So the 04 Cooper just up and died yesterday, and of course it wasn't in the driveway at the time. No advanced warning either.

It was doing the weirdest things after it died- driver window would stutter its way down when the key was in the on position, gauges flashing, and a switch (?) (marked with an engine symbol) in the fusebox would click away on it's own. Of course the engine wouldn't turn over. Managed to jump start it with the battery from my truck and it ran fine on the way home- but with the engine light on. Would not restart.

Put a OBD II reader on it today and it gave me a P1692 and a P0500 code. Battery shows 12.3 volts

Any ideas where I should start to look?

Car has just over 100K kilometres on it and the only thing I've had to replace are the tires, brakes, plugs and air filter.

RC

 

P1692 is considered a safety level code.
Electronic Throttle Control Monitor Level 2/3 Motorized Throttle Control and Fuel Injection Switch Off 'A'

The fuel injector cut-off would be ECM controlled. Meaning it deactivated an injector due to a fault, malfunction in engine speed limitation or engine speed control, (fault in electronic throttle module).

This is a hard code to "define" exactly without the vehicle present. There will be information stored with the code that points to the fault.

P0500 is a faulty speed sensor

 

Thanks on that.

So can a reader recover that info or does that require a more specialized piece of equipment?

I'm guessing this little issue is not a DIY and is going to be expensive....

RC

 

No a simple code reader won't cover that you'll need an enhanced diagnostic reader. Before you take it anywhere I would run a compression check on all four cylinders since this code has come up for blown head gaskets in the past.

 

I'll do that. Thanks.

 

Just an update in case any one is interested. Compression was fine but the weird electrical quirks were bothering me so I started to look for bad grounds, broken wire, etc. Finally decided to swap out a different battery from another vehicle and "viola" the beast roared to life like nothing was ever wrong.

The old battery showed 12.3 V and 630 amps, but when put under load it produced a whopping 68 amps. So off to the battery store and things are good again.

RC

 

Good thinking to check that.
Inexpensive repair. You have to like that.

Pat