So I got some real weird stuff going on with the old Cooper that is keeping me up at night cuz I don't know what it is.....It's all in the start-up process. When I click the car on two strange things happen.

The first thing is the needles for the fuel, engine temp, speedometer, and tack drop to the position they are in when they're off and they vibrate for about two seconds. It's been doing that for about a week.

The second thing is the light on the air-recirculation button flicks on for about a second and I can hear the little recirculation pump click on, then off. :nuts:

All this is making my car have hard starts. It'll hesitate kinda. For reference my car is a 2003 Cooper with a manual trans. It has 90,800 miles on it. I got a new battery at 56,XXX miles from MINI because of a recall. All the electronics function normally too so I doubt it's the battery.....

Help.

 

All fixed!

 

Don't bother telling us what the issue was in case any of us experience the same thing...

 

Not exactly an information-driven post there, was it? We all love a mystery, I guess.

 

I had the same thing happen to me.
I would crank the MINI up on a cold Key West morning and I would hear strange noises coming from the MINI.
I told my mechanic about the evidence of leaking fluids under the MINI and that the engine appeared to be missing
and he looked into the matter (keeping my MINI for several weeks).

 

It was the battery! Which was really weird because every thing else worked fine, the door locks, windows, radio....all of it. Turns out there was a dead cell in the battery, so even though there was juice in it....there wasn't enough to start the car when it stranded me....but that's another story....

So if upon start-up your needles drop and start to vibrate....your battery may be on it's last leg....

 

Did you install a new battery? My car does the same thing.

 

Yeah I got a new one from MINI as the duralast one autozone sells is a little to short for my Cooper.