I've finally diagnosed an annoying whine my 2009 Clubman makes only when I'm stopped at an intersection with either the heat, cool air, or AC on its lowest setting.

The whining starts when my foot steps on the brake pedal (thereby illuminating my Mini's tail lights). This additional power draw is evidently significant enough to lower the speed of the fan sufficiently to initiate the whining. Turning the fan off stops the whine immediately.

I understand that the motor is brushless, so I'm not sure how to go about trying to stop this. Suggestions?

 

Whirl noise or actual whine, it may just be some junk in there that blew by the cabin filter

 

I recently changed the cabin filter, but I suppose that's possible. I did see a thread elsewhere from 2005 regarding a mini with the very same issue. The poster claimed that the dealer said "they all do that" when he demonstrated the whine to them.

 

I changed the cabin filter in my wife's MINI. Then I had a slight noise. Pulled the filter & reinserted more carefully now all is quiet. Start at the cabin filter, hope that's it for you too.

 

I'll give it a try, but considering the whine pre-dates my recent filter change, it may not help. I'll have to test it with the filter removed as well!

 

I just changed my blower motor and both the old and new were Permanent Magnetic, with brushes. I've got automatic A/C and the manual A/C blower is a different P/N. I had an intermittent bird-like chirping. I got a Valeo replacement, same as OEM but no MINI logo. The change out took about 40 minutes.