Hello,

I bought a Mini to play with this summer with the purpose of getting my hands dirty and having some fun. Picked up a 2003 MCS with 117k miles on it. Got it for a great price because it has some issues. Seller said during the last rain storm the Tachometer stopped functioning. There was also water dropping from the hatch when you opened it. I got that taken care of (the seal on the hatch trim that has the lights and switch had disintegrated).

Now on to the Tachometer issue. First, all the fuses are fine. Second thing I notice is that none of the dash lights or interior lights work. Looking at the wiring diagram I know this is all through the switch in the IKE/Speedometer. (GRY/RED = +12v). The tach GRY/RED wire has no voltage on it. I check to make sure ground is good. (Also check the body ground on the driver and passenger sides to make sure they are good.) Another thing that strikes me as odd is when I power on the car, the temp and gas gauges try to go into the negative and make a clicking noise. When I drive the car the speedometer seems to work fine. I have done the ECM reset thing, it made no difference.

There are other electrical issues in the car. Driver side power window doesn't work (I hear the relay in the BCM click but no motor action). The passenger side window was working when I bought the car, but now it will go down, but not up (unless I am physically pulling up on the window while hitting the button up. Power lock don't lock the doors, but do UNLOCK the doors. The windshield wipers work but the speeds don't really work right.

I tore apart the dash and the BCM module area to look for any signs of water. I found none. All very dry. Dusty even. I would love some better troubleshooting steps for the IKE and BCM modules. I did quite a bit of searching around for these issues on the forums and checked for most of the things listed. Wondering if anyone has any further suggestions.

Thanks!

Jay

 

Good luck on this one.

I can't be much help, but I'd have a look at the driver side (on NA cars) footwell's electrical/fuse panel.
Sunroof drain leaks can dribble down inside (along the A post?) and mess with that area.

 

This is probably a separate issue from your other issues. The door motors are crap. Most times if you smack the door near the speaker it will start up. But eventually it will just stop working at all. Of course if something is rusty in the regulator, that will be problematic but my guess is that the window problem is not related to your dash issues.

Good luck and looking forward to reading about what you'll learn.

///Rich

 

So last night I took a look at the sunroof drain on the driver's (left) side. When I pulled the headliner down the tube fell right out on to the ground. Not a good sign. I reattached it and tested that out to make sure water was making it all the way out. I also tested the right side drain and that one seems fine.

So now I know there was some water getting in on the left side and probably effecting the fuse box area. I am going to work on pulling that out a bit and looking for corrosion and moisture.

 

Time for a can of Electronics Cleaner and some dielectric grease...

Best of luck.

Motor on!

 

I also pulled the BCM and took a look at it for any moisture. That looks dry and dusty and no corrosion. Now to look at the other connectors under the dash and left side.

 

Heh.

Pulled the bottom door trim off on the left side to get the fuse panel. I notice some white gooey stuff on the trim. get it all the way out and the carpet is very wet. The white stuff is......wait for it....cat litter. Sigh..... I removes the left foot rest thing so I could get the floor carpet propped up so it can start to dry. not sure if I should put a fan in there or not. I kinda want to replace the flooring completely, but not sure how big of a task that it. I figure I better get the electronics working first. After it's dry, I'll pull the fuse panel and start to inspect and clean that.

 

The carpet and floor are almost dry. I pulled the fuse panel off and that looked fine. What was not fine however was the 42 pin connection directly under that. It is a 2 x 21 electrical connector and it was heavily corroded. All kinds of blue-green gunk on it. So much so that pin 9 has broken off completely and lodged itself in the socket side of the connection. I am not entirely sure what pin 9 maps to (blue w/ green stripe). but I think it'll be faster (and frankly better) for me to just cut out the connector all together and splice those 39 wires. Anyone know which connector that is? (X#####)

Also, horrible design. any water at all is going to flow down the wires right into the connector. at least mount the damn thing away from the sunroof drain. If there is any interest in pictures I am going to be posting some soon.

 

Update on this. I have removed the water corroded connector and bridges all 42 connections via splice/solder/shrinktube. Now the Tach works and the Instrument panel seems fully functional. Whoohoo!

 

I had this issue on my '02. Hit a bump, and systems would start to turn off. Hit another, some would come back, others would shut down.

These included: stereo, Heater system, speedo, tach, dash lights (tons), and other annoying things.

I had about 30 of the 42 pins break off and stay in the female sued when the connector was pulled off. It was bad. At the time, the dealer had no clue how to even re-pin the plugs!

The current car has no sunroof. :/

 

OP at least you solved your issue. I have similar issues but can not find a solution. The car is completely stripped now and I've accessed every single wire, connector and module, but none seem out of the ordinary. I think something just went bad. Not really wanting to take it to Mini for them to troubleshoot.

 

having a nearly identical issue on my 02


ive removed the inner fusebox and inspected the 42 pin connector before, but after reading this im gonna take a closer look!