I've done a bunch of searching on this and haven't come up with much. Car is '06 MCS ~39,000 miles, no engine mods except a 15% pulley and an ATI damper. Driving home on the freeway the other day when I felt a little lurch and the tach went to zero - just like I'd turned off the ignition. Coasted to the shoulder and tried a re-start - cranked freely but no start. All electrical systems working OK. Called AAA and got a tow home. Visual inspection showed nothing out of the ordinary; plugged in a scanner and got P1617 a DME fault. Some reading here suggested a possible relay fault, so I took a look at the main DME relay, pulled it out and re-seated it - all looked clean and good. So I tried starting again and it fired up just fine but still showed the SES light. Read the codes again and it still showed P1617, so I erased it and the light went out. Drove around the block a few times and everything seemed normal - no codes. So, what's going on? Is something failing when it gets hot (it was pretty hot out when it failed, but I've driven it in much hotter conditions)? The obvious concern is preventing a recurrence which may not happen in a convenient time or place. Any accumulated wisdom here? Thanks.

 

Some of my stuff says 1617 is an Electric Throttle Control "driver failure". I am wondering if this has something to do with the gas pedal.

 

Intermittent electrical problems often get traced back to battery & charging system. How is yours?

 

Battery is about 3 years old - no evidence of any other electrical issues. Of course, they do sneak up on you, but I think that would be an odd way to present. Starting has never been any kind of an issue. I'm thinking that it must be an intermittent contact somewhere or something heat-related. I'm leaning toward the latter as I can't think of any reason for the former to develop - a SOCAL car with low miles and no corrosion anywhere. It was one of the hotter days we've had for a while and I'd done about 8 miles, so it was well up to temperature. To me that suggests perhaps a relay that is not making quite good enough contact for the DME or something in the DME itself. More specifically, what I was able to find on P1617 is that it related to the DME "h-driver". If it really means what it says, I guess that means a new DME. Why do I suspect that is not as simple as just buying one and plugging it in?

 

Hey folks, I know this thread is ancient, but in my googling of this code, this thread came up with no resolution. I want to share my experience in diagnosing and repairing this issue. I had a friends 06 R50 5 speed with 125k miles in my garage with the 1617 fault as well as the dsc error 5e19 (which sets when there is dme fault pending) He had it at another garage that swapped in known good throttle and it didn't fix anything so they took it out and he brought the car to me. The other shop suggested it was maybe a DME. I had an identical r50 5speed in for some suspension work, so I used it as a donor. I pulled the DME and EWS out of the known good car and put it in the problem car, stuck the key in the ignition and turned the switch with a screwdriver. The car fired up and did the exact same thing, ran rough, wouldn't rev past 2,000 rpm, ses light eml light, dsc light. Exact same failure. I took the throttle off of the donor car and installed it as well. Same thing, no change in running like crap. As soon as you clear the faults they come right back. I have now eliminated the throttle and DME from being problems. I next pulled up the wiring diagram and started doing continuity checks between the throttle and DME connector. All of the wiring had .2Ω resistance or less and led to where it was supposed to be, no shorts from the positive or negative h bridge connections. Next I checked continuity to ground, maybe a wire was shorted somewhere, no issues there, with the dme connector disconnected, all of the wiring was open to ground. with it connected, i believe it was pin2 had ground continuity, but, it is supposed to, it is grounded through the DME. Next I checked continuity to B+, I found that the H bridge positive circuit was shorted somewhere to battery positive which was causing the throttle to be all wonky and set the fault. To further verify my findings, I had a spare engine harness laying around. I made a stand alone throttle harness and pinned it into the engine harness. I put the original DME and throttle into the vehicle, cleared faults and adaptations and started the car, it ran great, revved well past 2k and drove around the block without issues. I ended up replacing the engine harness with new, and since then the car has run flawlessly.

Hope this helps someone since almost every 1617 forum thread on here or MINI torque never show a resolution.

 

Probably no one posts a solution because it isn't always clear whether you have solved the problem or not (guilty!). After a couple of such incidents I took it to an Indy specialist, and of course it died on the way there. I got it towed there and by the time he got to it, it ran fine and he could find no faults. However, he did replace the DME relay - the thing I had suspected all along, and I never had a recurrence after that (sold the car about a year later).
I think that fault code is pretty generic, but electrical system would be the place to look.

 

Also consider swapping out the crank position sensor. A failing sensor will cut the fuel pump (normally without error) due to safety precautions (to prevent fire).

 

Check the voltage with a good multimeter direct on battery when engine run.Than use ground of body and than engine ground.See if you have same values.