2nd Gen R56 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: R56 DME Failure Questioned

Hey, I just found the perfect accessory for my mini...a tow hook!

 

Well after nine weeks and $3,200 later, a DME wire was discovered shorted to the intake. It appears that after seven years of vibration the shielding around the wiring harness and the wire's jacket wore thin and shorted to ground. Glad to finally have it back and running. Classic Mini in Cleveland were great to work with and I would highly recommend.

The saga Ends...

 

I guess the lesson learned was that I should have spent the $265 to tow the mini back to the dealer instead of taking it to my local BMW mechanic. The dealer has the ability (and they really did this) to take a DME and CAP out of a used mini on the lot and try it in the car to see if that was the fix (let alone a warehouse of mini parts to try out) where the local mechanic did not have that luxury.
My real beef is with GoECU in Texas who said that the processor on the DME had failed which was the deciding factor to pull the $1500 trigger on a new DME. The old DME is still in the car and running fine and I now have a very expensive paperweight on my desk.

Just glad to get to the bottom of this (just like my savings account

Happy Motoring!

 

I live on the outskirts of Canton in a city called Massillon (The home of Football). No kidding, every baby boy born at the Massillon hospital receives a stuffed football in their crib (starting them young!). Unfortunately though the closest mini dealer is the east side of Cleveland (60 mi) but at this point I'm out of warranty so not too much of an issue anymore.

 

CHKMINI is correct, the computer ECU or now according to Mini is called the DME is somewhat of a mystery when it fails. So far I've found GoDME in TX and RPM Motorsports in Victoria Canada who will recondition a used one.

I was wondering if anyone else has really had to replace their DME/ECU/Computer before and what type of symptoms did they have. I have a feeling that tomorrow (Mon) the decision will need to be made to pull the trigger on one.

Go Tigers!

Thanks,

 

DME is DOA

I'm not too sure what is more dead my DME or this thread

I received news back from GoECM today that my DME was in fact bad. They contacted Mini and received schematics to t-shoot it and then discovered that the problem was the processor. Bad news because it cannot be replaced. Now it's Hello $1425 new DME from Mini with no refund or guarantee! However the report from GoECM did provide a higher confidence level now that the DME was the culprit of my problems.

And the saga continues...once I receive the new DME (three days) Mini stated that they need to program it to my car (3hrs at $110). Fortunately my BMW cert mech can also do this.Had a deep sigh on this because another $275 to tow it back up to mini in Cleveland was adding up.

All in all I'll have close to $3K invested in this little "mini" ordeal which is really sad for a six year old car with only 70K miles.

Man I hope this is the end to all of this and I can say "lets motor" :fingerscrossed:

 

2/2/14 Update on the R56 DME:
Sent the questionable DME to GoECM in TX and they confirmed that the processor had failed and was not repairable. Contacted Mini and purchasing a new DME. $1516 later, a new DME was installed but found that it needed programmed to the car. Once completed, it still would not start but we noted zero RPMs on the analyzer during cranking. According to the remaining default codes, they are now pointing to either a failed Crank Shaft Sensor and a Throttle Sensor. Ordered a new Crank Shaft sensor and hoping that will put an end to this not-so-mini problem (or repair bill).
This is the first really major issue I've had in almost four years of ownership and to be honest I'm not quite ready to put a For Sale sign on it yet but I think I'll keep my tow hook in the glove box.

 

Going on week seven and still cannot get it to start. Decided to call mini dealerships in LA, San Fran and NY to see if I could talk to a tech. Found one in LA and he really helped on the error codes.

New DME was programmed and now no injector pulse or spark.
Replaced Crank sensor - no change
Error codes:
2BD2 = Internal driver / DME
2B4A = Throttle sensor (high side)
2B4A = " " (low side)

According to tech even with the throttle sensor unplugged car would still start and idle around 1800 RPM.

Suggested putting old DME in to see if it would at least get spark and fuel.

BTW: the tech said that in his five years he has only seen two DME's fail.

Doing point to point wiring ring outs now and if we cannot find cause I'm going to tow it to Cleveland mini dealer where at least they will have access to BMW engineering.

The saga continues...