What did you do to your MINI today?

Hoping to get a fourth (low-km) summer out of my F1s but I'll be measuring when I swap before the deadline. They've only got maybe 17k on them.
 
I will likely buy this car back so don’t mind the tire investment. I figure the F1s have about 11k on them and are at 50%
 
Fitted a Bluetooth 12V battery monitor. I'd like my fail to charge issue fixed before the warranty run out in July... When it doesn't AC charge, it is a timed charge, and I usually get a 'battery is discharging' warning. These are, however, not logged by the car. When the dealer was looking for electrical issues, it threw one while it was parked overnight in the service bay, so they at least now believe they happen for no apparent reason. The logger is an Ancel BM200. $15 delivered from AliExpress. They have several versions, this one stores measurements every two minutes and uploads to a phone via Bluetooth when in range, which is not very far. Works with phone in my hand inside the car and outside near the battery, good enough. Positive is easy to connect, I just put it under the clamp bolt. The negative side that doesn't really work, so I mangled it with with pliers then put it in the open parts of the clamp under the bolt, where it would normally be loose. It's important to go directly to the battery. You are supposed to deactivate the HV battery before removing the 12V, so I left the clamps on to mess with it...
I'm seeing blips at a scheduled 8:05am departure time, even though departure precondition is currently off for Xmas holiday? No inexplicable big dips yet that might trigger a battery discharging alert. But since it logs continuously every 2 minutes, it should catch any. Data is exportable as .xls, though I can't just download it, so I email it to myself.

IMG_20241224_185557139.webp
Screenshot_20241226-150322.webp
 
pictsidhe said:
Fitted a Bluetooth 12V battery monitor. I'd like my fail to charge issue fixed before the warranty run out in July...
Click to expand...

Good luck - chasing intermittent problems with the dealer clock ticking is no fun at all. Got my notchy steering issue finally traced to premature strut mount failure with 1 day [!] left on my warranty….
 
Last edited:
Not so much what did I do to my Mini today but rather what some rat bast@&$ did to my Mini at our local mall, offering me some unwanted bodywork mods. Sadly he or she forgot to leave a note so I could thank them…

IMG_5605.webp IMG_5608.webp
 
Last edited:
Check with your insurance company, most companies will waive the deductible for hit-and-run damage on policies with full coverage. My hood got damaged in a Home Depot parking lot two months into my ownership, and the BMW-authorized body shop billed my insurance company $3600 to remove and repaint the entire bonnet, and replace all the plastic trim pieces because the clips generally break when removed.
 
Will do - thanks. Wasn’t aware of the deductible waiver. Estimates so far range from hood replacement, painting etc for $4500 down to Paintless Dent Removal at $1600 with the caveat that because the edge of the hood has been crushed, that part likely can’t be massaged out.
 
Outagas said:
Good luck - chasing intermittent problems with the dealer clock ticking is no fun at all. Got my notchy steering issue finally traced to premature strut mount failure with 1 day [!] left on my warranty….
Click to expand...
I've been whining about since the car was 6 months old. I'm going to be very annoyed if they never fix it...
 
SameGuy said:
Check with your insurance company, most companies will waive the deductible for hit-and-run damage on policies with full coverage. My hood got damaged in a Home Depot parking lot two months into my ownership, and the BMW-authorized body shop billed my insurance company $3600 to remove and repaint the entire bonnet, and replace all the plastic trim pieces because the clips generally break when removed.
Click to expand...
I've picked up a light scrape all the way down one side, maybe I should try my luck. I also have a small dent in the bonnet that looks like an easy paintless repair. No clue where that came from.
 
pictsidhe said:
I've been whining about since the car was 6 months old. I'm going to be very annoyed if they never fix it...
Click to expand...

My experience with Mini is that the SE model is so rare they are quite clueless about it - at least in my part of the world. The experience of others here may very well differ.
For instance, you may have seen me post elsewhere on these boards that I was getting a repeating “Charging Rate Reduced” message whenever I charged at home. They couldn’t replicated at the dealer and so insisted it was my house electrical system. I’ll save you the gruesome details of the year long dispute back and forth. They were, it turns out completely and totally incorrect. Thanks to another member here having a similar problem, they finally did a deep enough dive into the battery management system and – wonder of wonders – there was indeed a fault requiring its replacement, at a cost of about $4000. If I hadn’t kept hammering away at them, my warranty would’ve expired and I’d be on the hook for that repair.
Anyway, all that to say, stay the course and stick to your guns. At one point, I had the service manager for the BMW dealer next-door, who also covers the Mini operation, a couple of techs, and a supervisor all standing around the car while I educated them on the difference between domestic and commercial power grid voltages and reason they couldn’t replicate the problem. And me having just learned about it myself from a board member. None of them had a clue. But to be fair to them they did agree to keep looking even though I could tell they thought I was nuts. Why the car didn’t record an error in the battery management system software that was easier to find is beyond me. Apparently they have now flagged this issue worldwide in their tech systems so if anyone else brings an SE in anywhere they are sold with this issue, it’s recorded that at least one poor slob had the problem and the solution is such-and-such.
Apologies - looks indeed like you got most of the gruesome details after all…Perhaps your 12volt issue will be solved in this way too.
 
Last edited:
pictsidhe said:
I've picked up a light scrape all the way down one side, maybe I should try my luck. I also have a small dent in the bonnet that looks like an easy paintless repair. No clue where that came from.
Click to expand...

Frankly I was shocked at the PDR estimate. There’s multiple openings inside the hood (er, bonnet…) support structure that provided access to most of the damaged skin so was expecting $300-500, not triple the high side. I concede it is an art and requires skill and time to do well.
Then there’s me…..I’ve purchased a dent pulling kit and am working up the courage to have a go myself. I will attempt not to make the problem worse. :eek: Will share the results…o_O
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top