Purchased the previously mentioned Mini Countryman S ALL4 for an even better price once the hood latch cable busted and it developed a squealing / whistling noise under hood and a check engine light..

Now the question is.. How do I get the hood up??!!!

Also, is there a common cause for the whistling noise under hood? sounds like a vacuum leak squealing noise.. goes away under boost or pretty much with ANY throttle application.

 

Hood release is down by your left foot on the kick panel.

I'd look for intake leaks and vacuum leaks. Might only whistle when sucking in air.

To help you find it, start the car, pop the hood, try to generally locate the whistle in the engine bay. Once you're in the neighborhood, get yourself a short length of tubing like 2 feet of vacuum tubing or something similar. Small diameter is good--like 3mm or so.

Stick one end in your ear and use the other end to probe around the intake and vacuum lines where you suspect the leak is. You might need an ear plug for your other ear, but you will hear the leak clearly when you find it with the hose.

 

OP said "the hood latch cable busted "

Maybe this (note I didn't have time to watch it)

 

Your "whistling" might be a failed PCV diaphragm on the valve cover. It's a common issue on higher mileage cars and usually requires replacement of the whole valve cover, (non-serviceable part). Otherwise, you can try and replace just the rubber diaphragm but risk breaking plastic parts getting access to it. The diaphragm is available on eBay. Sorry, can't help you with the hood cable.

 

AND, it is a pain to get the hood open when the latch in the footwell fails. I ended up tearing apart the drivers side footwell cover, and finding the cable that broke off the hood release. I had a helper push down on the hood a bit while I pulled the cable manually. That opened the hood. I ended up replacing the lever, and thouroughly greasing the two cables that release the hood.

 

A crowbar will work....

 

So I got the hood open by pulling the driver wheel off and pulling the inner fender liner.. reaching up and fining the splitter where the cables come together and pulling it down and manually opening it.. Turns out the cables are all kinda stiff.. After pulling the latches off.. cleaning them completely of all the waxy coating and lubing everything.. As it turns out the cable splitter had come off of it's mounts.. I lubed all the cables with parking brake cable lube and put it all back together with a screw to hold it in place.. Seems to function flawlessly.. Now to modify the actual handle under dash to make it put more leverage on the cable without more effort with your hand..

On to the whistling.. When I got the car it had a history of fault codes 19 codes long.. Everything from ECM voltage codes to wheel bearing codes.. the codes of concern to me were the VANOS related codes.. so as a diagnostics guy I started by trying to narrow down what was going on.. pulled the boost pipes loose and found LOTS of oil in them.. Thinking a catch can is in my future.. M7 ones seem to be on black friday sale.. anyway.. It seems to me that the whistling is actually the throttle blade whistling when at idle.. likely need to pull the intake off and clean the throttle body off.. guessing since it's DI and not port injection that there is some buildup in there..

So I pulled both VANOS valves out of the head and they are both VERY clean.. Like TOO clean so I presume the old owner a guy named Rob Bohn, an avid rally enthusiast (clues were in the stickers faded into the tint in the back).. had these valves diagnosed and they were cleaned and reinstalled.. so I did it again.. cleaned them and blew them out.. Cleared all faults and drove the car about 100 miles before the reduced power light came back on and the MIL.. So I pulled codes and only ones present now are VANOS and O2 sensor.. I've ordered the Dorman Vanos Solenoid from a local parts place (easy warranty if it goes wonky).. and intend to change that and clear codes again and see if it comes back


Whew.. Lot of work in the first three days of ownership

 

Oh.. and one final quirky thing.. the wife has yet to have a morning where she doesn't get the car stuck in park first thing.. I can get in it and it will have the trans light and won't come out of park.. couple cycles later I can finally hear the park interlock start to click again and it comes right out of park for me.. I got in it this morning and had 0 issue but I listened for it to click before trying to pull it out of park..

Curious if anyone else has had this?

I read that a software update is needed to fix it.. curious what the update does..

Also curious if it is a temp related thing.. is it possible that the plastic is so tight on tolerance that the cold makes things get sticky.. should I pull this shifter out and clean / debur / lube everything and see if that helps.

What has everyone paid for software updates at the dealer??