this seems like a stupid question for a fifth gear person to be asking, but in 61,700 miles I've never had occasion to have to deal with this. I have always done oil changes at 5k and I've been assuming that the interval gets changed by the service tech ea. time. So what else is it that trips this at such an odd mileage count? thanks,
Jock

 

Am waiting for our local MINI dealer to open. On the way home from D.C. yesterday ~ 40 miles on the other side of Roanoke, VA, my SES light came on. I called MINI Roadside, told her that nothing was leaking or smoking, but I had ~ 200 more miles to go. She said that if the light wasn't flashing, "do not panic". I could go ahead and finish my trip.


(Fill up ~150 miles previous, and the gas cap was tight...)

 

yeah, that's what the s/a at MoP just said to me as well. made a service appt for weds. and then we'll see whazzup. Jock

 

Jock, I predict a cat. hope I'm wrong ...

 

Ian,you mean a la No NO ??????? Vinny???????Man I hope you're wrong too! My remus has been on there for almost 20 K. Why now????? Jock

 

Any number of multitudes of silly (loose gas cap) and not so silly (misfires) problems can cause the SES to go off on any late model car. It may possibly be time to replace the O2 sensor, maybe? I had a Jaguar (RIP) that set the light at 30K to replace the sensors... problem was, my mechanic couldn't figure out how to reset the counter to turn off the light, so we yanked the bulb.

And here I am, buying another British car?

Thanks for the info though - solid light means "check at your earliest convenience" and flashing light means "sorry to be a bother, maybe you should think about a tow, what?" I'll try to remember that.

Michael

 

loose gas cap has its own idiot light.I have no symptoms at all re:idle /performance/etc. and Heather said normal sevice intervals do not trip this way. I recently checked oil level and spark plug torque(#3 WAS loose, gotta do this more often). oh well , we'll see.I'll post results. Jock

 

Jock,

No, NoNo does not (I don't think) have a cat/emissions issue.

But ask Gary - he reports at least a few MINI owners with pulley upgrade have expired their catalytic converter early and suffered a non-warranty replacement. Seems to be an issue with confusing the engine software, resulting in "bad gases" exiting the engine into the cat ...

 

the remus is not a true cat back and actually as aftermarket systems go is fairly sedate.how much is a new CC if I need one? I'm getting a unichip at the next pulley party (bedford,Ma.? date still unsettled too) will the tweeking for my mods affect the future demise of a new catalytic? why doesn't the JCW kit precipitate this failure too? My mods are nothing more than these!

 

Don't know price, sorry ...

Gary theorises that the issue is doing mods such as pulley without ALSO doing the engine software mods. Of course the JCW does both - so the updated program correctly compensates for the different pulley/whatever.

 

I am REALLY blindsided by this information. I am a LONG time reader of forums and can honestly say that this problem is one that I have NEVER heard any mention of anywhere. I can wonder why randy webb or any of the other tuners that do pulley changes might MENTION this as a possible problem that needs attention. I really hope you are wrong about this.Stay tuned (pun NOT intended!). jock

 

Ever since getting V42 my SES been popping on, on occasion. in fact, it's on right now. The code I get are for front 02 sensor, but there is nothing
physically wrong with the 02 sensor.

I have a scanner so read it and clear the DTC...but lately ive been pretty
lazy to check.

I am hoping by the time im ready for my oil change that there would be another ECU revision that will take care of this. (still got like 8.5k miles
to go).

 

I think the last flash I got was V38.Not positive of this , but pretty sure. I just emailed Alta to see if this has been reported in the past, should be interesting to see what kind of answer I get out of them.

 

woa.......that didn't take long.From alta:

"Thanks for asking. There would be no correlation between catalyst failure and a 15% pulley. Too much fuel could cause a failure (this would be from a faulty injector or ECU issue.) When you pull the code let us know so we can help further!"

my question:

 

Did you pull the code yet? I wouldn't be surprised to see if it was from the 02 sensor.

 

Well, let's back this truck up.

