Having a few problems guys with the dreaded airbag light.

A bit of a story but here goes................

Car developed an airbag warning light,so I went to my local independant repair garage.
The Engineer plugged in his diagnostics and reset the warning light.
The following day the light came back on,so I went back to the garage and the engineer plugged in and reset again,but the light came back on again immediately and was showing a code 11 fault and said 'BATTERY + '
We checked the battery and found the battery well was half full of water.
Took car home,removed battery and dried everything out,cleaned all leads,battery terminals etc,and left carpet lifted for a month to make sure everything could fully dry out.
Went back to have light reset,and you guessed it............................
I have a code 11 error message and the airbag warning light will not reset.

Sorry to have written an essay,but I wanted to tell the full story,to see if any of you guys have any ideas.

Cheers,

J.

 

Please post more info on the car...
Production date would be useful....
One thing to keep in mind...
some life-cycle changes we have here on US bound vin"s, such as the dual stage airbags and weight sensors (most facelift cars got the change, but not the early ones...) (starting Jan 1 2005) may not apply to you!!
Welcome and good Luck!

 

First generation 2002 model,

50,000 miles

Original battery

No accident damage

....just the water in the boot/battery well incident.

 

What I find amazing is you still have an original battery in your Mini! Its probably due for a new one, but in the interim top off the cells with distilled water only and see how it goes.

 

+1, and that really is amazing, my OEM only lasted 6yrs, and I thought that was good.
Don't forget batteries are time sensative not really milage sensative so 11 years is great.

Not only are Mini's power hungry @ start up, but any lack there of will start to trigger warnings, even if things are technically OK.

 

Yeah lads i agree with you about the battery (I am a sparks by trade),but the tell-tale battery health indicator is still showing green,so I am assuming its still good.Is it coincidental or do you think the water in the battery well could take out the battery+ squib ?

I'm reluctant to go for a new battery when it may be the squib that has blown,or to short out the squib with a resistor when it may be the battery at fault.......decisions decisions mmm ???

 

the battery is bad.. buy a new one!