This is a little long winded, but has a point, so please read on .... I have a 2003 MCS which went in for an Inspection 2 at 100,000km (62,000miles). Winter was fast approaching up here in Canada, so it doubled up as a pre-winter check. The service department told me that my rear license plate lights were not working. Looking at the lens cover, they assumed that it was water ingress from a modified wing that I have fitted. They did not even look inside !!!!!!

When I got the Mini home, I decided to do some digging of my own to find the cause of the problem before blindly replacing a component that will only fail again in time

The first thing that I checked was the sealing of the modified wing …. No problem there, the silicon sealant was intact at the mating face with the rear hatch door and at the fillet join between the original wing and the addition



Secondly, I looked at the lens covers and found that the inside was wet, but the outside was bone dry. The seals were intact and there were no cracks in the casing. The terminals that hold the filaments were all but completely corroded away

The next place to look was the rear screen washer system and BINGO, I found the problem. The rear screen washer hose was leaking internally into the wiper gearbox and out onto the rear door plastic cover. Gravity did the rest and the washer fluid made its way down to the rear license plate light units. There was a trail of rusty coloured fluid down the inside of the wiper motor casing

The reason that I have posted this is that you will not know that you have a problem UNTIL you go to replace the rear license plate filaments …. By then it will probably be too late. The rear hatch plastic trim covering the rear wiper unit is not difficult to remove and is well worth checking