noise under back seat - sounds like an electric motor

[monkeygirl69]

Hi,

our mini cooper has started making a new noise It sounds like an electric motor constantly running and seems be to coming from under the back seat

Any ideas what it may be? We can only hear it in the car and moving the steering makes it dip in volume slightly.

thanks

[ScottyBoy]

The only thing under the rear seats is be fuel pump..

[monkeygirl69]

Any ideas why that would suddenly start being noisy?

[ScottyBoy]

Have you ran it low on fuel?

[stuwhittaker]

ScottyBoy's right, the only thing under there is the fuel pump. There could, but i very much doubt be a small blockage. Either that of the pump could be on its way out.

Might sound daft but if you can take it out, give it a few smacks while the engine is running (aka the pump is running) it might stop making the noise. Depends how loud/bearable it is!

If you do that, be careful not to knock off any pipes or you will have petrol everywhere!!!


If you were running low on fuel and air was being pumped through, you filled up again and its back on fuel it shouldnt really make a difference, now anyway. It would possibly make a noise if it was trying to pump fuel through but only found air in your tank!

You should hear the fuel pump prime up when you first turn the key in the ignition.

Cheers
-Stu

[monkeygirl69]

thanks,

fuel very rarely gets much below 1/4 tank so doubt it would be that, so guess it must be on the way out, car has done over 90k now so bits will start to fail I suppose : (

Will pop by the bmw garage tomorrow see what they think...

[stuwhittaker]

It could be, and most likely its on its way out Get them to have a look to diagnose the problem. Might be worth taking it to an independent garage to save some money!

I had a look at the price of a fuel pump for my R53 JCW and it was £228 but it does sound more that what I thought... at least its easy access to labour costs should be low.

Try use these websites to get an idea....

RealOEM.com Online BMW Parts Catalog
Cooper MINI Parts, Inchcape

get the part number from the realoem website and try pop it into the other website for a price

Remember they will be the approx price of the official parts.

Good luck!

Cheers
-Stu

[richcoopS]

Did you ever find out what the problem was with the pump?

I've got a similar issue.

Rich

[monkeygirl69]

yeah, BMW said it was the fuel pump on the way out. Noise stopped soon after and didn't come back, guess it may have been some bad fuel

[richcoopS]

Thanks for that, I'm hoping it's the same problem. Noise started after running the car almost empty and then filling up.

How long did it take to go away? I've done about 20 miles and it's still there!?

Cheers
Rich

[monkeygirl69]

longer than that I'm afraid! I can't remember for sure but about probably 10 days in total, enough to run through a tank or two

[JamesCB]

Definetly the dreaded fuel pump problem. Exactly how I found out about mine, cue a trip to the dealer and £300 less in my wallet.