Mini Cooper Body problems by year

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.

characteristics. I know I am not the first R53 Mini Cooper (2002-2006 run) with this problem and this should be considered a hazard and public safety issue. I have included the link to many of the cases captured by the North American Motoring Association (a primarily North American Mini car association) which details 24 pages of these issues. https://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/stock-problems-issues/73527-spontaneous-engine-bay-fires.html?ispreloading=1

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.

professional fire examiner could determine that. I am blessed that this did not happen while parked in my garage but was scary. I just want this incident on record so that others which own this particular type of vehicle can be warned about the potential dangers. I have owned this vehicle since new and had a couple of updates done per bmw such as the tailpipes and timing chain in the engine. I was not aware of any additional recalls or updates but apparently there have been some incidences of fires such as mine which I learned about after searching the internet to see if similar issues had been documented. I will attach a few pictures for you to help with your assessment. Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope this information will be some help to others in preventing a similar situation. I thank god no one was injured or property damaged other than my car. The fire department made a report but it did not include investigating the cause just a response to a fire. *Tr

great the it bent the frame underneath the drivers door 3-4 inches according to the repair facility it was towed to. Vip auto body. The window that was approx 1/3 open shattered the window. I sustained injuries to neck, back,shoulder and right side of head which hit the door panel upon impact. I have done extensive research since this accident and there are several air bags and side door impact bag curtains in the mini cooper and none of them deployed. There is an actual sensor in the middle of each door to activate the air bags, obviously the one in the drivers side door was not working. This car supposedly has a 5 star crash rating according to mini usa and my original window sticker. I contacted mini usa the day after the accident, and they instructed me not to have any repairs done until one of there tech's came out to inspect the mini and do a diagnostic check of the air bag system. I did so. The tech came out 5 days later, and a week after that the results came in and mini usa said everything was working properly as far as the air bags. Liars. Anyone with any common sense can see that the air bags should have deployed with the force of this impact. They just don't want to take any responsibility for this accident. My mini cooper was deemed a total loss. Any investigation into this accident would be very appreciated maybe even saving a life in the future ....Updated 04/23/15 *bf

said to keep the battery as a back up "just in case" because it still appeared to be a good battery. Then later in 2013, I took it back to the mini dealer for general service and I said I noticed water in the boot (trunk) and for them to check the hatchback seal to see if there was any leaks, they said no, and no further investigation was done for either event. I believe that both these events were results of the faulty drain hose from the a-pillar being dislodged for so long. Today, the automobile left my possession, to an auction house. I wanted to file this complaint so that you, the nhtsa can perhaps have mini issue a recall to fix this issue and have them change their vehicle's sunroof drainage system so that someone else doesn't have a car totally ruined by flooding due to this defect in engineering and design. After viewing some mini forums, I am not the only person who has had this issue has happened to their mini cooper. I'm very sad, because I happened to really enjoy this car, and it was totally fun to drive. I was advised by a friend who is a motorcycle mechanic and my insurance agent to file this report with your organization, in hopes that something will be done about this. Too many people don't speak up, and I am not one to let something done wrong to me go without a fight! Do all you can to rectify this issue with mini! *Tr