Am I the only person that thinks having the message "Rear license plate lamp malfunction" show up on the Nav and a light bulb icon show up on the tach are signs that Minis are "over-engineered"? The way you can tell it's German engineering is that there is a circuit and two displays to detect and report this fault, but no mechanism to defeat the alert, short I suppose, of going to a Mini dealer to buy a 23 cent light bulb for 10 dollars (+ $125/hr labour).

The things we have to endure for delirious glee around sharp corners.

 

No different then a Porsche or any other fine engineered car for that matter. Its something we learn to either fix ourselves to save money, or learn to live with and go to the dealer or a good shop

 

Ha, that's a very good observation! It certainly has made me want to know how to fix anything that goes wrong with the car and do it myself.

 

A friend of mine once asked if he should buy a lightly used early 90's Porsche 928s (knowing that I had sold Porsche's for 15 years). Having only owned Japanese cars before, I promptly replied "f@$k no"! He bought it anyway and two weeks later called to complain that the drivers window switch only worked occasionally and the clock didn't keep time. I just hung up the phone!

 

fix it yourself, its easy. light bulbs part of maintenance plan ? fixed mine at dealership n/c

 

i keep spare lights in the glove box just for that lil bast@rd light

 

If you think German Engineering is too complex, look at some of the British engineering solutions in the old Leyland produced products. At least the German solutions work.

 

Honestly I'd rather have my car tell me the plate light is out then a state trooper or some local person in blue. Saves time, paper work and It really is no fun to be pulled over in the middle of the night for such a dumb thing as the plate light bulb burned out but here in North Fl they will pull you for it . Ask me how I know!
I do not find the warning lamp as complex as a warning ticket that has to be followed up with proof of a fix, sorry.
OP why in the world would you have to take your car to the dealer to replace a burned out plate bulb? Why would you want a way to turn off warning lamps if the problem is not fixed? Sorry just do not get it. So no I do not think this feature is a sign the car is "over-engineered" .



JohnNJohn

 

You want complicated? Buy a Mercedes, what a pita!

These cars are basic compared to those things!

 

The reason that I want to silence the alarm is that every time I start the car and every time I shut the car off I get a gong and a message which sticks, especially on the bottom of my nav screen. The gong is annoying since it is only telling me what I already know about a (FL state troopers notwithstanding) non-critical fault. The message is annoying because it prevents more useful information from being displayed when I start the car.

I call this over-engineered because not only is there a fault detection circuit for an irrelevant feature, but also software in place to bring the findings of this circuit to my attention in two different places. Perhaps if the German engineers who worked so hard on the license plate lamp fault alarm had instead walked over to the next row of cubicles to help their colleagues, MINIs wouldn't have a cold start problem?

 

Two replacement bulbs: $2.50
1 small flat tip scredriver: right in the tool box
Time to replace the bulb: 5 minutes
Piece of mind that it's fix: Priceless

Seriously, we are still talking about this?

 

Ditto, ditto, ditto. I'm starting to think people on this forum are running out of things to complain about. The reason I bought two of these cars is because I so admire German efficiency and dependability.

 

Having owned two BMW's (counting the Mini) and 2 Audi's the answer is absolutely yes! German engineers just can't help themselves. Just look at all the "logic" used in simple tasks like closing a door (window dippers).

There is no simple fast forward or reverse on the CD player but it automatically remembers to go to the beginning of a track when started (even though I am listening to an audio book and DO NOT WANT IT TO!).

From door lock and power window logic, to windshield wiper speeds (they drop down one speed when the car is stopped - that's really important) many things seem done just because they can be done. Honest I would have bought the car if they didn't do that.

They do make all the added complexity fairly reliable, but if it wasn't there at all reliability wouldn't be an issue to begin with.

If you want a German car, and many do, you just get used to it.

 

Dont get me wrong here, i am a big fan of the 928 and also worked at a all Porsche shop for 10 years. The 928 was with out a doubt one of my favs, but the techs hated them, we use to have pools to see who would get stuck working on them. Very few good ones out there, only the GTS was really worth anything from what we saw.

 

fix the bulb.

Really, this isn't just German cars per se, but once things are run by computers, you get circuits that are bulb aware for free, pretty much. So the body control module knows what bulbs are out. There are American cars that have the same features, there are Japanese cars that have the same stuff. It's the nature of the beast.

Now that most people pump thier own gas and maintenance intervals get longer and longer, no one is really checking this stuff. So the car can tell you. And that's a problem?

Matt

 

Way Too Complicated? Welcome to the 21st Century.

 

German engineering complicated? Nahhh!