2017 Mini Cooper

The contact owns a 2017 Mini Cooper. The contact stated that while that vehicle was parked, the vehicle was turned on that there was a message on the instrument panel stating that there was a taillight malfunction. The contact inspected the vehicle and noticed that the driver’s side rear taillight had not illuminated. The vehicle was able to restart. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the driver’s side taillight housing and connector needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired, and the VIN was not included in a recall related to the failure. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 60,000.

The contact owns a 2017 Mini Cooper. The contact stated that while the vehicle was parked, the vehicle rolled backwards. The contact applied the parking brake. There was an abnormal scraping noise detected while starting the vehicle. The roll back warning light was illuminated. There was a message stating “Transmission, Not Secure” was displayed. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 43,198.

The driver door latching mechanism failed this past week. For days, I was unable to latch the door closed -- all attempts to close the door would result in the door simply bouncing off the body of the car. I spent hours unsuccessfully trying to get the latching mechanism to work again, e.g. by repeatedly attempting to close the door, holding the door closed and trying to lock all doors. To drive the car home from work and to the dealership for repairs, I was forced to hold the door closed with my left hand while driving and by tying the door closed with my seat belt (on the highway, no less). I eventually took the car to my local dealership and left it for diagnosis and repairs. I took a video of the door's fault, and left the car locked and with the driver's door tied closed with my seat belt. To my amazement, the dealership called a few days later and told me that they were unable to duplicate the fault; as far as I know, no repairs were therefore made. I shared the video of the door's fault with the dealership; they hypothesized that the latching mechanism may have intermittently failed because of the weather. I now feel anxious about driving the car. This is a major safety issue. There are reasons to suspect that this reflects a manufacturing defect: 1) door latches should never fail, irrespective of the age of the car, and force drivers / passengers to e.g. use their seat belts to hold their doors closed; 2) my car is low mileage (~36,000 miles); 3) my car was not involved in any preceding accident or incident that could have caused the latching mechanism to fail; and 4) this is the second time this has happened with this car -- the same issue occurred with the front passenger door ~2 years ago. I'd be happy to share the video that I took of me trying to close the door (already shared with the dealer). At this point, I'd like the NHTSA to investigate; initiate a recall, if necessary; and I'd like Mini to replace the remaining latches on my car.

Per dealer, the front passenger door latch cable went bad (documentation available if needed) on a 2017 Mini Cooper S (4-door). Background: there was an episode a few weeks back when I was unable to latch the front passenger door. It just wouldn't latch when you tried to close it - the door would just swing / bounce off the body of the car (so to speak) on closure attempts. I fiddled with locking / unlocking the door, was finally able to have it latch again. Around 7/12, people washing my car accidentally opened that door. Unfortunately, despite again trying to fiddle around to get the door to latch for quite some time, I wasn't able to latch that door again. This obviously created a huge safety issue -- e.g. to even get the car to a dealership for repairs, people in my situation would often have to physically hold the door closed from the inside while driving. I figured out a way to hold it closed with the front passenger seatbelt; that thankfully held the door closed while I drove (including on the highway) the car to the dealership. The dealer eventually diagnosed the front passenger door latch cable as having gone bad (please see attached service report). First, the latching mechanism for car doors should never fail - customers should never e.g. have to hold their doors closed while driving or have to rig up their seatbelts to do the same. Second, it's also very unexpected that this issue happened in my car -- my car has always been well-maintained (it's regularly serviced), my car is just four years old, it's very low mileage (26k); and hardly anyone uses my front passenger door.

TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2017 MINI COOPER. THE CONTACT CALLED ON BEHALF OF HIS WIFE AND STATED THAT WHILE DRIVING AT 20 MPH, THE CONTACT CRASHED INTO ANOTHER VEHICLE. THE AIR BAGS DID NOT DEPLOY BUT THE CONTACT MENTIONED THAT THE OTHER VEHICLES AIR BAGS DEPLOYED. A POLICE REPORT WAS FILED. THE CONTACT SUSTAINED BACK AND NECK ACHES THAT NEEDED MEDICAL ATTENTION. THE VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO A SALVAGED YARD WAITING TO BE DIAGNOSED BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT TAKEN TO A DEALER FOR A DIAGNOSTIC TEST OR REPAIRS. THE MANUFACTURER WAS MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE VIN WAS NOT AVAILABLE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS APPROXIMATELY 40,000.

TL* THE CONTACT OWNED A 2017 MINI COOPER. THE CONTACT STATED WHILE DRIVING 35 MPH, WHEN ANOTHER VEHICLE FAILED TO STOP AT A STOP SIGN AND IMPACTED THE FRONT PASSENGER SIDE OF HER VEHICLE. THE CONTACT STATED SHE WAS COLLIDED INTO A FIRE HYDRANT. THE AIR BAG DID NOT DEPLOY. THE CONTACT STATED THE PASSENGER FROM THE OTHER VEHICLE SOUGHT MEDICAL ATTENTION. A POLICE REPORT WAS FILED. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT DRIVABLE. THE VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO IMPOUND LOT. A DEALER WAS NOT CONTACTED. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT DIAGNOSED AS OF YET. THE VEHICLE WAS DESTROYED. THE MANUFACTURER HAD NOT BEEN INFORMED OF FAILURE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS UNKNOWN. *TR*JB