So a few problems have occured in the past 36 hours
Yesterday I noticed on multiple occasions a burning smell , at first I thought it was the clutch but my trans doesn't feel out of ordinary , and i didn't get any fluctuations in the coolant temp
Last night I noticed the power steering 'failed' on my way out of the movie theaters , it became really difficult to steer for a few moments this was during a cold start (air temp was about 20 degrees fahrenheit)
And early today i was hearing a buzzing or humming noise that didnt go away after an hour of the car being off , it finally went away after I got home sitting in traffic just now
I actually recorded a video of the noise which sounded like it was comming from either the battery terminal ,the coolant tank or from underneath the air box
Any ideas?


I'm posting all three symptoms in one thread because I'm assuming they are all related in one way or another, btw I wasn't getting any unusual overheating or anything of the sorts
Thanks in advance, as soon as the video uploads to YouTube I'll post it here

 

Here's the video, turn the volume up or use headphones

 

Are you able to get under and see if it is the PS fan? That's what it sounds like to me... Don't know why it would run so long tho... Unless your ps pump is overheating or sending a signal that it is.... I am making up possibilities.

 

Sounds like the PS pump to me.

 

I agree with the pump and fan. I'd jack up the car and carefully take a peak. How many miles in the car? The pumps are common failures and the fact that you lost power steering would lead one in that direction first. Only other thought could be a short somewhere in that area which caused the pump to fail and fan to run but I would bet its your pump and the fan is running to cool it.

 

Powersteering pump is electrical....
A fan cools it...
One common failure mode is the pump stays running after the car is off....another it it cuts out...sounds like it might be time for a new pump. Since you hear/smell it...
I suggest you disconnect the battery ....first make sure you have a trunk release cable under the rear seat....so you can acess the trunk with no power to reconnect it....

 

Well after a few days since the initial post the annoying buzzing has not returned...yet
I did some searching and found a thread here where someone said the buzzing noise was cured after disconnecting the negative terminal on their battery which solved the issue for them and the op of that thread also revealed when they went to get a new battery the tech had mentioned something about the ps fan was on causing the op of that thread to loose the juice in his battery causing his mini to die

Now that I'm aware of this issue I'm hoping that my 2 year warranty I received when i financed my mini covers this , after some shopping around ps pumps arent cheap by any means -_-

My cooper is at almost 89k