Whirring sound in dash after ignition turned off
 

Noob with his first post: Just bought a '96 328is for my oldest daughter and I have noticed that the blower makes a whirring sound just about the entire time it is on. Slightly louder when the ventilation or A/C is on and the car is running. However, the mystery is that even when I shut the car off, the noise continues (faintly) like the blower is still running. Is that what is going on? I had another car years ago that had a similar problem caused by a twig slipping in where the blower motor blades were from the outside intake vent at the bottom of the windshield. But the sound stopped when I shut the car off. Any suggestions on how to get at the blower motor blades in this vehicle to see what might be going on? I also have a '93 Mercedes Benz 190E 2.6 Sportline LE with a blown heater core that I will be replacing soon and that one is a BITCH to get at - almost have to remove the entire dash. The blower motor is behind the heater core. That vehicle also has a faint sound in the dash when the car is shut off until I press the system off button on the temp control.

first you have to chk the climate control fan (small one ), its job is to reduce the temp of climate control and it keep running when you switch off the car until the temp of climate control reduced
and if the noise comes only when you open the AC fan thats really big job, maybe the fan bearing is bad or plastic cover is not fixed properly , so u can chk it from the engine side (out side ), and you have to be Careful coz if you mis with the plastic cover you have to remove entire dash and then the heater core to fix it ?????? i did that at home and it took from me 2 days to make it,
also when you turn on the AC you can hear some noise ( motor noise) from heater core thats happen when the ventilations open (levers inside the core), so its normal but it happen once not all the time ... good Luck


note after u switch off the car a noise comes from the core that coz the out side levers closed and all levers return back

I think that climate control fan you mention may be what is making that sound. How do I get to it to see what it is doing? Will removing the center console vent give me access?

Wow I now appreciate the e30 even more... All I had to do was remove the inspection panel located on the fire wall (engine side). Hopefully it's similar for you, that other stuff going through the dash and whatnot sounds like a pain in the ass. If you have a voltmeter or multimeter you can do some diagnostic stuff... or more simply (if this option exists for your car) open up the inspection window and have someone turn the fan on and off, and do a visual check. Just make sure to keep hands and other foreign objects clear.

To pop out the climate control box, all you have to do is stick your finger underneath it, find the hole with the clip in it, push in, and pull out. The whole thing will come out. Just unhook it and flip it over. You can try just using some compressed air and blowing it out. It's probably pretty dusty in there. Make sure you get every nook and cranny you can. If that doesn't help then you have to get a new blower, but I don't think they're more than $20, and you just screw a new one in.

Oh you're speaking of something completely different than what I was... Crazy new fangled crap.

http://www.benhirsch.net/m3-maintena...te_control.htm

this should help