I purchased a 2004 Mini Cooper w/75k miles Used last October. In April (10) I started up and took off and noticed I had no power steering. I learned the pump was probably bad and it was $1,000 to replace. I had to park the mini and drive my Altima since I was trying ot buy a house and no $$ for the Mini Repair. One day I got in took off and the power steering worked just fine. Today (7/17/10) my mini drove fine all day until this evening. I went to start..nothing..tried to jump and it won't even take a jump start. Has anyone had this problem or any idea what might be wrong?

 

run-on condition?

maybe since your ps pump is intermittent, it, or the fan stayed on and continued running. i read something about this in one of the other threads. when you say it wont take a "jump", you mean a jump start?

Try jumping it again, red to the + terminal under the bonnet, and black to the engine mount right side. start, let run for maybe 15m, and then turn off. listen for strange noises.

seems common enough, and i would definitely get a new pump. i was looking at one and it was like 350 + core for a rebuild.

 

If it has the original battery, that could be it. The OEM batteries tend to die suddenly and catastrophically.

 

My original battery would not take a jump, had it towed to dealer - 230 miles, they replaced the battery and said the old one had a bad cell. If a cell goes bad they said it would not be able to be jumped.

 

I doubt the ps pump issue and this are related. But I would go thru the normal procedures of determining whats broke on the starting/starter side of things. I would hope its just a dead battery, bc the starter looks like its a total pita to change. With everything off do you get anything electronic working, lights, clock, display? If you get none of those turning on then it's probably the battery, and Ive heard that if a battery is completely dead then you cant do anything with it (charge/jump), but I may be mistaken. If you replaced the battery, I would check the fuses too, unlikely that they failed while the car was just sitting, but It's best to check the $2 fix then the $2000 fix. If you checked those two, and still nothing, you may want to take it in and see if they can diagnosis the starter.

I just read your description... are you driving the non-supercharged mini?
Because I may be mistaken about the unrelated issue between the ps pump and starter....

 

I could be wrong on this, but i remember reading someplace that to jump start this you had to leave the Jumper cables hooked up for 5 to 10 minutes before trying to crank it.

 

You are right NightFlyR, you do have to leave it hooked up awhile. Alternatively you could disconnect the battery and take it to an Advance Auto Shop/ Auto Zone, etc. and have them test the battery for free. If it is dead they will also recharge for you for free (will take 6 hours or more to do a proper, slow trickle charge). While you have the battery out you can look for the "manufactured on" tag to see when your battery was made. If it is simply a dead battery it could be because the car sat unused for awhile or it could be that something is running on your car and running down the battery after the car is off. There are many things that could be the problem. A search of parasitic batter drain will start you on a path of things to check.


Good luck and keep us updated!

 

When the original battery died on my '04 S, it couldn't be jumped either. It just went totally dead overnight. I ran down to AutoZone in my other car and got a new one, and that fixed it right up.