I have a 2003 Cooper with 40,000 miles that I bought for my wife just a few months ago. We live in the Phoenix area and have had issues with the A/C running hot when the car is sitting at idle at a stop light or in line at a fast food drive thru. If the car is idling long enough 10 minutes or so the power steering shuts down also. Once you drive the car approx 1-2 miles averyhting goes back to normal. Of course when I take it to the dealer nothing can be found. Any ideas, I have thought about using a Cooper S hood just to get more air in the engine compartment. Or maybe putting another fan somewhere.

 

An S hood won't help you when standing still. You are treating the symptoms, not the cause. Make sure you cooling fans are coming on (they are electric and controlled by a T-stat). Park it in the driveway and let it idle long enough to simulate your issue and then start diagnosing.

No air across the A/C condenser explains some of the lack of cooling in the cabin, and your dash engine temp sensor may not show you much. Not sure why your PS goes away. Check all fluid levels, all fans (the PS has a fan also).

YD

 

YD,
You don't think that this may be an early 03 car w/ a circuit that is common to both the cooling fan for the PS and the radiator fan? If so it may be a faulty PS fan clogged w/ road debris that fried itself and then blew the fuse etc to the raeiator fan. I'd look into this before the engine overheated

 

Mininut, anything is possible as you know, all the fans must be confirmed as running when they are supposed to be running, if not, then the cause needs to be traced. I didn't realize that 03s had a common circuit. This could be the very reason. Good catch.

YD

 

You might want to watch out because it could catch on fire (and I'm not kidding).

 

My 03 S almost caught on fire when I had a similar problem. My exhaust melted a battery wire. The first think I lost was power steering then a christmas show on the dash because of the low voltage goin to all the sensors. A regualr Cooper won't have the same problem because the battery is up front. But if your voltage is low I guess one of the first things to go would be the power seering/AC. I would check the circuits/fuses and then get a new belt for shure.

 

Our cooling circuit must be shoot check,it common problem..