102,600+ miles on my early '03 S.

Original steering pump replaced at 64K miles, 18 months back.

This morning, steering pump quit after an hour's normal commute. Later today I had some errands to run, pump was working again.

Got home (44 mile drive), shut off the ignition, STEERING PUMP STILL RUNNING.

Checked under hood fusebox, pulled every relay & fuse but pump runs on.

Pull cover off inside fusebox, pull every fuse & relay, pump still runs.

Got desperate (I have an appointment at the dealer in the morning - called earlier thinking pump was going bad) so pulled a wrench out & disconnected (-) end of ground cable from battery.

Pump stops.

QUESTION: In the morning, if I reconnect the (-) strap to the battery, will my MINI start & run or will the software be wiped by then?

 

Your software and such will be fine after a battery disconnect, and you should be able to start and run without any problems. If you reconnect the battery and the pump starts immediately, the pump is bad. There are rare cases where the pump gets electrically 'stuck' and can be reset by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery.

The fuse for the steering pump resides underneath the underhood fuse box. It's a 100 amp, bolt-in fuse, located inside a cover on the rearmost end of the box (there are three similar 50 amp fuses in there as well). The easiest way to disconnect a 'stuck' pump is to pull the large red wire that feeds it from below the fuse box rather than unbolting the fuse.

Since you'll be calling on your dealer to fix it, simply disconnect the battery for the night. Only thing you'll find 'wrong' will be the clock needing to be reset.

 

I have seen relays get stuck closed even after coil voltage is removed, so whatever load it's powering is always on. I don't know how the pump is wired, but if through a relay this could be a possible cause. hopefully you'll get your issue resolved

 

You did the correct thing by un hooking the battery. There was one owner in the south bay that had the same thing happen. The results were worse as the car caught on fire. A neighbor pulled the cable and put out the fire without major damage.
Randy
M7 Tuning

 

The pump in my 03 S did this at about 28,000 miles took a couple of cycles of a dead battery. Finally figured out where the connection for the pump was and disconnected. I drove the car for about 3 weeks with no power steering until my dealer good fit me in. That has been the only problem in 70,000 miles. Hopefully!!!!!!

 

Thanks G'B, your comments are encouraging and quite correct.

Battery reconnected, pump spun up first thing (decent spark at the battery post too when I made the re-connect). Clock, and mileage counter set to 0. No Big Deal. Everything else fine.

MINI's at dealer, so I'm waiting for call with prognosis & maybe an estimate of how much life my clutch has left. Service Writer quoted ~ $2,100 for a new clutch - IF the flywheel is serviceable - closer to $3K if a new plate is needed.

Ouch.

Still, in my other manual shifters, I was lucky to get 35K miles on a clutch so either BMW's making them better than SAAB did 20 years back or I've learned something about shifting since.