The other evening, my 2003 R50 wouldn't start when I came out of a movie theatre. I didn't leave the lights on.
It has started right up every time until then so no clue that the battery was going down the tubes, but it is 4 years old.
The dash display takes a few extra seconds to initialize, but when I try to crank, the dash lights flash and something clicks
on & off but no dimming of lights and no starter action. I figured the battery just suddenly failed (a shorted cell, etc.) but
when I tried to jump it with the battery of my friend's running car with a good battery, it was exactly the same - no go.
AAA came and they tried to jump it but same thing. We then push started it and it ran fine all the way to my local
MINI-friendly repair place (about 20 miles away). As soon as I parked it in the lot and turned it off, I tried to restart it and
exactly the same as before - clicking and dash flashing but no starter action. Radio, lights, work, but door locks and windows
were a little sluggish. The clicking and flashing only happens if the clutch is depressed, so I figure it's not the clutch switch,
and the alternator should be good if it ran with normal brightness headlights for 20 miles.

The battery is the obvious suspect, but if so, why wouldn't it respond to a cable jump attempt (left the cables on with the
other car running for about 10 minutes before giving up on it). It shouldn't have been the jumper cables, as it wouldn't work with
AAA's jump kit either. Maybe a shorted cell in the battery would drag down the voltage even when trying to jump it?
I guess other possibilities include bad starter/solenoid, bad connections, bad ignition switch, bad immobilizer EWS (but then
I figure it wouldn't push start either), or some other electronic mess.

My MINI has been at the repair place since Friday night waiting for them to open Monday am and hopefully look at it then.
I would have tried installing a new battery myself first, but with the weird behavior, inability to restart without pushing,
yesterday's snow (may be hard to push start on a snowy road - I can't see trying to get my wife to help me do that)
I figured it might not be just the battery and wanted the other stuff checked anyway.

Can anyone else shed some light on the difficulty of jump starting a MINI with cables?
Is there some initialization procedure that needs to be done before it will restart?
I didn't need to do anything special when I replaced the battery 4 years ago (it didn't die then, it was just down to about
60% power on a load test and time to do it).

 

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Well, it apparently was just the battery - don't know why it wouldn't take a jump
unless the dead battery was dragging down the jump voltage. If I ever have to
jump a dead MINI (or other electronically complicated modern car) again,
I guess I'll try taking off one of the battery terminals when jumping it.

It's soon enough that they'll also do my March annual safety/emmissions inspection,
and for that it will apparently need a new right front top strut mount.
Should all get done today, unless they get delayed getting the strut bolt out so
they can change the mount
BTW - have the M7 strut tower protectors (ones that go on top) and no
mushrooming despite a cracked strut mount. I guess that means they work.

 

My R53 did that yesterday, went into the grocery store came out and got into car, nothing, tried to jump lights and chime came on but would not turn over, so I took the battery out and ran it over to Autozone checked out fine 100%. Put it back in tightened up the cables and it started, so it was a loose battery cable. If your battery is bad it will not take a jump at least that has been my experience, not just on MINIs but also on my wifes Edge. Had to put a new battery in it in the parking lot and everything was fine.

 

It's happened to me once on a different car that jumping doesn't work immediately because the battery was too low. So I let it sit connected for 10-15 minutes to receive charge, then rev the healthy car to 2500 RPM and crank it... worked.

Also check your cables and terminals for corrosion and tightness.

 

been there and done that

modern electronics don't respond quickly to a jump . . . or a quick charger . . .

but sadly many will argue I'm wrong so I just get lazy about the argument . . .

many many previous post on this very topic, recommending buy a new battery . . . . (I wrote several)

curious, was this an original battery? From what year?

I change my battery at 5 years regardless ... and don't have problems unless I f* up, like when I was working on the ignition of the 79 and left the ignition on for a week while waiting on parts . . . that drained my OPTIMA to be sure. And then I learned the special tricks needed to hook a dead OPTIMA to a standard charger!!!!! (if you want it to charge that is..)

 

Glad to hear that was all it was, don't know what it is that makes new cars so hard to jump what made mine fun was the fact the boot won't open w/o power and naturally that's where the battery is.

 

pop the bonnet and hook up the jump cables to the provided + post and the chassis for jumping. Once connected you can also pop the boot . . .

early 02S owner sends

 

This was a Deka 647MF replacing the OEM (2003) one in 12/2007 (just over 4 years ago).
Instant starts with no problems up to and including a couple hours before it suddenly was dead.
(and I didn't leave the lights or any other electronics on). It did fine when I did a load test about 6-12 months ago.
The battery build date was sometime in late 2007. I was planning on replacing it before next winter.

 

There's also a manual release for the rear hatch under the rear seat.