I heard that some turbo mini (07-08) suffer from cold start noise in colder areas such as NY. They sound pretty bad like a loud diesel motor. Now I am sure this problem is still in the minority, however I was wondering if there were any similarly reported noises for the automatic cooper S? I ask this because apparently there have been zero problems of this for the automatic cooper, so as a possible prospective S automatic buyer, can anybody lend some information?

Thanks!

Doesn't have to be in cold climates, I hear it with my wife's '08 (which is an automatic). It's the engine itself, not the tranny; the R56 plant is a direct injection turbo with pretty high compression (10.5:1, as I recall), so it is a little like diesel in that way (i.e., the thing that makes it a little noisy).

Still, nothing to worry about, as far as I've read. 4-yr/50k-mi warranty, I wouldn't sweat it.

I've heard it in my 2007 MCS in the winter, and recently on a 70+ degree morning...

There is a report that a software / ECU update is coming to fix this... check out motoringfile