I have an '02 S, no mods, with multiple problems that started popping up over the past month or so.

Started with the door locks. I was sitting at a stop light when they started making a clicking noise, then started rapidly locking/unlocking. When they finally stopped, I was unable to lock my doors with my remote or the interior door lock button. They would lock, and immediately unlock. I checked the fuse, and eventually had to just pull it so that I could manually lock my doors, resulting in zero access to my trunk right now. If I left the fuse in and used the key to lock the doors, it would lock the driver/passenger, but not the hatch. Locking it manually without the fuse results in a locked hatch, but can't figure out how to manually unlock it without putting the fuse in each time (no thanks).

Second: Within a couple days, I noticed my driver side seat heater would no longer stay on. The lights illuminate when pressed, and immediately turn off, no warmth is release. Passenger heater illuminates and works properly.

Third: When I park my car, turn it off, and lock the doors, the dome light turns off. After about 15 seconds, it turns back on. Then after another 15 seconds, turns off, then back on, repeat. As far as I know, it does this the entire time the car is off. This is something I just noticed in the past week, but who knows how long it's been going on. I'm concerned about my battery life now.

MINI wants over $200 just to tell me what's wrong. I'm not sure if I should trust something like this to a shop other than the dealer if it is electrical. Any help/advice would be much appreciated!

I'm in the Denver Metro area.

Thanks!

 

IMO its your battery. I am willing to bet you have an old battery and MINI's do weird things when a battery starts to fail. Have it checked out.

 

That's a free diagnostic that's worth a shot! Thank you! I've only had the car for about 6 months, so it's very possible that it needs a new battery. I'll post my findings.

 

Battery tested good at 85%. Any other ideas?

 

How many CCA and volts?

 

Whats the ideal voltage if your car is in idle? (Aircon, radio foglamps headlights incl high beam) and also when you move your steering wheel?

 

I have no idea. Upon further inspection, the compartment that the battery is in is incredibly rusted, and the positive cable connections has some heavy corrosion and rust on them. I took the entire assembly apart and cleaned it all, which actually restored use of my automatic door locks (they got to the point of being non-responsive initially), but they are still unlocking themselves. The dome light seems to be ok for now. The unlocking is not immediate anymore after I hit the lock button, but at some point after I leave the vehicle, it's unlocking itself again. My guess is it's still not getting enough power, just not sure what else to do.

The seat heater still continues to shut off right away.