We are proud owners of a 2009 stock Clubman (auto, cold weather package). Two months ago, I did my typical commute (120 miles r/t) to the office. I drove the car at lunchtime, but when I went to leave a couple hours later, it was dead. The doors unlocked with the key fob, but when I inserted the key and hit the ignition it was dead to the world. No *click* nothing. A coworker gave me a jump, and after about 15 minutes of charging the car started, and I drove home thinking I had a battery issue. It ran fine thereafter, starting everytime without issue.

Fast forward a few weeks - the wife and kids load in the Clubman to go run errands, DEAD! The car had just been driven hours before. Had Mini Roadside tow the car to the dealer, they kept it overnight and claimed that possibly the ipod cable caused some battery drain (?!). Dealer did scheduled maintainance, front pads, etc.

Two weeks ago, same thing. I walked out of my office about three hours after having driven the car and it was DEAD! AGAIN! The battery was drained, again. Same coworker gave me a jump, it took 15 minutes to get up enough charge to turn the car over. Drove the car to the dealer and left it.

The dealer is claiming that the car isn't going into "sleep mode" when the key is removed. They don't have a solution yet. We purchased this car from the dealer as a (used, 18k lease return, loaner used by the service department, so it had always been in their hands). We have documented these events with MINI USA and they have a file open on our car.

At all other times this Clubman has been a gem! Perfect car for our purposes. But it not starting, at random and without warning, is freaking us out! Not good with little kids, late night gigs, etc.

Any ideas?

 

It does sound like the sleep mode is the issue. Next suspect is a bad battery or a bad battery cable. There are certain reasons why the car will not go into sleep mode. The dealer should be able to track them down eventually. There is a defective module somewhere that is keeping the car awake, like the radio for example. If you press the power button on the radio it will wake the car up and turn on the radio. According to the WDS there is supposed to be protection from draining the battery by forcing non essential modules to sleep when the voltage drops too low. It is really frustrating to have a modern car with these million computers not be able to conserve enough power to start.

Honestly, the battery is the first place to start. BMW's modules really don't function right when the battery is not working right. The dealer here struggled with my relative's 645i's systems for three weeks replacing numerous $1500 modules only to determine the battery was defective even after it passed their tests. Hopefully you are under warranty, they should be able to figure it out, but it may take some time.

The dealer should not be giving the car back to you until they do some real work on the car to try to fix it. They should be offering a loaner to you as they work on your car. And at the point they think they got it fixed I would recommend bringing an emergency jump starter around for a little while to avoid getting stranded.

Don't worry too much, because once they get the defective part(s) replaced you should not have any more trouble with the car!

 

Hopefully the dealer will have this fixed for you soon. In the meantime, I hope you have a nice loaner to zip around in?

Good luck!

I see this is your first post, so...

 

Just an update, we are three weeks at the dealer now. We are hopeful that our problem has been isolated and is being tracked down to a specific module. I'm happy they're taking the time to fix whatever problem there is, I really don't want to car back otherwise. Taking this issue up with MINI USA has revealed that there was an issue with this vehicle before it was sold to us. Too bad it wasn't disclosed to us before we purchased. The dealer was very kind in providing us with a 2009 Clubman S. However, I miss the mileage of my stock Clubman. I'll update when we finally get our car back.

 

Great! I am glad you have a loner to use during the repair process and the dealer is making an effort to fix the issue.