dead radio followed by dead battery

[pacbob]

Several days ago, the so far reliable MINI started up just fine but no sounds. Pushed the on-off button a whole bunch to no avail. All else ok. Getting close to oil change time so figured to wait it out. Then 2 days later, tried to go and discovered totally dead battery. After a few days rest (out of town) hooked up the battery charger, battery took the charge just fine and lo and behold, sounds are on again. Been driving now for 5 days and all is just peachy. Chalk it up to the twilight zone or ?????

[BillK]

Have them look for a short in the radio harness. My guess is a bare wire that was shorting with resistance to ground that shifted so it is not shorted now. If I am right, it can also shift back and short again.

I don't think the ghost of Rod Serling is stealing your electrons.

[here2help]

Hi pacbob

When these cars first came out they had a problem with the radios..(Boost CD or Boost MD) What was happening is that when temperatures dropped below a certain temp(cant remember exactly the temp sorry)the radio started to drain the battery...after alot of testing i found that the k-bus wire to the radio was keeping the bus system alive and not letting it enter it's sleep mode...(the drain was 70-80 milliamps which is quite excessive as it should only be 30 milliamps..)
After converstions with the guys in the know we found out it was caused by a internal fault in the radios..(changed loads of them....!)

I dont know how old youre car is but it should have the modified one fitted by now anyway..unless its been very warm where you are and you havent noticed it before until now when it maybe cold..it maybe a radio fault...???
let us know how you go on will yer...
cheers mate

[Paul]

I too remember this fault from 'days of old' in MINI terms, but thought it had been cured.

As h2h says, please report back.

[pacbob]

Well, so far so good. Since I am about 900 miles from the first MINI paid for oil change service, I am waiting till that momentous occasion rolls around before taking the car in to the dealer. However, for the last 2 weeks all has been well. As for the weather, I live in No. Cal. and while it is technically winter here, it is actually a bit warmer where I live (on the coast) than it is during the summer. So the car has not been subjected to any severe temperature drops. Will advise after a trip to the dealer in a few weeks. Thanks for the tips.