Hello all, I'm writing to share my Starter problem with you in case any of you run into similar issues with repair shops or dealerships.

First, I drive an 03' Cooper (non-S), I have a CAI and a chopped shifter, that's it. The rest of the car is bone stock. I bought the car new in 03' and currently have 81,000 Miles on it. Yes, I drive a LOT.

So here's what happened:

Drive from Los Angeles to Vegas, get 150 miles outside of town, stop for gas, try to start the car back up and it's dead. No clicking, no starting, no nada. I had replaced the stock battery after 50,000 miles or so and have had one from Costco ever since. The Costco battery doesn't sit in the battery box quite as well and I've had non-stop issues with the red terminal coming loose.

I checked that first and still I got nothing when I hit the ignition. OK I take that back, I had lights/clock/electrical working, but that's it. It wasn't turning over at all.

I push started the car and went to Vegas, and each and every time after that, that the car needed to be started, I push started it. It ran fine other than the starting issue.

I finished up in Vegas and brought it back home to LA. I called the dealership for a new starter (Long Beach Mini), they wanted $294 +/- not including installation. Then I called Signal Hill Foreign Auto, they wanted $170 or $204 depending on who I talked to, said it would take a day to get delivered, total parts/labor would be $400-$450.

Then I found Amigos Auto in Long Beach, they wanted $94 for a refurbed starter. So I got that one and put it in with the help of some friends. Replacing the starter is a little hairy, but it's NOT an impossible job. The biggest pains in the **** are getting access to the damned thing and removing it which involves snaking it around your header. Anyway, once it was out and we had the new one, we put the new one in and tried firing it up. Again, same issue. No starting... not cranking, not turning over at all.

We tested the battery, we tested all the fuses, we tested the wiring to/from the starter, we tested the starter solenoid. Everything appeared to be working. Which is to say, it all *should* have fired up.

So I brought it to Signal Hill Foreign Auto. He said that in most cases, after putting in a new starter, the most likely issue was the key. So he put in on the machine (I did not personally witness him doing so) and supposedly the code it was throwing was "unrecognizable key and/or antenna ring". Which according to Leo over there, means that either key is bad or the antenna ring around the ignition was bad and one or both needed to be replaced or reprogrammed.

I ordered a new key direct from BMW, cost was $30 delivered fedex to the dealership free.

I picked up the key and tried it. Still nothing. So I made an appointment to have the antenna ring/key synced and reprogrammed. They charge you $128 for that out here in LA.

Once at the dealership, they told me it was taking a while for some unknown reason. They gave me a rental and I went to work. On my way, they called and said the starter was bad. That the key was reprogrammed, the Clutch Switch had been reset and that the starter was definitely the problem.

Mind you, I 'd replaced the starter with one that was known to be good. They wanted $728 to replace it (parts/labor). I said no thanks and took the car home. Once there ,I did the only thing I could think of, I switched the wiring on the starter.

You see, the Stock starter has two terminals coming off the solenoid. One big one (hot) which comes straight from the battery. The other wire goes on a smaller stud off to the side on the Solenoid. The new one I'd bought had three contacts on the Solenoid, other than that, it was identical to the old one and yes, I thought maybe I'd bought the wrong one. So with this three lead solenoid, we'd connected to the obvious hot lead on top and tried one of the smaller leads on the side. All my friends and I needed to do was flip the other lead from one stud to the other and it worked. The car starts now and works fine.

In total:

$40 from Signal Hill Foreign Auto to lie to me and tell me the problem was the key/ignition
$128 from Long Beach Mini to reset the clutch switch, allegedly reprogram the key and lie to me about the starter being bad
$95 from Amigos Auto for selling me a perfectly acceptable and fully functional replacement starter
$30 from BMW direct for sending out a new key


This doesn't include the 6 days the car was working (only when push started) and the actual labor my friends and I spent under and above the car monkeying around with this thing.

I'm happy it works, I'm glad it was fixable and I'm glad I didn't have to rely on the service center or MINI to fix it. I would recommend to anyone that they buy the MINI service manual, we did this job without it and it wasn't *that* bad, but it was daunting at first.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the absurdly long post.

orb.

 

I have to say that I would not say Long Beach MINI lied about the starter, unless you told them ahead of time that you replaced the starter> With the starter hooked up wrong, it would not work, which would lead to the obvious conclusion that it doesn't work. Two lessons here: 1. If the replacement part is different, find out why. 2. If you take a guess and it's wrong, take another guess. Glad to hear you got the problem resolved and that it didn't cost you too much.

 

I guess I should have qualified that statement in my original post. I think they didn't bother to truly *test* the starter. The starter motor turned fine and when electricity was applied to it, you could prove that the starter motor worked. The solenoid was getting power regardless of the wiring flip-flop but I'm certain that they just didn't bother to get under the car to look to see how it was wired. I too would have thought the same thing if someone brought it to me, but then, I would have tested it 21 ways to Sunday before reporting back that it was indeed bad. Especially egregious to me was the fact that they were oh so eager to charge me $728 for a replacement. Yes I understand they're a *business* not a charity, but I think this is a case of them coming very close to the *line* between ethical and unethical behaviour.