Today, took my 2004 MCS to the local dealer because my left brake lights did not work and sometimes the drivers window would not go down. I had already checked with a 12 volt tester and determined that no power was going to the bulbs...only the turn signal worked on that side. They pulled the tailight assembly out anyways and saw that I had jumped 12 volt from the bottom brake light to the top (not opperating) fog light so that both came on when I hit the brakes (a common mod, from what I understand). The tech checked and determined that the Electronics Module that is behind the kick plate on the passenger side was bad, and the service writer said it was because I had modified the electronics and was NOT under warrenty and would cost me $655 to replace. I protested to the Shop Foreman, and the Service Writer had already prepped him as to what they had told me and he stood by the Writers story. My contention was the only thing I had done was to feed 12 volt to an existing outlet that was already wired and asked them to appeal to the regional rep. He called and was told if I had a light that came on to tell me a bulb was out, it "could" damage the module, but if my car did not have that, it "probably" wouldn't hurt it, but he would recomend that the mod not be done. I did not, and they replaced the module under warrenty. All of a sudden MY $655 bill was $289 to the factory for warrenty work. My question to anyone, has anyone heard of this situation before (the module shorting out because of jumping power to the top bulb) or was this a song and dance and please explain why it would do that if they were correct.

 

I think you are very lucky. If I was the tech, I probably would have stuck with the no-warranty issue.


The fact is that yes many MINIs have this brake light / rear fog mod.

BUT what the mod actually does is to double the load on the brake light circuits coming out of the BC1.
The BC1 is designed to drive 2 x 21W bulbs (one each side), and the center brake light. The mod connects a second 21W bulb to each side.

Obviously this mod increases the load on the BC1 beyond that which it was designed. We can say it should survive a short-circuit, but a doubled load is not the same as a short and actually could do more harm than a true short (because the true short will be detected and protected from, while the overload will leave the BC1 trying to work normally).

So to my mind, if you do the mod and the BC1 fails, it is caused by your mod which you chose to do, and you should expect no warranty.

PS: Lucky for you I am not a MINI tech

 

Thank you for your input, it was a much clearer explanation than theirs....I wonder how many other BC1's have been affected by this mod, as I have never seen this addressed before.

 

mine was effected by my driving lights. i picked up power for my relay from the high beams, to trip the realy, no main power, and it messed up the BC1. they were able to save it, but it cost me over 400 for those morons to sell me my brake pedal switch was bad and thats why my brake lights wouldnt turn on......

 

I think I have read of at least two others that had trouble.
Obviously most BC1s survive the mod, at least for a couple of years.

If the wiring was done without a "freewheel" diode across the relay, that could be a problem for the BC1.

 

yeah, it would have been nice to know what the hell a freewheel diode was before i put my lights on, lol.

o well, the Service Manager was an a$$ to begin with anyways.

 

A freewheel doide is a reverse-biased diode placed across a relay coil to absorb the high voltage inductive 'kick' that results when the current flow in the coil is interrupted. The diode will shunt this reverse polarity kick, preventing it from backfeeding the driver circuitry in the BC1 and damaging it.

*awaits the inevitable *

 

I can't see how a freewheel diode would offer any protection in this case. If main brake light (lower one) goes bad, BC1 now only driving two 21w bulbs so, it would appear that the load on BC1 is now less than before. Regardless, I can't see why there would be any kick back or reverse polarity from a bulb failure. I mean, the filimants just opened (burn't out) and thats why the bulb no longer lights... am I correct. Now driving lights that rednwhitecooper used are much more than 21W and create a larger load on BC1.

BTW: I'll bet that is a service tech wanted to void GBMINI's warranty because of this Blue Lights in Footwells or Flashing Third Brakelight he would have a fit.

 

mine wasnt doing anything besides triggering a relay, thats all the high beam was doing, my main power was still coming from the battery.

GB, is the "freewheel" diode installed inside of a factory relay? I used my Hella realy, so i could see where that might be a problem.


(oh yeah, i understood all you said, LOL)

 

Apexer,
You are confusing the freewheel diode, related to the high beam failure, with the overloaded bulbs caused by wiring two bulbs to one BC1 output.
Also, the original post about one bulb going bad and then the other bulb hurting the BC1 is just nonsense from the MINI techs.

The fact is that the BC1 output to each lower rear brake light position is designed for one 21W bulb - less than 2A load; a second linked bulb doubles that load. Now tracking & circuitry designed for one load is expected to carry double the load. A problem could occur.


As for the blue footwell lights or flashing third brake light causing problems ... well firstly I don't own that MINI any more but if my mods CAUSED the failure, I would have a difficult time arguing against warranty refusal.
Of course I might have been smart enough to suspect the cause and remove my mods before visiting the dealership - this is always a good move if there is a failure that might be related to a mod. If nothing else it would establish that the failure is still present when the mod was removed.

The original poster probably should have suspected his mod when the brake lights no longer worked properly, and removed the dual bulb mod before visiting them.



I don't know about Hella relays or whatever; some might have a build in diode - if so, the coil connections would be polarised so one is marked "+" and one "-". If you wired it backwards, it would destroy the internal diode.

 

GBMINI: I do understand driving light loads vs 21W loads. Also that BC1 appears to also control/drive the electric window on the left side (remember everything on the right side worked fine) as when the BC1 module was replaced, the window problem was gone. I would hope the Mini doesn't have such a small design tolerance that, an additional two bulbs that are on only a limited time, would cause a module failure. I think your comment regarding nonsense from the Mini tech is more correct.

Hummmm with regards to the cost, when the dealer thought sonracer was going to pay the bill, the charge was $655.00. When, luckly for sonracer, it was honored as a warranty claim, the bill to Mini from the dealer was only $289.00. Bet the dealer was pissed about losing $366.00 profit.

