MINI COOPER 07 heater blowing cold air-HELP

[huntdiane]

Maybe someone can help with this. I have an 07 MINI Cooper S that is blowing cold air instead of heated air when I turn on the heater. This is a new problem, basically in the past few days.
Any suggestions?
I hate to take it in to the BMW dealer and pay a fortune if it is something I can check.
Thanks!

[Neilstar]

Is it just from the upper vents? I know its a BMW (and Mini) trait to have the top vents blow cooler air than the bottom.

[huntdiane]

It is coming from the upper and lower vents. It might have something to do with the coolant level. the light came on this afternoon while I was out. I am going to check it when the engine cools down.

[jkhdesigns]

Hello Huntdiane and all,

I too have a 2007 Mini Cooper with heater problems. It now has 96,000 miles and I have just started having this problem. Heater will not blow out hot air bottom or top vents when ideling or low speeds even after driving for and hour. I do get hot air at highway speeds but when I slow down to turn or stop I can tell immediate change in air temp it starts cooling down. Does anyone know what I need to check or what might could be the culprit? I do all my on basic service work as far as oil, filters and brake maintenance so I hoping its just something simple that I am missing.

Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.

[Scrounger]

its the coolant level

check and top up. you may also have an air lock in your coolant

[jkhdesigns]

Hello Scrounger,

Thanks for the quick reply,

After reading more on this forurm, I did check my coolant level it was down below the minimum. The coolant looked clean so I topped it off with some more 50/50 yesterday. Weather here in middle GA has warmed up so I havn´t had any cold mornings to check it out yet which is fine by me. Hopefully this will correct my problem.

Thanks for the advice,

Later

James

[andi]

Hello All
I am new to the forum.... i have just started getting a similar problem with my MCS it an 07. There is no hot air. when the car is cold and i start it for very short period of time the radiator fan runs on after the engine has been stopped, i checked the coolant and it was low. i have topped it up. but i cannot find where to bleed it from. the oil is not milky so i'm hoping its not a head gasket problem.... any ideas? anything would be appreciated
many thanks in advance
Andi

[adam_Randell]

if there was cooling in the reservoir you shouldnt need to bleed it.

the fan does occasionally stay on for a few minutes after the engine has been turned off.

[annie6877]

Hi

I am new to this, I bought a 2001 Mini cooper in Aug this year, as winter has come I have wanted to put the heating on, but I only get cool air blowing out, the air con works great and gets really cold, I have checked the levels off the coolant and that is fine, I dont even get warm air when I have been in the car for a hour or so, any idea plse. Many thanks

[Milo1220]

I am new here but have lurked here for a while. I have seen this problem in a number of posts and thought that I would comment. I too had similar problems and after a number of frustrating experiences I think there is a solution.
I drive a R53 Mini Cooper and had a problem with the heater blowing cold air. My specific problem was the driver’s side vents blew luke warm air while the passenger side and the floor vents blew cold air. I am mechanically inclined but am not a trained mechanic.

The Likely Cause: The cap on the expansion tank came loose last summer and some antifreeze escaped. It overheated. I filled the tank to the appropriate levels. The weather was still warm and the heater was not used. After the incident, the car was cooling just fine.

Cold weather arrived and the car would not put out any heat worth mentioning. The vehicle was taken several times to a mechanic. He bled the line through both the front and rear valves. This was done on a level surface. He told me that it was good to go. The problem continued to persist. No heat. Took it back. No luck. Went back a third time and he said he talked to a Mini expert who indicated that the thermostats in Mini’s are notorious for going bad. He said the heater core rarely goes bad.

So he replaced the thermostat and put in new antifreeze. Bled the line on a level surface. Same result – No heat.

Went to new mechanic and outlined the work performed by the previous mechanic. His solution was to first flush the system to include the radiator and heater core. Said some gunk came out of it. Then when they filled the system with Mini antifreeze. But there is a bit of a trick. The radiator on a Mini is located below the level of the engine. So the front end of the car was raised 8 – 10 inches (with a jack) while they bled the line on the lower end. Then they pressure filled the cooling system to get all of the air out of the upper end and out of the heater core. The mechanic reminded me that the cooling system is essentially a hydraulic system, and in that vein is similar to your brake system where it can be (and is often) filled with a pressure pump. This allows one to remove all of the air in the system.

The car provides comfortable heat now. This is a bit of an obscure issue. Note that when no heat was being produced the car was running fine and the engine was cooling fine. Mileage is mid 80,000. The level in the expansion tank was set to the correct level. No issues until the weather got cold. Cold weather set in, and the heater simply was “anemic to poor” if you will.

Solution: It appears that the thorough flushing, and more importantly, removing the air from the heater core and the upper end of the engine (as described above) solved the problem. I hope this helps the frustration many who have listed this as a problem on this post and other posts.