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Mini won't start / Immobiliser problem

48K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Milpol 
#1 ·
Dear fellow mini 2 drivers,

I must congratulate you on your great forum it has helped me fixed the Power steering pump failure I had and had help on numerous other things saving a fortune.

I have now hit a new problem on my ’03 plate mini one, which I haven’t been able to find a thread on this forum.

I think this is an immobiliser problem but maybe somebody might be able to help.
Here goes;
The problem began when I was working on the exhaust and had the boot open for a number of hours, then when I went to shut the boot it would not open on the catch and can only be released by the manual pull. Also the offside rear indicator will not work.
The car will not start, it turns over and sparks but will not fire, which makes me, think that the fuel pump is immobilised. The first time this happened was when I was working on the exhaust and I was able to bump start the car and get it going again. Previous to the bump start I checked all the fuses and relays, disconnected the battery, and tried to do an ECU reset with the key, not sure if that worked.

This fault has happened again while I was working on the rear washers jets, so I had the boot up again for a period.
Now the car won’t even bump start. I’ve tried leaving the key in for a few hours to see if that did anything, I have also disconnected the battery but nothing seems to work.

Please can you help, does anybody have any ideas? I’m guessing I need to un-arm the immobiliser, does anybody know how to do this?

Best Regards,

Matt
 
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#2 ·
The MOST UNRELIABLE car of its time. I have spent about $ 6000 on my 2002 mini cooper and have done about 2000 Km only in the last two years. Since I have bought, it has spent 99% of time in the garage. Now I have decided to get rid of its power unit and stick in of a Toyota. In fact it is only the body which will be Mini (The beautiful Looking), everything else will be Toyota, Engine, Transmission wiring + fuse box, speedo.
 
#3 ·
Matt, have the battery checked by an auto electrician, make sure that it can provide the required Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) otherwise you wont start the car. Mini's are very finicky to old/poor battery health. If the CCA is not up to par, you will need a new battery. A low Batt will also produce errors in the ECU, Dash instruments etc etc,. If the ECU etc are not getting the required voltage, you may find the immobiliser cant interrogate the chip inside the key correctly so you wont be able to start. Bottom line is, get the battery checked 1st and replace if the CCA is not what it should be.
 
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