Hi, guys.

I'm kind of new to the MINI community and am not super experienced with cars, so maybe the problem I'm experiencing is a common one. But, I haven't seen any people describing quite the same issue I've had on the forums, so I figured I'd see if anyone had had this problem before or had any idea what was going with my car.

So, here's what happened:

I've owned my 2006 R53 (14K miles) for about five months now and haven't experienced any sort of problems whatsoever. However, a few days ago, I drove my car to college, only to come back only a couple of hours later to find my car wouldn't start. When I turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened except for a faint whirring sound, but all of my interior lights were running just fine. I had to get to work, so I left my car in the parking lot and came back about five hours later to jump the car with a friend. When I tried to start it without a jump to show my friend what was going on, it started without a hitch.

After this, I drove the car back home and stopped on the way to get gas. When I tried to start it up again, I had the same problem as before. Nothing happened except for a whir. Then, I just push started it and drove home.
The next morning, I drove to school and the car again started with no problems, but yet again I had the same problem starting the car as before. Again, I had to push start the car to get home.

Here's where it got strange. As I was driving home on the freeway, all of my electrical systems turned off. ABS and power steering were off, my tachometer and speedometer were stuck, and most of my warning lights turned on. However, I had no loss of engine power like you would see if the crank pulley failed. I kept driving home since I was already very close, and not five minutes later, everything turned back on on its own.

After getting home, I stopped the car and turned off the engine immediately and checked the engine bay to see if the crank pulley or belt had gone bad, but both of them were absolutely fine. After this, the car wouldn't start again, but this time I got a clicking noise like you might usually get when trying unsuccessfully to start a car.

I wasn't quite sure what the issue was, so I put the battery on a trickle charger. It was at 0% charge according to the charger. The next day, I put the battery (now 100% charge) back in the car and haven't experienced any issues or anything since. None of the warning lights have turned on, either.

I just want to make sure this isn't a problem that I'm just postponing in case I could be causing serious damage to my car by continuing to drive it, so I figured I'd ask the good people of the forums if they had any clue what was going on. Any help would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Sounds like maybe it is just a bad battery.

 

+ 1 on the battery, how old is it? Our cars tend to do some strange things when the battery is bad, have your battery tested at your local auto shop. Good luck

 

One of two things, as other posts have said a week battery will cause all kinds of gremlins, also check the connections on both pos and neg posts as well as the grounding cable on the passenger side of motor by motor mount.

 

Yeah, my battery is at least three years old but possibly as old as the car and very likely in need of a replacement, so an old battery was probably the problem. After I had the problems, I cleaned the battery posts and ground cable and ensured they had a good connection. And, like I said, I haven't had any issues since. I just thought it was strange that the alternator didn't keep the systems running while the engine was on.
Oh well. Thanks for the help, guys! I hope it really is just the battery.

 

Hope it is the battery. Did you notice that everytime you can start your car your mileage goes back to 0 as if you reset your ecu? Last saturday, when i was about leave the house i notice that my car is ,kinda stalling ( u see the tacho to 0 the speedo to 0 warning lights on) but the car was moving then when i stop it runs ok idle was good no warning lights) but it will stall and i can hear the speedo or the ecu resetting)

 

I didn't really look when I was having the problem, but it's certainly possible. Your symptoms sound like they are a little different than mine. I had no problems with stalling or anything like that. In fact, I haven't had any problems at all since posting this thread, so I can't even look to see if my mileage is resetting. Sorry I can't be of more help. Best of luck figuring out/fixing the problem.