Good news! I had a problem with air noise/whistle which sounded exactly like a bad seal in the driver side window, next to the front pillar. As it turned out, it was actually vent noise in the HVAC ducting, and it could be turned on & off by opening & closing the outside air vent. The good news is that my service tech & mechanic discovered that hollow pop rivets were used to secure the ducting to the dash, and these were acting as whistles when the air flowed over them. They apparently sealed the rivets with some caulking, and the whistle is now gone! It took almost a week to solve, but I appreciate the persistence of my tech writer to finally get this problem fixed. Thanks to Rob at Dreyer & Reinbold Mini in Indianapolis.

'07 Astro Black MC with silver bonnet & boot stripes.

 

Interesting. I'll have to check this out when I get my car back if they haven't figured it out themselves.

 

That's good to know. Thanks for the tip! I wonder if those are the normal rivets they use or put in the wrong ones during assembly?

 

Hi Paul, I hear the same thing. Can you post pics and/or more specific detail as to what and where you heard what you did and what the dealer did?

Many, many thanks for posting this.

 

Paul, I hear a wind noise from the driver's side window towards the rear of it when driving above 40mph or so. If I turn my air to recirculate, it has no effect on it. What I hear would not be classified as a whistle...it really sounds like my window is not completely closed so I can hear outside noises more in that area.

 

I don't have any pictures to post as everything was done behind the dashboard. I do remember that the whistle sounded exactly like an air leak around the window seal near the pillar. I used to lower the window and reclose it thinking that it would re-seal, but that didn't work. Neither did holding a rag around the window frame to try to plug a possible air leak. The noise was at it's worse when driving at 40mph or above with around a 20mph headwind, or when the blower was at high speed. Swiching the vent to recirculate helped by stopping the flow of outside air into the vehicle.

The problem was apparently due to hollow rivets being used to secure the duct to the framework under the dash. When the rivets were plugged, the whistle went away.

I must also say that since the repair was complete I am extremely pleased with the lack of noise in the cabin. There may have been additional white noise due to the whistle which was not necessarily objectionable, but it may have degraded the sound quality of the radio etc.

I had other issues with the sunscreen tensioners and the seat heater control module, and they have been resolved as well. While I wish that I hadn't had these issues in the first place, I can say that I am now very happy with the Mini. I drive about 600 miles per week, and I find that I now look forward to driving the Mini for the reasons that I bought it in the first place.

 

Congrats on your success! Happy motoring.

With various wind noise problems and trying to fix my driver's door air leak issue, I'm wondering what is considered normal.

Besides the leak above, when I drive over 60, the wind noise in general is very loud from the front top windshield area and doors, but not any specific, obvious whistles or leak. A lot of wind buffeting noise. I presume with the boxy nature of the Mini, such noise is expected.

When people say their Minis are quiet at such high speeds, are they just hearing impaired or is it all relative?

 

lacning74, do you have the seals on the bottom of the door itself? They were eliminated around August last year.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=113697

Wondering if they might help with this.

 

After visiting the dealership today, I found out that some wind/air noise is normal. The amount I hear is not disturbing at all and the shop foreman explained to me that because MINIs have frameless windows, this is normal. The same amount of noise comes from the passenger side too. If your noise is loud enough that you can't talk on the phone or it sounds like a whistle, that's not normal. There's none of that in my car, just a small amount of road/air noise that is proportional to my speed. I'm not worried about this issue. I recommend that any of you having this issue go test drive some of the new MINIs and take a look for yourself what is considered normal.

Paul, thanks for sharing your experience, enabling recirculation mode did nothing for the wind noise..in fact even turning the air off had no effect.