2019 countryman S F60 In an effort to upgrade the sound system I recently had a 8 inch speaker box installed in the small cavity beneath the rear storage deck. As it turned out the exhaust note was picked up and amplified by the speaker and pumped through the radio. At first I thought it was simply because the speaker box Was located directly above the exhaust but it turns out that MINI and many other new cars use the audio system to pick up and amplifier the exhaust note into the cabin. Since I was on a tight schedule and 300 miles from home I wasn’t able to have the installer look into this after I realized what happened. And doing some research it seems that there is an ambient noise sensor which can be disconnected to eliminate this.

Does anyone have any experience with locating and disconnecting the sensor? I’m bringing my car to the dealer in two days for the 10,000 mile service and wonder what to expect. Any comments appreciated.

 

I believe you'll need to program it out via an obdii adapter or buy an active sound design defeat harness.

 

Bimmercode app with obd dongle among several other methods. Tecnicpnp sells an adapter to defeat it but that winds up costing more and is somewhat of a pain to install as you might have to pull a panel to do so. It isn't a noise sensor, but a pre-recorded sound file that plays. On some BMW's you can code it to sound like different cars, not sure if any MINIs allow it. The Bimmercode app is great because for the price you can do a lot more to your car.

I asked my dealer about it a few years ago and they played dumb or where dumb about it. They probably won't code it out or disconnect it unless they are really into customer service.

 

I went with the whole Bimmertech system including the harness to bypass the ASD. Unbelievable difference and worth every penny!

 

If you want hear what it sounds like without it on, put it in ECO and you dont get the sound. Or VERY little of it.