 

Okay, so who's going to run out to their MINI and pull out their jumpers? Or just wait until there's a problem? Or until the the car is no longer under warranty?

 

This "conversation" has been had before. I got "corrected" by some one that was familiar with the BC1, they even posted some schematics and photos. There is current limiting in the bc1, but running something against the current limit all the time may shorten its life, as pointed out above.

I did my brake light mod by cutting a trace and soldering a jumper. This precludes the fog lights, but also prevents any "back feed" to the BC1 on the fog light line. I also used LED 1156 bulbs, that draw 1/10 of the power of a 21 watt regular bulb. This means I have added only 10% to the load on the BC1 not 100%. They are NOT adequate as primary brake lights, but they are fine as additional brake lights.

I have seen several posts from people with failed BC1. It appears that they may have failed for other reasons, but when the jumper is found, it makes a good case for denying a warranty claim.

BTW, this is not unique to the MINI. Lots of cars use similar control modules. When I wanted to wire trailer lights to my MINI, I found that the proper powered tail light converters are hard to find as a generic part, but are commonly listed for Jeep / Chrysler products which require them. These converters take a .001 amp signal from the cars tail lights, but drive the trailers lights with a line direct from the battery. That way they don't "load" the cars electronic control module.

 

Cutting the trace and soldering a jumper sounds like a good idea. Can you post a picture or diagram of where you cut trace? Are the LED 1156 bulbs easy to locate and, are they a direct plug-in replacement to the fog bulb?

 

Some one has already posted the photos. It is either here, or on MINI2 with a nice set of instructions. Just pull out the tail light carrier, and it is fairly easy. Check for adequate clearence on the reinstall before you choose where to put the jumper. The "traces" are galvanized sheet metal, so they solder easily. I cut them with a cutoff wheel in my dremel.

I just put led 1156 right in the socket, taking out the regular 1156. I got mine on the Internet, but Autozone stocks some, other stores probably also do.

An 1157 will NOT fit, as that is a dual filament bulb, and the "pins" on the bulb base are in different places.

Of course cut and soldered traces are not something you can hide, but there is not much chance of any one looking for them. Just pull out the bulbs bdfore you go to the dealer if there is an electrical issue.

J. D.

 

I think I'll use the trailer light converter to power the fog/brake light.

 

So would these lamps be a direct replacememt for the rear fogs http://www.superbrightleds.com/1157.htm ?

 

Thats your call. Are you a gambler? $650. to replace. Was it because of the brake mod? Hmmmm. The 1156 LED is dimmer, but at the significant lower amps, it sounds like a good insurance policy to me. But I like the idea of using the trailer light trigger/pwr source as an option to keep my brighter bulbs. I'm not a gambler

 

The current draw of these LED bulbs is only about 1/20 of the normal rear fog bulb.

If the BC1 is damaged by doubling the current drawn from the brake light output, these LEDs would resolve that problem completely.
If the BC1 is damaged by "reverse feeding" into the rear fog circuit, these LEDs would not help.
But my suspicion is the failure is the first one - reverse feeding (a) should not hurt the BC1 and (b) even if it did, it logically would hurt the rear fog output which is not being used, rather than hurt the brake output.

 

Thanks Ian.....gee sounds like you need to come up with a rear brake light circuit ! ! !

Looks like a couple of LED rears lights are in my future.

 

I went to superbrightleds.com and they have 4 different red 1156 bulbs ranging from 12 to 30 LEDs. Is the 12 LED bulb the correct choice? And wide or narrow angle?

 

As it says on their web page, LEDs are nowhere neat the brightness of a standard bulb.
The standard bulb is 21W=12Vx1.75A.
The LEDs are at best 0.1A so nearly 20 times less current. Even if the bulb was 10% efficient and the LED 100% (neither true), the LED would put out half the light.
As said, the bulb shines in all directions, but the LEDs only shine in a limited direction - if you choose the "narrow" option, you will have more light shining straight back, but it might look "speckled" because the light will be coming from lots of individual points.

Personally I would consider the "[font=Arial]1156-R24 Red LED bulb", the more LEDs the better the brightness, even if it is not so bright as the original bulb.[/font]
[font=Arial]I think I would choose the wide option; it might not be so pinpoint bright, but the "look" will be better and hopefully it will be bright enough.[/font]

 

JD how many led's did your replacement have?

 

Gee....what to do...it would be nice if someone were to post pictures of the wide angle vs the narrow angle in their car tail lights, but that's not likely to happen

I did the mod months ago with just a wire jumper and am wondering now if I should switch to LED's...does anyone have some rough sort of idea as to how many have done this mod and of those how many have had their module be a problem? I am not 'a big risk taker' so I would like to get some sort of idea how likely this is to be a problem, before I bother to buy the LEDs and pull out my tail light assembly and fiddle with it

 

At this web address

http://user.mc.net/~jdewey/MINI/tail_lights/

you can see photos I took this morning. Some were taken in the garage and some in the driveway.

Because the MINI has a diffuser lens to spread the light, it affects how the LED look.

Compare the MINI LED high-center brake light, with the fog / brake light in each photo to get an idea of how these work out. In day light at an angle they don't show up well, but neither does the stock center light.

I THINK these are the standard narrow angle LED There are 12 LED in each "bulb" and these do not have the extra LED on the back of the bulb to fill the reflector. I had a set of those in 1157 on another vehicle and I was not impressed.

Check the size of bulbs you may order. This one just makes it into the MINI reflector assembly. You could cut the hole larger with out doing any real damage to the car if you wanted to use one of the big bulbs that are sold by some suppliers.

John