Holy ****, it actually worked! I drove my car tonight for the first time since February! It looks like I've still got a bunch of goofy electrical crap going on though. Some of it has a bad ground feedback problem feel to it, and some a low battery voltage feel. I did check the battery though and it's charged to a good strong 13 volts.

So on the first test drive, here's what I ran into: first of all, headlights with very intermittent / crappy operation. They kept flicking on and off, sometimes staying off. Eventually after about 20 mins of driving, they stayed on. Also the leveling motor needs to be recalibrated. I suppose the dealer needs to do this?

Alternator / battery warning light on. The really messed up thing here is that as soon as I shift into reverse (6spd MT), this light goes out. Sometimes it also kills the headlights. This is where it kinda feels like a wierd bad ground where one of those signals is backfeeding through a warning light or ECU.

Passenger window doesn't work, driver's side works fine.

Ambient temperature upon startup reads -40F when it's a balmy 60F outside. After about 15-20 mins, it slowly climbs up till it reads in the 60's, but restarting the car causes this to go back down to -40 and start over again.

Brake disks are rusted all to hell and it feels about as hard and responive as a sponge... Need to rebuild brakes, can't expect much of cheap Chinese rotors sitting for 8 months now can we?

So let me ask you this - is there a way to pull OBD codes out through the tachometer without using the little display tool? Seems like I've done this before on the Mini, but can't find anything about it in either my Haynes or electrical manuals. I could have sworn though that there's a key-on, key-off, hold the trip odometer sequence that will pull up the p-codes. If anyone knows the trick to that, let me know!!

 

There is an OBD port under the dash drivers side ... I have my ScangaugeII plugged in there

Autozone/Advanced will pull codes for FREE

 

I just purchased a used Body Control Module for my car. It was from a Non "S" model 2003 with 197 miles on it. So this weekend I will plug it in and see if it cures my problems. If it doesn't, anyone want to buy a 2003 BC1 from a Non S car mfg 10/02. I paid $132.50 for it.

 

there is a company that rebuilds them

 

Any idea who that might be???

 

http://www.bba-reman.com/us/index.aspx

 

Back to square one...replaced BC1 and it didn't make a difference. Wonder what it is?? Alternator??

 

alternator can be tested autozone ect

 

I cured my problem the easy way. I towed it to dealer and let them check out the car. It wasn't the body module after all. It was an alternator. Gotto laugh though because the dealer told me it was approx $950 for a new alternator. So anyway I wanted a new one so I got a good deal on old one and bought a 2010 Clubman. So now I have an extra tested BC1 I will sell for what I paid....$132 if anyone wants one. It came from a wrecked car with 197 miles. If fit 2002 and 2003 maybe more. I can give numbers on outside if anyone is interested. Otherwise i will put on ebay.

 

When your car starts acting funny, measure the voltage across the battery terminals with a multimeter.