck the wires. Maybe a little bit of drilling, but if you can install an amp, I'm sure you could do the door sills yourself. And then pay yourself $125/hr and buy some more mods!

 

Installation may end up being a little harder than you think. There's more to those sill-plates than a couple if leds on a pair of wires. Check this link for installation instructions: http://motoringfile.com/files/illuminated_door_sill.pdf

 

Ok so it's a little more involved, but still not much harder looking than installing an amp, or some driving lights. I still say you can manage it and save some money for other mods. Just my 2 cents.

 

I had to replace one of my non lighted door sills after denting one of them. The biggest problem I had was removing the old glue. Acetone and paint thinner took about 2 hours to get the sill clean to apply the new one. I bet a good portion of the dealers labor is removing the old ones.

 

I ordered a set of the generic MINI lighted sills from Classic Mini in Ohio for my 08 MCa. They were $215 and some change with the NAM discount. The problem is that they didn't come with instructions. I found instructions online for installation on a R53 but i would imagine that the conections are a little different on a R56. Doesn't look too difficult to install if I had the proper instructions but it does seem like a minimum 3.5 hour job.

I also ordered the bracket for the portable Garmin Navi system and that didn't come with instructions either. It was $140.00 from Classic with the NAM discount. Fortunately I was able to download the proper instructions online.

 

I installed illuminated sills on my Mercedes. I did the work myself, and after doing it, I told myself I would gladly pay someone else to do it on any future car I put them on. While it's not terrible difficult if you're mechanically inclined, it's quite a bit of work and can be very aggravating at times.

 

after reading this thread im glad i went with the non iluminated jcw sills as opposed to the illuminated ones. they sure look cool but is it really worth it for that much £$£$££$£!!!!

 

Last night I took on the task of installing my lighted sills. The instructions I found were all for earlier models. On the R56 the only big differance is where to attach the power and signal leads. The hardest one to find was on the drivers side footwell, the connector with the lead I needed to tap into (X14260 pin35 brown/yellow) was deep under the edge of the dead pedal. The control module that this connector is on was pretty easy to remove from its' mounting studs and slide out far enough to make the connection.
The power lead (red) got spliced into the violet and grey wire comming off pin 8 connection x11007. This is part of the fuse panel on the passenger side.

The total time from start to finish was 2 1/2 hours.

 

Thanks for the valuable info GG. I think Mini/BMW purposely doesn't put instructions in because they want you to get ripped off by the dealer. Some of us do have the skills to do this type of work if we have decent instructions. How difficult was it to remove the lower interior panels? Are they installed with clips? I'm thinking I may go ahead and install mine next weekend. The dealer wanted $650 labor to install. I almost puked. When he told me that, I stuck them in a closet and figured sooner or later someone here would figure out where to make the power connections and post. You are the man!!!!! I hear they look awesome so I can't wait to get mine in now.

 

The lower interior panels are just held in with clips, If you pull the weatherstripping up you can see several of them, they are white plastic and pull straight out. The top edge at the back is a little tricky because it snaps into the back of the piece above it (back arm rest) to release it you have to push the lower trim in while pulling outward on the piece above it.
BTW the old sill plates came up pretty quick using some very thin piano wire. and the horrible glue residue cleaned up really fast using a Scotch-brite pad dipped in laquer thinner.

 

Following Getting Grey's lead and terfiffic connection instructions, I finally decided to tackle installing my illuminated door sills. I got a great deal on some basic MINI lighted sills from Classic Mini but my dealer wanted $650.00 to install. I was able to download the PDF install instructions for the R50 and these helped with giving me a general idea of what needed to be done but the R50 has the fuse panel on the driver's side and of course the circuits that you would connect the power and control wires to are different. Well GG solved that mystery so I got to work.

First off, I disconnected the negative battery cable so that I didn't fry myself during this process .

First you have to pull the rubber door seal out to expose the lower sill panels. I was expecting the seal to be held in place by some sort of adhesive but it is just held in with friction. Once you expose the lower door sill panels you can basically just slowly pry them out as they are held in by clips. A T-50 Torx bit is required to remove the lower seat belt anchors which secure the back end of the lower sill panels.

Removing the existing sills was very easy as I just stuck a slot screwdriver under the edge to pry it up then just pulled it up. There was some residue from the double sided adhesive tape that is used to secure the existing sills . Removal of that required lightly saturating it with some Goo Gone. I let it set for about 15 minutes then came back with a razor blade and it came right up. I then cleaned the area with some alcohol.