I called my SA this morning. I told him the "Check Engine" light was on solid (no panic) and was not flashing (ok, panic now). He said the light won't flash anyway. (!) I asked why MINI Roadside Assistance would say that it would, he said he didn't know, but I need to bring it in anyway.

So, the light won't flash (panic when it's convenient).

When I got in the car to drive to the dealer, the "Check Engine" light wasn't on. Sam healed herself overnight. I called him back and he said the computer would hold the fault code and they would check it out when I bring her in the first of next month to have the top replaced.

Oh, well...

 

Rev.Limiter, you don't have the auto transmission, do you?

 

The airbag sensor went bad on my 1st generation Miata - $300+ repair!(?) If you yanked the "airbag problem" bulb, some buzzer buried deeply in the dash beeped (enough to drive me crazier). Plug the bulb back in, the buzzer stopped. So I painted the bulb black (just knowing it would heat the paint, catch the car on fire and THAT would solve the airbag sensor problem - didn't work, though).

And yes, you have to have sense of humor to own an older British car...

 

No... 6 speed (7 counting reverse).

 

ok, so we now have an epidemic...........got in my car to drive to a restaurant with the wife last night, and lo and behold , the SES light had gone off! I had made an appt at MoP for this afternoon and I will go anyway to see what the archives have to say about what made it go off in the first place.Might get an oil change as long as I'm there. I'll post results of scan tomorrow.I hate idiot lights with a gremlin inside. Jock

 

I could be wrong about this but doesn't the SES light reset itself after 3 starts of the ignition? I thought that was true, because when mine went off for the faulty waste gate valve, it reset itself after 3 starts.

Anyway, the code will still be stored so MOP will be able to get to the bottom of it.

 

just returned from MoP and the news is excellent! code tripped because of an air pocket in the coolant at a sensor. bled system . end of problem.............for now, Mwaaaahaaahaaaa (fade to scary organ music.)
the mechanic explaine to me that in the past they had been replacing thermostats , but that they had gotten a service bulletin stating that the bleeding was all that was necessary.Would have ticked me off to no end if they had replaced the 180 deg thermostat that I paid turnermotorsports big bucks to install!
the poor people at the dealer have been without computers for 2 days and are tearing their hair out by the handfull.

all's well that ends swell. Jock

 

new twist......I knew it was too good to be true:

it seems that when I drove home on friday.....you guessed it, my little friend the SES light had come back on, quick call to MoP and a quick ride to the dealer.Back on the computer: "seems to be a problem with your thermostat".
they wanted to install a new one and at this point I pointed out that I had had one of M7's 180 degree thermostat installed by Turner Motorsports a while back.Hmmm yep , that's the problem, 180 deg makes the engine run cool enough to kick the fault code. Called peter at M7 and he freely admitted that his thermostat was designed for cars in the hot temps (read SoCal). He suggested that I switch out his thermostat for the winter and swap back again in the summer. I think this should have been information that was disclosed up front when I first went to have this thing put in. I can go to Pep boys and get a code reset tool at about 60 bucks and reset each and every time it goes off, live with the idiot light for the winter running the risk of missing a background fault that is masked by this one , move to southern california, or spend beaucoup bucks on getting it swapped back and forth seasonally. I read the how to on this and was not inclined to do the swap myself, so now I'm just not sure where to go with this at all. Of course I didn't have Turner return my old thermostat, so now I am out the cost of an oem (187 deg) if I decide to go that way.I'll discuss with Randy the notion of trying to tweek the ECU into ignoring the fault code when I have a unichip installed next week. this just generally blows. catch 22 of the first order. Jock

PS by the way the code fault was:PO 128 Coolant thermostat-coolant temperature below thermostat control temperature short circuit to positive.

 

Mine turned out to be the "knock sensor" that senses whether the engine is knocking, and adjusts the timing accordingly. Advance or retard. Service advisor told me that on a NA Cooper it's about a five minute job to replace the sensor. On mine, they had to remove the supercharger to get to it, and it turned out to be a day and a half job!


"Sam" is all better now - she feels fine.