I have a 2004 Mini Cooper S. Having trouble with my air conditioner lately. It takes a while to get cold and when it is cold I hear this winding sound besides the normal engine sound when I am shifting and raising the RPM. Than the other day I noticed my temp gauge is totally maxed on the red and I checked under the hood and nothing is overheating. Now I noticed that the two are some how related. When my gauge is overheating my aircon is hot. When my aircon is running cool the gauge is normal. Also when it is warm I would turn off and on the aircon and it works. When the aircon is cool it runs fine and then for no reason it gets warm again and the temp gauge goes up. I would really appreciate any feed back on this matter.

 

Well delivering pizza tonight the Mini finally overheated for real. I was at a traffic light and all of a sudden the car started to smoke (steam) from under the hood. Checked it out and found out the coolant reservoir is leaking. Well I guess that answers that problem.