Will be away from the MINI for six or seven weeks. Has a consensus emerged on best battery practices for leaving it parked a long time like this? Or , anyway, those of you who have had to do something like this, what have you done? We have a 2022 SE, in the US.
Basically fully charge the battery per the manual. There's almost no drain on the battery when parked so leaving it unplugged for 6-7 weeks would likely show very little drop in charge.
Not to open a can of worms that's already been discussed ad nauseum in another thread... but the manual has changed its mind rather significantly between revisions, and nobody has been able to explain exactly why.
If you can keep it plugged in, that's ideal. Otherwise, I wouldn't be concerned so long as you charge the car fully beforehand. The main battery will keep the 12V battery topped off.
I still can't find where MINI says the 12V battery gets charged when the SE is not ON. It might happen, but why doesn't the manual explain that important feature?
Based on the updated manual, I would leave it unplugged with the battery somewhere between 50% and 80%. As someone said, it might lose a % but it should keep the 12V charged. Don’t expect to use the remote climate or door locks until you drive it again. The remote features stop working a few days after the last drive.
Back from my trip, my SE stayed at 100% SoC after 11 days of being unplugged. Parked in a garage, so a pretty consistent environment.
MINI calls the 12V battery the vehicle battery. In the owner's manual (https://www.miniusa.com/content/dam/mini/PDF/archiveownermanuals/MY22/MINI_Owners_Manual_F56_Cooper_SE_SOP_3-2022.pdf), there's a mention on page 266: "A charger that is installed in the vehicle supplies the vehicle battery with power. The charger receives the necessary energy from the high-voltage battery". Most likely there's more details in the technical manual, but I haven't seen it.
I assume there must be a technical manual for the SE, but I suspect it's online and not easily accessible to the public. If anyone knows someone who has access to the SE technical manual, please ask them to answer this important question.
Since the SE wakes up periodically to check in with the backend servers and will cool the high voltage batteries if necessary, I suspect it can also maintain the 12 V battery. But some real documentation would indeed be nice.
