During our drive home from purchasing a 2001 540iA Sport with 46K miles on the odometer my wife and I noticed the following.


During my test drives it was cold out and I never noticed that the A/C was not turned on. Today was 78 degrees and after pressing the A/C button wonderfully cold air began gushing out happily. However, the A/C compressor makes a reasonalbly loud humming, or growling noise. If I had to guess I would say that the compressor bearings are growling, but never experiencing this on a BMW, I don't know.

Does the A/C compressor on these years of BMW's typically make noise. My 2007 335i 6mt Sport is perfectly quiet.

Thanks, Al Wise

The typical noise the a/c compressor makes should be barely audible inside the cabin of the vehicle. If you're looking at it with the hood open, then you'll hear it more, but it still shouldn't be an obnoxious noise, just a little growling or humming.

I had a similar whirring noise that got louder as the fan speed went higher. I just dropped it at the indy shop for this. They told me that it's probably the blower motor, behind the dash. They said the part was around 190 and labor would be 270, but weren't sure if that's the problem.