I have a 2003 cooper s with around 35,000 miles and it has been towed to my local dealership twice in the last 6 months due to overheating. The first time this occurred, I traveled from wet, cold conditions to snow and icy conditions and the fan blew a fuse due to ice build-up.

The second time occurred on a perfectly sunny day while sitting in traffic. If the car was moving, the air current was enough to keep it cool - but once i stopped in traffic, it immediately overheated.

The mini dealership in Denver isnt giving me any answers. Any ideas out there? Is this problem isolated to my car, or have you all seen this? Thanks for your help.

 

mine's been good. even in 95F humid chicago heat wave waiting at
the R/R track over the years, it has not overheated.

although i do shut it down if it's a freight train...

 

What color is your coolant tank and how often do you chack the level? Also are you sure the cooling fan plug is tight (i.e. do you hear the fan kick in regularly?

 

i believe its a yellow colored coolant tank. the dealership just replaced that in the fall because it had a crack. so its brand new....however, it is using coolant as i checked it after it cooled down. i did add fluid and still had the same problem. i guess by the lack of responses, that this is not a common problem for these cars. thank you.

 

I had that problem. It was a loose plug that kept blowing the fuse. I ended up fixing it myself by unplugginh and cleaning the plug and then using dielectric grease to coat the contacts on the plug. SOemthing too, the cooling fan for the radiator and the power steering fan re ont he smae circuit so if one is damaged, or not workign right it can blow the fuse adn take the whole system down.

Hope this helps!!

 

Hey ChocolateAZ, which fuse were you talking about? I've had problems with the F05 fuse blowing. I replaced it once I started having overheating problems and the fan started working right away. Unfortunatly I took it for a 10 minute spin and the fan had quit again...blown the new fuse as well....

 

Tell your dealer to put the two fans on different fuses. Someone mentioned there is a service bulletin out on this.

 

hey chocolate - are you testing out your new Motorola-Q or something?

 

It is quite common on the 2003. Look underneith at the Power Steering fan. If it has never been changed you will see the fan and there will be no cover over it to prevent anything from getting stuck in there. If something gets stuck there it will blow the fuse and the sustem will overheat. Your dealer should have seen a bunch of these and the fix is the change the pump/fan to the upgraded model and to rewire the fans so they are on separate fuses.

If you have the updated pump then you should look elsewhere for the problem.

Rich

 

MINITOR (03MCS) overheated a bit while parked, running, and the AC on (I know, asking for trouble but got to keep the wifey cool). No problems since though. So I guess I need to check the F05 fuse, anyone want to tell me where the cooling fan plug is, or better yet have a pic so I can check that too?

Driving to Texas on Monday so I better get it figured out.

 

If you look at this drawing you will see the cable goes over the top of the radiator and connects on th right side (looking from the front). Hope this helps.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...20&hg=17&fg=05

 

Thanks. Connection looked fine, though there was a bit of sand inside of it??? Couldnt check the fuse here at work as it would require removing the my strut tower bar (anoying).

Noticed something bad though, the coolant level that I had filled to max yesterday was down below minumum. Any thoughts?

 

Well, the fuse was indeed blown. Replaced it and ran it at idle for 5 minutes, still OK. I guess I will leave the strut tower bar off for easy fuse access and cross my fingers.