Hi, I jist recently got a 2013 mini Cooper s around thanksgiving and the same night i bought the car after about 120 miles my car began having major issues up until now. While driving or sometimes idling my engine light flicks on for a brief second amd my engine looses power for that brief second. If I'm idling or coasting in neutral it will stall.
while driving it cuts right back before rpms get to low.( ive got a manual trans) all of this happens very quickly. But it Will either continue doing this repeatedly for my whole drive randomly but consistently often, or almost not at all. Sometimes after it does it ill lose power steering for a short moment, maybe a minute usually.
other times but not as often ill get into my car after its sat a while and when I get into the car and push the on button once the wipers go off at a quick pace and cannot be controlled. At the same time it will tell me I have no abs , start off assist, power steering, traction control, and dsc. This js all before ive even tried cranking the engine. When i try that it will crank strongly but will not start or even try to. Usually when this happens I'll try a few times while repriming the fuel pump, switchimg to sport mode while cranking and every so often it will start but I think its just luck and not anything in doing. Although one time it started while hitting sport mode.
usually I connect jumper cables to the battery and it fires right up but the other day it didnt work. So I let it sit over night and still no luck until I unhooked the battery for 5 minutes and tham it fired right up. Ive check battery voltage and it's is fine while sitting. At idle it was 14 80v.
i bought the car as is from a brand new used car lot locally. So no warranty. They took the car back the weekend I bought it and scanned for codes. The only one it gave was a coolant temp sensor. (They are a chevy dealership btw) replaced it and obviously it didn't work. They had it for 4 days. They sent it to our local bmw dealer without me knowing it and it sat for atleast 10 days before they said they didn't have the technology to work on it somehow. Than it was sent to mini of Ann Arbor michigan with me even knowing it. Which is over an hour away. They decidee the battery was bad and that the alternator was overcharging it causing the (vme? System) to short out. So they replaced the battery and programmed it to the car. Magically the car was fixed. I recieved it back after over a week because they were backed up. Btw I really like that dealership. I had the car for maybe 4 weeks and put maybe 3,000 miles on it until we had a snow storm a few week ago from today and I did a large burnout acrossed a parkimg lot in the snow and my check engine light came on. Shortly later every one of those problems came back and worse. They THINK its the alternator which they estimate will be 1200 dollar job and I'm pretty terrified wont fix it.

I AM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG! IVE BEEN THROUGH A LOT. I need some advice. Should I just risk it and have them replace it and possibly not fix it or has anybody else had a simular issue like mine. 1200 is a lot of money to me right now. I appreciate any advice. I bought this car so I didn't have to rely on my eclipse's primary ( that are broken) and it's not been a good experience.

 

Sorry to hear about your story and glad you found this forum before it was late.

Replacing the alternator isn't a bad DIY task. There are vid and writeups on it. Search through newtis.info for how tos.

The electrical issues your having seem to point to a bad Fuse box located behind the kick panel of the passenger side. It is not uncommon for water to leak on it from the sunroof. Thus, remove it and inspect it for moisture or corrosion.

Panick not and take a deep breath. We'll figure it out.

Lastly, invest in ISTAD software with K+Dcan usb cable.

 

I looked into thebfuse box while the car was running jiggled everything around to just see what happened. I'll try to remove it tomorrow since it is going to be warm out. I'll also look into the alternator replacement. Ive dome quite a few of them. Just was intimidated by this ome because of how crammed in there it is and the faxt the dealer told me id need to reprogram it to the vehicle. Also is it going to be a 120amp or 150amp. I can't find a definitive answer.

 

Sounds like a plan. Tje amperage will ne written on the alternator and does not need programming.