I started on the passenger side of the car first

The next step was to drill the holes to run the wire coming out of the new door sills into the car. An 8mm bit is required but it is a good idea to use a smaller bit to drill a pilot hole. When drilling the inside sill you actually have to drill through two layers of sheet metal. It is very important to keep your drill level to keep your holes lined up. The hole going through the outer sill where the new sills are attached only has to go through one layer of sheet metal but must be lined up with the holes you drilled on the inner sill. You also have to open up the hole on the black plastic part of the outer sill in a slightly larger size to accomodate a grommit that is put in the hole of the sheet metal on the inner and outer sills. The grommits prevent the wires from coming in contact with the sharp edge of the sheet metal. The outer sill is secured in place with four clips that you have to twist 90 degrees to allow you to pull up the outer sill to drill your hole through. Now the tricky part, getting the door sill wires through all three holes. To accomplish this I used a zip tie with a opened up paper clip looped through the open end of the zip tie. The paper clip end is pushed into the inside sill holes. When I saw the tip end of the paper clip appear in the outer sill hole, I wiggled the tip up enough towards the hole so that I could grab it with needle nose pliers. I then pulled the clip up through the hole until the open end of the zip came through the hole. Before moving on to the next step, I vacuumed up all of the loose metal shavings from drilling the holes.

Before attaching the sill wires to the zip tie that was protruding through the hole of the outer sill, I slipped one of the grommits over the sill wire. I then attached the lead ends of the sill wire to the zip tie with electrical tape and pulled on the zip tie from the inside sill until the sill wires appeared through the hole. I then pushed the rubber grommits into the holes so that the wires would be safe from coming in contact with the sheet metal. The same process was repeated on the drivers side. I then opened up the wire harness that came with the sill kit and spread the wires out so that I had the proper wires going to the appropriate sides of the car. On the drivers side, I had to remove the lower side panel that is attached to the center dash stack and also the lower dash panel under the steering wheel. The removal of these pieces required a torx-20 bit. I then ran the red power lead end and passenger side sill connection up behind the dash and over to the fuse panel and sill wire. I then made the sill connection and attached the red power lead to the violet/grey wire located in pin 8 of the blue connector on the fuse panel using the provided self-piercing wire connectors. On the drivers side, I made the sill connection, removed the control module from the two studs holding it in place, disconnected the lower wire harness, located the brown/yellow wire located in pin 35 and connected the red/black control wire to the b/y wire using the self-piercing connector. Finally, I attached the brown ground wire to the grounding clip attached to the inner lower door sill. Before securing all wires and buttoning everything back up, I reconnected the negative battery cable and SUCCESS, my sills were glowing.

Finally, I put everything back together and cleaned up my car.

Overall the install wasn't that difficult but it did take me 4 1/2 hours due to the fact that I took my time with the installation so that I didn't make any mistakes. Now that I've done it I feel I could easily shave 2 hours off the install time.

These things look awesome. I do kind of wish that I had gone with the sills that said MINI COOPER instead of just plain MINI, but hey I was trying to save some $$$ because I thought I was going to have to pay for installation.

I do have pics of the install and finished product but due to picture restrictions, I can only upload 3 pics to this thread. If you are thinking about doing this yourself and would like to see some more installation pics, PM me and I'll gladly send you more pics.

 

The finished product.

 

Looks good!

You guys are much braver than I am. Or I'm just lazy. Probably both.

A side note: whenever I've ordered anything from Classic MINI they've always been more than happy to email me the instructions, I've just had to send off an email asking for them.

 

Due to the crash in my prior MINI I was not well enough to get my head twisted under the dash to tuck in the wiring. But after staring at the box with these awesome looking sill plates in it I finally went for it. The helpful instructions from Motoringfile plus the tips from Russkeys (Thanks a lot!) as well as reviewing the Bentley wiring schematics made the job easy enough. Took the greater part of a day but it was easily worth doing myself rather than asking the dealer to charge me for the work. Check out the photos and decide for yourself, I think they really upgrade the look. (Now I think I want to change the interior lighting color....hmmmmm)

 

Hello, i have installed my illuminated door sills but i have a problem for a connection.. i don't found where i can connect the red wire on left driver side.. i have a bow with differents big connectors but i don't know if its here to connect the red wire.. if somebody have a pics and explications it's very cool.. i'm french and i speak a little english
thank you