A new MINI Cooper quirk

...at least to me it is. My son came home after dark and comes in and asks how come the brake light is on on the MINI, but only on one side. HUh? Go out to take a look and sure enough, the left side parking lights are on, but not the right. I flipped the light switch on and then off and everything was back to normal. Off to the interwebz to see what might cause this and discover that it's designed to do that. If you toggle the turn signal stalk after turning off the car you can select the parking lights on either side independently .I've owned the car for 8 years and never realized it would do this and I've never known any of my other vehicles to do it.

Here's what the headlight switch on my W126 Mercedes looks like: Welcome to the cool kids' club.

So what is the intent of this design?

I remember reading about it in the manual of our 05 R53, I think. I also remember that after every explanation of how even the most mundane electrical feature worked, it basically said "but if you don't like it that way, your dealer can reprogram it to work how YOU want it to." I think even the cigar lighter control was run through the ECU.

In reply to Tom Suddard:
That's not intuitive , at least not to me

It's a European car thing (although some disable it on the US market versions). Lots of narrow, un-lit streets in Europe, so there's a desire to park it overnight with the parking lights on.

They give you a way to run just the street facing side and not the other side (and not the dash lights, etc.) so that you can leave them on for 8 - 12 hours and not kill the battery.

Apparently some cities in Europe require you to leave the parking lights on if you're parked overnight on narrow streets and being able to illuminate one side ensures the battery will last twice as long. Or so says the infallible internet.

I believe it is a Euro thing some how associated with a "Parking Lamp" Similar to E flasher, but non emergency curb stop?

The Opel GT had the same "feature" back in '68.

DeadSkunk wrote: Apparently some cities in Europe require you to leave the parking lights on if you're parked overnight on narrow streets and being able to illuminate one side ensures the battery will last twice as long. Or so says the infallible internet.

This is true. Back in the 60s and 70s in England (when I was there) my Aunt lived on a curvy little road with a nice sweeping hill outside her house. Parking was limited to the side of the road and all cars were required to leave their parking lights on, on the side that faced the road. Never quite sure what you would do if you were out of town for a few days............I guess come home to a dead battery.

As a side note.............when the cars/motorcycles would come through town after the pubs had closed they would accelerate up that hill and I could hear the drivers off into the distance shifting up and down. Simply glorious. I recall there being a sign posted somewhere saying something typically British like " I say old chap, please don't accelerate up the hill at night, you will wake the neighbors" or some such thing. Of course that was met with every car immediately down shifting and flooring it when they got to the sign. Add to that a Church directly across the the street ringing the same chime as Big Ben in London. So every 15 minutes it would chime and then on the hour it would ring once for every hour. Seemed like the midnight one took 5 minutes to get through. Toss in jet lag and it was like sleeping in the infield at the Rolex 24. Just such good times.

Maybe that's why I still prefer a beautifully tuned high revving 4 cylinder motors to all else. Some of the Loti were like angels singing.

As stated, a European thing. Parking on narrow streets to let others driving on the street know a car is parked there after dark. Found that my 1970 Opel GT left parking lights will be on with the left turn signal on and the key out after I rewired most of the car using a factory schematic. Drove me a bit crazy till I found out that it's supposed to do that.

DeadSkunk wrote: Apparently some cities in Europe require you to leave the parking lights on if you're parked overnight on narrow streets and being able to illuminate one side ensures the battery will last twice as long. Or so says the infallible internet.

Correct...this is an EU feature if you park on the street.

DeadSkunk wrote: In reply to Tom Suddard: That's not intuitive , at least not to me

It has 6 positions. From left to right: left parking lights, right parking lights, off, parking lights, headlights. Pull out for fog lights.

rslifkin wrote: It's a European car thing (although some disable it on the US market versions). Lots of narrow, un-lit streets in Europe, so there's a desire to park it overnight with the parking lights on. They give you a way to run just the street facing side and not the other side (and not the dash lights, etc.) so that you can leave them on for 8 - 12 hours and not kill the battery.

Yup, this. My E46 does it, too.

Yep euro thing, when doing a military shift there I owned a 70 bmw, leave the turn signal on after shutting off key, turn signal light stays on, sometimes it killed the battery sometimes not.

I had a 914 and a 911 with that feature.. and drove an Iveco Truck that also did it. I actually found it to be a useful function on the truck

DeadSkunk wrote: ...at least to me it is. My son came home after dark and comes in and asks how come the brake light is on on the MINI, but only on one side. HUh? Go out to take a look and sure enough, the left side parking lights are on, but not the right. I flipped the light switch on and then off and everything was back to normal. Off to the interwebz to see what might cause this and discover that it's designed to do that. If you toggle the turn signal stalk after turning off the car you can select the parking lights on either side independently .I've owned the car for 8 years and never realized it would do this and I've never known any of my other vehicles to do it.

It took me forever to realize this in mine.