I have a strange problem with my 05 cooper s. Since the weather has gotten cold I have a strange knocking/clunking under the front passanger side of my car. But here is the strange part!!! It goes away when the car worms up, after the first 15 min or so the noise is 98% gone?? Only thing I have changed lately is I added a TSW motor mount. Any sugestions would be a great help.

 

I've got the same thing.

 

Did you adjust the TSW damper? Make sure, when it's cold, that all the nuts/bolts are still tight.

 

I am starting to think it an exhaust thing?

 

Same here. I was thinking at first suspension related, but goes away after car is warmed up. 51K miles here.

 

Mine does the same, thing. Dealer couldnt get the car to make the noise at my last service. This is still a mystery on my 02' Mini also.

 

Would really like to figure this out. I'm thinking it is either front sway bar bushing or end links or engine/transmission mounts.

 

I've checked out all those items myself. I think its an exhaust issue. Im not going to worry about it unless it gets worse, or begins to happen once the car is warmed up.

 

It was over 50 degrees here in boston yesterday no noise! The search continues, putting the snows on this weekend while I have it up in the air I will check again to try to locate the phomtom noise. I will keep everyone posted

 

Please let us know if you find anything. I am not worrying about it either because seems to happen only when car is cold and every other day. After 5 minutes the knocking (Which appears to be coming from the right side towards rear of the car) goes away.

I still have another 10K miles before the next scheduled dealer service stop. But I will be rotating the tires in the next couple of weeks, so when it is on the lift I'll have my friend check the suspension, exhaust and entire underside with a fine tooth comb.

 

Could it be caused by the runflats? For the record, I have 195/55/R16 V87 Continental second generation runflats with a thread wear rating of 400. I ahve about 10K miles on this relatively new set. No wear/alignment problems. Great tires for being runflats, BTW.

 

Update!!!! so I take my snows to my wifes uncle who has his own shop and was trained in germany to install them on my steel wheels and I tell him the story about the noise, right away he says control arm bushing! So I go back to the house install the new Gislavard snows, check the exhaust seems fine.I can't tell though if there is a problem with the control arm bushing. Anyone have any tips on how to test them to see if there bad!!

 

Wow, I am experiencing the same knocking problem for the last couple of weeks now. Same symptoms, only when cold and sounds like it's coming from the front passenger side. I have the TSW damper but I'm uncertain if that's the cause because I've had it since last winter and it was quiet back then. Passenger side motor mount isn't leaking either.

 

I have this clunk after replacing the control arm bushings about 5k miles ago, so that is seems unlikely as the culprit.

 

I'm also hearing this...

 

when you hear the sound put your foot on the clutch and see if it goes away

 

Did you mean a TSW damper?
I added one a few months ago and have a clunk too.
Have tried multiple adjusts and when warm it is great, when cold it clunks,
I may upgrade to V2 damper.
But i will remove it first to see if the clunk goes away
boxcars

 

Sparyed the bushing down with wurth rubber care and the noise seemed to almost be gone

 

How many miles?

I wonder if it could be the flywheel/dual mass clutch

It could also be the lifters in the engine.

Both would be normal noises with the MINI under most conditions, but possibly more pronounced with cold metal.

 

I will venture to say that the noise is caused by a bad sway bar link rod. This a common BMW noise and failure item. The MINI setup is indentical to BMW. The passenger side is usually the side that fails first due to the passenger side hitting pot holes, rough road edges more often than drivers side.

 

I just swapped out my front strut mounts for some camber plates and when I drove, I heard the same noise you all are talking about...it was my control arm bushings all worn to hell. Before the install they were just jammed into place keeping things quiet but after the work they did nothing. Replaced them with poly bushings and no problems. See waymotorworks.com! Call the guy if you've got questions and I'm sure he'll be able to figure it out for you.

 

Update!!! one of my good freinds just got a job at the Dealer in Peabody MA. He just had a car come in with the same noise!!! Inner ball joint! Changed FIXED!!!!!!

 

Finally tracked down mine. Bad sway bar bushing on the passenger side. End links are fine. Of course replacing this means dropping the front subframe...

 

I have a MCS05 and I have noticed that same noise as well...Sometimes it sounds like it is coming from behind me or in the passenger side of the car. I hear it mostly when I am changing gears. I thought at first it was only when the car was cold, but now it happens all the time. It sounds like something is loose.

 

Just an update for anybody searching the forum for an answer. I had a very similar problem describing in a lot of the above posts. A loud knocking noise, that sounded really terrible but went away when the car warmed up? Came from the front of the car. To me it really sounded like the sway bar bushing were totally gone, it was that bad. As it turned out for me, it was the sun visor of all things, one of the screws holding the clip that the visor clips into was loose and would rattle against the roof making a remarkably metallic clunking noise, so check your visors, that may be the culprit!