New owner here, of a 2016 Mini Cooper S F55. Does anyone know what the heck the car is doing when I go out to my garage and open a door? Even with the climate fan off, I hear mechanical sounds, etc., when doing nothing but opening the door, lol. No turning on the accessories, etc. Just a bit curious!

 

on the 2 door hardtop, the window rolls down a tiny bit when you open the door and it rolls back up after you close it.
I'm not sure about the 4 door.

 

You're probably hearing the fuel system priming the engine.

 

Really?? I will have to look for window activity, thanks! But now I'm at....why, lol. Why would it open the windows a little, that seems bizarre (to me).

 

That could VERY well be the sound I am hearing. It's mechanical, and comes from deep in the car, it seems like. That's a very plausible source, thank you. I've had several cars over the years and just never had one sound like this, when merely opening a door of a shut-down car.

 

Yep fuel pump. Probably all cars do this now. Might just depend how loud the fuel pump is... or how thick the seats are?

 

Thanks!
Tim

 

Since the cars are keyless, once the fob is recognized by said car the fuel system is primed.

 

The windows don't drop in the F-series 4 door, just the 2 door and convertible. Those two have frameless windows, so the glass drops a bit to clear the gasket at the top. All the other models have framed windows, so there's no need for that.

 

THIS - I was curious about this, so thank you very much for the clarification!
Tim

 

My F56 primes the fuel pump even if the keyfob is not in range, which I don't like. Just going to the garage to clean the car interior or grab something out the car will start the priming. Sometimes it doesn't do that. I think it was also the car's firmware dependent. It was doing priming all the time, then at one point with different firmware it stopped priming all the time, and then with the latest update it's doing that again. The latest firmware update I had forces the fan to run for a minute if AC has been used before shut off.
Under the hood, there's also the fans that turn on if you have the LED headlights.

Anyone knows what else there might be that's creating the noise besides windows, fuel pump priming, headlight fan? Anyone know more about when exactly the fuel priming happens?

 

Obviously I don't know the answer, but, I wanted to thank you for the link to the cheat sheet in your sig! I had not previously seen that. I have to get my cable! But one thing at a time, this past weekend was the muffler-delete.

 

I'm not crazy! I'm hearing these noises too. I didn't even think about fans running due to LED headlights. My old 2017 had halogens so never heard a noise from that. Very interesting!

 

Definitely the fuel pump priming. It happens just as you open a door or the hatch.

 

do you leave your car locked or unlocked in the garage ? LOCK YOUR CAR & leave FOB in the house.