Bought a used 2010 Mini Cooper about a month ago. The battery went dead the weekend after I got the car home. I tried charging the battery with cables connected to car. I realize now that was a mistake. As a result I zapped the FRM. Got the FRM reprogrammed and reinstalled. Everything worked as expeced. Three days later, I get in the car and insert the keyfob to start the car and...nothing. No response from car. The overhead light works, the radio works but the no response from the car. I tried repeatedly inserting and removing the key then one time, I inserted the key and turned on the radio and suddenly the car woke up. The next morning I got in the car and same thing happened. No response. I pulled the key out, tapped it once or twice then reinserted it and the car woke up. After work I sat in my sweltering car for about 35 minutes until the car woke up again. I figured it must be the keyfob battery. I replaced the battery and again everything works fine, doors lock, unlock etc. But then when I insert the key in the starter I get nothing. I am at a loss as to what the problem could be. Any suggestions? I'm not prepared to start throwing money at this until I'm relatively sure what the problem might be. I can't afford taking the car to the dealer, so I'm hoping for some help here.
Thanks to everyone in advance.

 

Apexhunter, any luck with this issue? I'm having the same problem. First time it happened, I came back 20 minutes later, inserted the key and it was fine. Drove a couple times and then today, no start. Shows a "no key" symbol, even though the radio turns on with the key in. Just won't start. Tried again 10 minutes later and it started! Got home, tried again... nothing. At first I thought it was the internal battery of the keyfob being dead, but now I'm wondering if it has to do with the cradle? Also at a loss here, I'm hoping after almost a year, you've had some luck resolving the issue.

 

Just for ***** and giggles did either of you check your battery cables?

 

Minifenrir, I was REALLY hoping it was just the battery cables. They were clean and tight, I took them off, cleaned them anyway and reseated them. No luck. I suppose my car battery could need replacing after 3 years, but usually I can get to at least 5 years before I start to see slow starts and such.

 

I did see on here where someone was having a similar problem. One thing that helped was more downward pressure on the keyfob once it's seated in the slot. One person used on of those little key chain rewards card things. They put it on top of the fob when inserting. So maybe it's just a bad connection between the fob and the little induction coil in the dash.

 

I read the same post. I tried the rewards card trick- no luck. It was blazing hot out there so I gave up and decided to try again tomorrow. Gives me a little more time to research. Definitely sounds like a seating/cradle problem, but that's just my dummy guess. For all I know, it has something to do with the muffler bearings, or maybe a low blinker fluid reservoir.