Here's one for the gearheads:

Took of one of my MINIs, the R56 base on a long distance trip. Ended up in Colorado outside of Aspen headed up to Independence Pass with the heater blower on full, the GoPro charging accelerating at 10,000 elevation rising in elevation quickly. SUDDENLY: both windows would not roll up.

PULLED OVER. Turned off engine. RESTART: no electrical. TRIED AGAIN: started up but unplugged GoPro and turned off blower. Power restored to windows.

So I drove 200 miles back to Denver never turning off the engine. The Mini dealer there said the battery and alternator checked out fine. It was a software error and he reinstalled new firmware. Said there was a "bug" with the software related to the windows. That also rising in altitude changed the baseline for the computer to measure air so it caused a momentary initiation failure when I tried to start the Mini at 11,000 feet.

Now the odometer reads in a different layout. Which I've checked NAM and this is what what happens with software upgrades. Think the master tech was right? Drove the car 1500 miles since back home and the electrical failure is gone.

 

Had something similar happen a year ago. Abt 1K miles into a 6K mile road trip we were entering altitude well past tree line and he went into limp mode. Scared the hell out of me with no resources within half a day's drive. We creeped down the other side and as soon as we got down below tree line I pulled over shut it down and restarted and everything went back to normal and never did it again. After we got home it went in to my main wrench for some fresh fluids and a thorough exam, everything checked out. Go figure.

 

Hey flybrick. Thanks for answering.

So to be specific. You were above tree line which means well over 5000 feet and your Mini went into "limp" mode. Can you be specific?

Our windows stopped working and then the Mini wouldn't restart, totally dead until the 2nd try. We too had zero cell phone and there was no ranger patrol, nothing. So we flew down the other side back to Denver. But what does "limp" mean?

Thanks again!

 

Yea, where we were, tree line was around 10 to 11K and we were above that. Nuttin' but rocks and dang few people.
I had it more than likely in 1st or 2nd gear just creeping along enjoying the view when idiot lights came on and left me with limited power. The most alarming event was the cold chill realizing where we were and what little we had left to deal with it and how far away any potential help was. Luckily we had pretty much reached the top and down hill was just over the next rise. When we go down a ways I pulled over, turned it off, waited a spell and restarted and after a few miles everything was back to rights. I was later told that there was some internal confusion related to barometric pressure/air fuel mix and a few other bits of voodoo that caused the problem. I always figured the supercharger would mitigate severe altitude changes.

 

Yeah. You're right tree line is like 10 and over. That's when mine acted up. Tree line. I was told the same thing about altitude throwing off the mass air sensor.

Interesting.

 

Limp mode sets in when the OBC detects a catastrophic problem that could lead to major system damage and automatically reduces available power until the problem is resolved. Mine did so crossing a street from a stop sign a couple years ago. I was able to drive it the 40 some odd miles to my main wrench by taking back roads and streets at the heart stopping maximum speed of 28 mph. He found A broken wire in a wire bundle associated with the throttle body. I don't know how a dealership would have dealt with that.
Here's a link with a lot more info from a gear box's point of view but it will occur when any malfunction triggers the response.
http://www.transmissionrepaircostguide.com/limp-mode/

 

wow that's interesting. So there actually is a term "limp mode". I see it's a OBC issue not recognizing what the problem is. My issue didn't result in a check engine light. It mimicked a bad battery or charging issue. But could have been a OBD reaction to not reading the air mass sensor correctly.