Hi, newbie here desperate for some help if possible.

My daughter has a 2003 Mini Cooper and a week ago she went out to fuel the car up for her week of commuting to work. Having fuelled the car, she attempted to start it and got nothing. All lights on the dash, just when going to the flyback position to start, nothing happened.

She managed to get recovered back to my house and a couple of days later I got home and checked the car out. I got underneath and managed to get a voltmeter across the two large terminals, and confirmed that in the second position there was 12v, but no click or sound from the solenoid, and definitely no turn over of the engine.

The AA guy that recovered the car had diagnosed the starter, and given my own experience I agreed and removed the old starter (no easy task outside on a driveway in the pouring rain).

I put the old starter on the bench to test and confirmed that the starter (most likely the solenoid) was defective.

I have since put a new unit in which was working on my bench, but I now have exactly the same symptoms. The car just won't turn over. There's 12v at the terminals with the key in position 2, but upon starting there's nothing.

I can hear a whirring noise when going from position 1 to position 2, and a similar noise when doing the reverse, but from under the car it doesn't appear to be from the starter/solenoid at all.

I was initially thinking there may be an issue with the ignition switch, but having proven the old starter was definitely U/S it just seems too coincidental, but am wondering if there may be re-sets or some other thing that has to be done before it will turn over and fire up.

Any help greatly appreciated. I'm mulling over buying an OBD2 reader that works with BMW/Mini, but if I can avoid that I'd really rather not.

Many thanks all.