Hi -
2010 Mini Cooper S (N14) - trying to find what is draining the battery when car is off. Failed to start the other day after struggling but succeeding to start for a while. AAA guy brought over a portable jump starter and determined that it's not the battery and it's not the alternator, so it pretty much has to be a short somewhere.

Watched some vids on how to locate a parasitic draw and it seems straightforward enough if you can fool the car into thinking it's off and unoccupied. Thing is, if you open the door (and possibly hood, I don't know), then things 'wake up' and the system will ask for power and you'll have trouble finding the actual issue.

Since I need to have - at least - the hood and the passenger door open in order to access fuses, I need a way to tell the car that the doors and hood are shut so that it won't supply power to, say, the dome light and possibly other stuff. Was able to close the door latches, but the dome light never went out, so I'm guessing the car wasn't fooled. Also, does the hood have a sensor that would screw this up? I tried closing those latches, but was unsuccessful.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Steve

 

I have a Launch X431 pro elite v2.0 scan tool for BMW that can put the car to sleep with this feature:

Special function > Voltage supply > Activate Rest State > Power-Down Command

You should be able to flip the latches and hood switch to keep the door and hood open.