Hello all I'm a mini newbie, just bought a 2006 today. I have poured through the internet for answers to why my Tire Pressure light is on... I had tires checked... All good... Tried the reset, no such luck. The light stays on and just stares at me... Any way to make it go away besides a trip to a mini dealer or duct tape?
:cornut: Sounds like one of the wheel sensors have gone south or is missing. Go to a reputable tire dealership and have them checked. Jason
Or, press the button while the car is on and shut down, press again and start the car up again. Drive a short distance if the light has not shut off again. If it is still not working correctly, then refer to Jason's advice.
I may have to find another Tire dealer then... I took her to Les Schwab yesterday and was first told it more than likely was tire pressure... They checked the tires and all was good... Light still on so the tech who helped me went to confirm with a "seasoned" tech who told him that my car does not have tire sensors and that the light is actually for ABS... I may be a female but not a stupid one...
Read the owners manual. Page 73..... Follow the link>>> Owners Manuals - MINI Cooper 2002-2013 - Library
:cornut: The females that hang out here at MA are in no way stupid nor MINI knowledge challenged(I'm agreeing with you Ma'am). You came here to find out about your MINI and that makes you a MINI Scholar in training. Jason
I read through the manual before I had posted that's why I'm stuck... I'm one of those girls who reads,watches videos and try's everything before asking for help... Was hoping someone else has had the issue and remembered how it was fixed... On my next day off Im going back to Les Schwab, going to speak to management and give them an earful... Its a 2006 for goodness sakes not a brand new lots of changes made car... They should be more up to date than to give wrong advice....
Sorry I did not realize you have gone through the steps. Can't see where going back the uninformed tire dealer is going to do anything for you, except maybe raise your BP. Check & see if the button might be stuck in the down position. I have read about that happening.
do you know the age of the wheel sensors? they have batteries in them with a "design life" of 5 years after which they must be replaced (the whole unit, the batteries are potted and are not replaceable) scott
The wheel speed sensors on a 2006 MINI are not the same as 07 on sensors. No battery, just a normal tire valve. What the early MINI uses are the abs sensors to track wheel speed. When it see's a difference in speed it throws the light.
This is a first gen car....no TPMS sensors or batteries, just the wheel speed sensors. I would go ahead and follow the directions in the manual for resetting the sensor with the button under the parking brake handle. If it still doesn't go out it sounds like the button maybe defective. Will need to get it to a MINI shop to check the button then.
No not stupid but man you keep bad company! As you know you should be able to reset it with the car running, just hold the button in for about 5 sec and drive. My light goes out in a few feet. If all els fails disconnect the battery for ten min. This will reset everything. Are there any other lights on? If you have the DSC light and the tire pressure light you may have a bad wheel speed sensor. It's usually the front left that goes bad.
I wanted to provide an explanation because the other posts make a lot of assumptions about what you may not know. The ABS sensors measure how fast each wheel is spinning. When a tire loses air, its diameter becomes smaller and that wheel spins faster than the others. That's how the 2006 system indirectly detects a flat tire. It doesn't have a system to directly measure tire pressure. That's why a failing ABS sensor is a possible cause for your warning light.
This is very typical on all vehicles with TPMS specially during winter. Have the sensor ID checked at any walmart or your nearest auto supply like autozone, most likely tour TPMS module needs to re learn the sensors on the tire.
Thats a good reminder but the primary function of the ABS is traction, whether stopping , accelerating, turning and turning with brakes. BMW came up with a study among german driver's habit of hitting the brakes, the result was surprising, 80% of drivers do not utilize the brakes properly and it was determined that BMW ABS was more on handling than anti lock braking system so to compensate for the braking, out came the pre charge pump which charges the pressure going to the ABS but then again as BMW could not resist also integrated their traction control on the pump. On the mini, the ABS and TPMS have their own module and totally independent of each other, the symptom that you are probably looking at would be a hall effect symptom.
True for 2007 and up. 2002-2006 do not have sensors in the wheel. They use the ABS system to sense difference in wheel speed. This is what triggers the tire pressure light. rkw is correct.
Ok so tire pressure light and brake wear sensor light are both on... without tearing into brakes the pads appear new... so is it possible whoever did brakes pinched the sensor wire, causing light errors? Could both lights on correlate to each other? And your right venting to Schwabie manager won't do much good... yet lol... Needless to say I'm in love with my car and this next weekend will get under him and check everything out meticulously... There is no record of brakes being done that I can find so could have been someone new to brakes or in a hurry and forgot to hook wires back up.... ***what is hall effect?***
FYI on your car you do not need the brake pad sensor. I cut mine off, stripped back the wires and twisted them together. I take care of my car and can see for myself that I need to replace my brakes when they are thin. The tire pressure sensor is really a wheel speed sensor like others have explained above and you could have one that has gone bad or is dirty. Let us know where you are located and one of us could point you to a Non-Dealership MINI repair shop that can fix this for you without having to go to the $$$$ dealership.
Dave I like your style.... I hate useless scrap on my vehicles, does that light stay on or is it now disabled?.... I'm in Port Orchard, Wa An hours ferry ride to Seattle, Closest dealer is in Fife... would prefer to stay away from dealer that's for sure... Personally I dislike 99% of mechanics and would prefer to fix it myself... I do have a uncle who is a mechanic though if I ever get over my head... He has not dealt with minis though... I'm going a bit crazy with YouTube videos...
The discussion here is not about the ABS function, but what we are calling the "ABS sensor". More descriptively, we should be calling it a rotational wheel sensor. The sensor readings are used by both the ABS system and the flat tire detection system in 2002-2006 MINI. That's quite curious. Without examination, it's hard to speculate whether the two might be correlated. The general rule of thumb is that the brake pad should be thicker than the metal plate it is attached to. I believe that the brake pad wear sensors in the MINI are in the left front and right rear brakes. If those are okay, than something happened to one of the brake pad sensor wires. Yes, you can bypass the brake pad wear sensor but nevertheless it should be working correctly on dawnie's car, and something is amiss.