I have a R52 Mini Cabrio Auto, 2006, with about 112k miles. The car died on me yesterday and I'm hoping someone can help with some limited diagnosis.

This car has been neglected... I am in the military and have been deployed for the last 6 months away from home. It has been driven once every 1-3 weeks.

My friend needed to borrow a car for a few weeks so I offered it to him. He was driving yesterday when the car died so this information is second hand. I don't have access to the car but I can have a friend/handyman try to solve the problem while I'm gone to try and get the car back up and running for my family and friends.

The car has had a continuous SES and brake light that I suspect is a bad front brake wear sensor. Yesterday, the ABS light also illuminated on start. The car was driven anyway, and about 5 miles into the trip it was going up a continuous 20 degree hill at around 50 mph. My friend noticed that the car wouldn't shift when he expected, it seemed stuck in 4th (or so) gear. The RPMs were noticeably higher than usual and it did not respond to attempts to manually up-shift the car with the paddles.

Why the car was failing to shift and at fairly high RPM, the GPS Navigation screen went blank and the radio turned off. At around the same time the Red battery warning light illuminated. I'll add here that the car has an aftermarket head unit, amp, and sub connected directly to the battery terminal in the trunk (which has not been checked yet). The car has been driven fairly continuously for the last three days, so I would expect the battery was charged unless it was failing to charge for some reason.

The car was pulled over to the side of the road and was still running. The car was then shut off to try a power cycle, but upon turning it off the electrical system went completely dead. No interior lighting or anything. The car was left in place over night and towed to my house this morning.

As an aside, the automatic transmission had a RevMax valve body installed by the previous owner. I suspect something may be wrong with it, or the adaptations were just never reset, because it has fairly hard shifts, and tends to hold high RPM much longer than I would prefer. It also has the EP advisory in the shift window where the gear would normally be displayed. Nevertheless, the shift behavior that occurred here seems even worse.

I GREATLY appreciate any insight and help tracing down the root of this problem. I decided to just tow the car home, vice a mechanic, because it is in Hawaii and I figured this repair might be prohibitively expensive...

 

 

& as always, clean all the ground connections!
Clean, Bright & Tight!

 

Thanks for the replies. This car is in Hawaii parked right by the water, so it seems likely a faulty ground or connection could be happening due to corrosion.

I wanted to see if there was an obvious culprit based on these symptoms. I realize now that it will take a little more information to trace out the electrical system as suggested. I'll probably be waiting until I get home in the coming months to look the car over myself.

 

It sounds like it may have dropped into creep mode. This can be caused by many things. Most likely the front driver side abs sensor (which also is the speed control) may have died and this would put on the SES light and brake warning. It will also set off the tire light. You will need to check that these conditions exist with an OBD@ scanner and check the codes.

 

Do the following:

1. Check the battery for charge
2. If that is good, check the positive cable screw at the battery for corrosion and rust. This feeds the main fuse box in the engine compartment. If it’s dirty or rusted it could arc, not making good connection.
3. Next to the battery is the main fuse box
​​​​​​ - check the row of fuses starting with the one closet to the front of the car. I think the first 3 or 4 are main fuses. Number 3 goes to the transmission, but check them all.
- check the row of main fuses (if you are looking at the fuse box from the front of the car, they are the clear, most likely red row of things on the left of the box). You shouldn’t have any of those blown.
4. Once you restore power, pull the codes using an obdii scanner. Post those, then we can tell what’s going on.

Your transmission adaptation is pretty straightforward, but you need something like INPA (what I use) or dis to reset them.

 

Thanks for everyone's help so far. I was off island and away from the car. I returned yesterday and am beginning to work on getting this car running again.

I will follow this advice to the letter. I'm going to pull the battery and take it in to be tested.

The battery was completely dead so I tried jumping the car. The car started with the jump but all the same lights were still present (ABS, DSC, Battery, and SES). I allowed the car to run for maybe a minute with the jumpers still connected. As soon as I disconnected those cables, the car died and the battery remained completely dead. To me, this seems to indicate the alternator is not powering the car nor charging the battery. It seems the only thing that allowed the car to start was the other car's alternator. I'm guessing the battery will recharge and test OK.

I'll check fuses and looking for the appropriate grounds as recommended

 

I had the battery tested and it tested bad. It is exactly 2 years old.

I replaced the battery and the car started. I measured the voltage before and while the car was running. 12 V both times... No increase in voltage once started. Also, the battery lights were still on on the dash while the ABS and DSC lights extinguished.

I'm pretty sure its the alternator. I'm probably going to start working on putting the car in service mode tomorrow. I haven't located the main fuse box. I thought it would be near the battery from a previous post but I didn't see a fuse box in the trunk near my battery...

 

 

I am very late in providing an update but here goes:

Battery and alternator were both dead. I was surprised to hear the battery died because the car never needed a single jump. Nevertheless, it had sat for a while and the replacement was free at O'reillys!

The alternator was a fairly easy job. Service mode was easy. I had some trouble with the tensioner because I failed to realize the car had a fixed tension rod installed preventing the tensioner from moving. Once I realized that the job was super easy.

 

Good to hear. Thanks for your service!

 

Congrats!!!