What did you do to your MINI today?

Outagas said:
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
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Good luck. Sorry, it happened. Some people suck.

On a windy day at work, a piece of a palm fell on my roof and left a few little dents. I bought a dent puller and light board. Haven't had a chance to test it out though.
 
Meanwhile I'm wondering if something is wrong with my battery. Whenever it gets cold soaked at pretty much any temperature below freezing (<32°F/0°C) these days, I start out with somewhere between 50 and 80% ePower, and it never gets to 100% by the end of my nine mile commute. Leaving from my moderately warm garage (50-65°F) it is 100% the entire way.
 
That sounds about right. My battery does that when the temp hits the teens or single digits. It's a bit more than 10 miles to most of my destinations, so my return home is full capacity.
 
Outagas said:
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.
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Last time I was in, the tech said maybe it keeps waking itself up. The records suggest that it woke itself up 3 times on boxing day, though I went nowhere near it and had the fobs in a cupboard...
 
SameGuy said:
Meanwhile I'm wondering if something is wrong with my battery. Whenever it gets cold soaked at pretty much any temperature below freezing (<32°F/0°C) these days, I start out with somewhere between 50 and 80% ePower, and it never gets to 100% by the end of my nine mile commute. Leaving from my moderately warm garage (50-65°F) it is 100% the entire way.
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Mine will drop from 100 if it is a little below freezing. It usually warms slowly and recovers as I drive. I'm in NC, so far below freezing is unusual... A timed charge before departure is the next best thing to the warm garage that I don't have...
 
I had my software upgraded for the battery recall. No noticeable difference in performance, other than not starting out in sport mode until I can get in bimmercode (assuming I remember my changes). Had a loaner ICE non-S w 13k mi on it for the day. Really missed my SE.
 
SameGuy said:
Meanwhile I'm wondering if something is wrong with my battery. Whenever it gets cold soaked at pretty much any temperature below freezing (<32°F/0°C) these days, I start out with somewhere between 50 and 80% ePower, and it never gets to 100% by the end of my nine mile commute. Leaving from my moderately warm garage (50-65°F) it is 100% the entire way.
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That sounds very normal, and is similar to what I experience. A 9-mile drive is nowhere near long enough to warm up a cold-soaked battery. The SE does not have any automatic battery conditioning, unlike the BMW i3.
 
I mounted my wheels with Blizzak snow tires on today. Temperatures have dropped into the 20s, and there is a forecast for snow at the end of this week. I'm looking forward to seeing what the car is like in snow. This will be the second season, ahh, second month on these tires. (They were used for one month last year.)

I'm finally getting the hang of putting wheels on that use lug bolts instead of lug nuts. (Decades ago in my youth, I had a Chevelle that had to have its wheel studs replaced because the car had spent too many winters in New England. Lug bolts would have made life easier.)
 
Qisl said:
I'm finally getting the hang of putting wheels on that use lug bolts instead of lug nuts.
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I use "locator studs" to help. I used to use a single one on other German cars, but I've decided two at a time work better for me.

https://a.co/d/dMjarhM

PS: don't be shy about using DTC (dynamic traction control, which reduces attempts by DSC – dynamic stability control – to minimize wheel spin) while driving in the loose stuff.
 
Took a Countryman SE for a test drive this week. Extremely well composed and well balanced for everyday driving. Probably not ideal for autocrossing.

Steering feel and ratio was outstanding! U-turns were much more crisp and easier than the 2-door SE (I don't single palm to crank the steering wheel when banging a U-ey). I also appreciated the 8 inch ground clearance during my urban overlanding adventure over the terrible lumpy ice roads.

When you use the gear lever thing, there is a Reverse-Neutral-D/B mode. D creeps you forward like automatic transmission and B is for 1 pedal driving. I really dislike the auto creeping and much prefer 1 pedal driving. The other weird thing is you can't turn off the Countryman SE until you lock the vehicle? I'll have to revisit that later.
 
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teslarati97 said:
The other weird thing is you can't turn off the Countryman SE until you lock the vehicle? I'll have to revisit that later.
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If you turn the fake key, 'OFF' will be displayed at the top of the screen. And even when off, the radio still plays. I'm always having to verify on the display that the car is actually off.
 
Qisl said:
If you turn the fake key, 'OFF' will be displayed at the top of the screen. And even when off, the radio still plays. I'm always having to verify on the display that the car is actually off.
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The radio turns off when you open the door (or when both doors are opened if there's a front-seat passenger), right? That's how the "radio-ready" mode works in my 2021 MINI Cooper SE.
 
insightman said:
The radio turns off when you open the door (or when both doors are opened if there's a front-seat passenger), right? That's how the "radio-ready" mode works in my 2021 MINI Cooper SE.
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Yeah it was just super weird that the radio/display stays on in the U25 SE until you lock the vehicle. In the F56 SE you can just double tap the toggle to completely power down. I still think the U25 SE is still very good despite mediocre DCFC curves. The interior space is pretty much the same size as a F15 X5 (2014 to 2018) - the boot space might be even slightly larger thanks to the boxy U25 shape and smaller rear wheel wells.

So jealous of @SameGuy because there are awesome January rebates right now. Roulez-vert gives up to $4,000, plus $4,000-$4,500 from MINI, plus $1,500 loyalty, and $5,000 from the iZEV program. That could be up to $15,000 before any dealer negotiations on the U25 SE.
 
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The loyalty and rebates are to help offset the Roulez Vert reduction, and to clear out inventories before Roulez Vert and iZEV get suspended in three weeks.
 
Sorry, end of March for iZEV, as originally scheduled. It was only supposed to run for three years when it was introduced in 2019, but every March since 2022 the program has been extended another year. The government announced yesterday that it will not be extended beyond March 31, 2025, and would be paused once available funds run out – which they are advising will happen before March 31.
 
No there's only about 71.8m left as of Dec 31, 2024 in iZEV. It will be exhausted by the end of this month or earlier...3 weeks or less is about right.
 
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