Had window tint installed on the car, and afterwards (they say they did not disconnect the battery) the tach and speedo and lights on same don't work.

Comfort access works, the radio works, my presets are all still there, headlights work, taillights work, turnsignals work (but no sound), fan on A/C works (but A/C isn't engaging), sunroof works, map lights and dome light work.

On the display on the tach, all I see is an image of a key. Nothing in the owner's manual I can find to indicate what this could be, but I'm betting on a fuse.

I've put a call in to my MA (service dept is closed), roadside assistance just wants to tow it, ASK-MINI is closed on the weekend.

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

A follow-up:

Checked the under hood fuse panel, nothing there looked like it would be relevant, so I checked the fuses inside.

The pictures identifying what things are leaves something to be desired, BTW.

I identified a few likely fuses, pulled them, they looked fine. (Did this 1 by 1 to make sure I didn't misplace one.) Then I checked the blue wiring harness that seemed to be a little askew. Pressed on it firmly, then checked things and all is working. Time was off by a few hours, oddly enough it thought it was about the time they would have had it at the tint place.

Hmmm...

Except now I get a solid check engine light. Reseated the gas cap in case that was it.

Any idea how long it would take for the check engine light to go away in that case? The manual says a solid light is not cause for great alarm, but I'm thinking of driving it to the nearest dealer (75 mi, and not the dealer where I purchased it) Monday to see if they can pull the code and see what it is.

 

Did you try both comfort access fobs? I'm wondering if they could have accidently fried your fob? Put it down on one of those cashier things that erase magnetic strips?

 

Yeah, it did it with both. I did identify the key thing to mean "you've left the key in, dummy". And both fobs work right now. I'm thinking the harness wiggled loose, which would explain that symptom.

I'm wondering if the CEL might be unrelated.

 

are you saying the Dash lights arent working.. but headlights are?

 

Yep. Everything worked except the dash lights (including idiot lights, internal turn signals, OBC -- the radio worked but the display was dim), the tach and speedo sat at "zero", and the Auto A/C wouldn't kick in right.

I'm thinking it was a loose wiring harness next to the internal fuse tray, firmly seating that seems to have addressed the main problem.

 

Another update (yeah, I know, "get a blog!" ):

The CEL went out. So I think that was probably the gas cap. It's nearly a full tank, down only two bars, so that was probably that.

My new theory on how this was fixed though -- I didn't disconnect the battery before checking the fuses. Unplugging the fuse and reseating it might have removed the power from the OBC, so I effectively rebooted it. I also forgot to mention I swapped the fuse for the OBD (the diagnostics module) with the fuse for whatever was also a 5A fuse that looked like it might be the gauges, so that might have cause a reset for the OBD which maybe caused the CEL.

The woman at the tint place hadn't seen one of the new keys before, so they might have done something wierd with the key and having doors open and whatnot. I can't be sure.



However, the car's now back to 100% normal.

 

glad all is well, and now I know you are the go to guy about fuses!

 

good to here its working again. The thought i was having is that with mine and most other minis if you move the Ebrake up just a little. At one point all the lights on the dash will go out. but the Headlights and most of the other stuff will work. Don't know if this was intentional or not. (use to be a feature so you can enjoy drive in movies), but i have heard of it failing or getting stuck on a few. Which made it hard to track down.

 

That is really strange. The exact thing happened to my mini yesterday. I had the windows tinted fri., on sun., lost all power to tach. I pulled the fuse (prior to reading your post), and other than the relay being really hot, it was fine. The wire did seem loose. When I turned the car back on I had power to the console, but the check engine light was on. I had already called roadside assistance and by the time the lights came back on, the tow truck was there. Since the check engine light was on, I let them take it. Now I am wishing I didn't let them tow it. However, this was the 2nd time I had lost power. The first was only for about 5 seconds last week while I was at a stop light.
Have you had anymore trouble?

 

It was not your gas cap. There is a seperate indication for a loose gas cap on all MINIs sold in the US since 2002. On your R56 is would come up as a little picture of a car with a gas cap overlayed on it. It is described in your owners manual. I would think it was probably a fault that was generated by the loose connector. Swapping the fuses might have done it, but is very unlikely since the computer doesn't usually throw a check engine light when you disconnect the battery and reconnect it.

 

Not true. I've seen a CEL light because of a gas jockey in NJ didn't do his job properly and I didnt have time to check. When I got the dealer to clear the code it was because of a loose gas cap.

 

It is likely the loose harness caused the check engine light and other issues you described. What I am wondering is, especially since this happened to 2 of you after tinting, why would the harness be pulled loose. Did you have sunroof tiniting? Maybe a foot found its way under the dash?

 

That's strange. I have had two MINIs an '03 and an '06. Both of them have the seperate indication. I have seen it come on when I didn't get the cap tight once. I even went so far as to actually download the r56 owners manual to see if we had somehow lost this function in the new model, and when I was looking into this the other day I downloaded the '05 manual to look at the r50-53 indication (I am in the middle east right now, so I couldn't look at my manual). Makes me want to do a little experimenting when I get home next month.

 

I got word from the dealership today that I have a bad instrument cluster. They ordered me a new one, should be fixed tomorrow....we'll see.

 

The indicator is there, it just seems like it doesn't come on as often as would make sense to avoid added stress for the driver.

 

Same exact thing just happened with my car.

(Did not have a window tint or any service, it just happened.)

I did mess with the connectors in the fuse box near the passenger side. Everything came back to normal but now I have a CEL.

Definitely seeing a pattern here.

My cel has yet to go out (6-8 hrs so far) but I'm sure it will soon. Tried to read it with OBD II but couldn't get a read from the scanner??

 

CEL is gone now.

Pulled codes:

P1551
Manf Cntrl Veh. Spd.
Idle Speed Control

P1115
Manufacturer Contrl
Fuel Air Metering

P1409
Manufacturer Contrl
Auxillary emission Controls

P1433
Manufacturer Contrl
Auxillary emission Controls


I really think this is just a random "loose connection" problem as the codes are multiple and all over the place.


The real question is: where was the actual loose connection? Definitely somewhere in that fuse box, but I kind of played with all of the fuses and connectors before starting the car a second time, so I can't be sure. Who wants to pull the blue plug and try to start their car and reproduce the whole catastrophe???....Not me.

 

A bit late on the response, but no, this has never come back.

 

(sorry for two-month delay in responding)

No sunroof tint. I asked them if they had disconnected the battery, the only thing they said they did was leave the key inserted in the ignition the whole time. I don't believe they pulled door panels either, but a foot under the dashwouldn't be surprising.

 

I can see the spot for the gas cap light on my speedo ('04 MCS), but I have yet to see it come on - it doesn't even light up on initial start up. Does yours?