2009 MINI COOPER — Complaint #1601992
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION:FRONT PASSENGER filed September 11, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1601992 (ODI reference 11254721) concerns a 2009 MINI COOPER and was filed on September 11, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 3, 2019. The vehicle had 130,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as air bags:sensor:occupant classification:front passenger, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same MINI COOPER cohort independently describe similar air bags:sensor:occupant classification:front passenger failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2009 MINI COOPER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
PASSENGERS OC3 SEAT OCCUPANCY MAT FAILED CAUSING THE PASSENGER SIDE AIR BAG TO BE DEACTIVATED. MINI HAD EXTENDED THE WARRANTY ON THIS FOR 10 YEARS AND 120,000 MILES. MY MINI WAS LESS THAN 10 YEARS OLD BUT DID HAVE 130,000 MILES ON 4/3/2019 WHEN I TOOK IT INTO THE DEALER. MINI HAS REFUSED TO REPLACE THIS DEFECTED PART EVEN THOUGHT THEY KNOW IT WAS DEFECTIVE BECAUSE THEY EXTENDED THE WARRANTY. THEY ALSO KNOW THAT ON PREVIOUS YEARS MODELS THEY WERE FORCED TO RECALL THIS PART AS I ALSO OWN A 2006 MINI THAT WENT BAD AND IT TOOK OVER A YEAR BEFORE THEY FINALLY DID A RECALL. MINI DOES NOT HAVE A WORKABLE CUSTOMER RELATIONS SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS THE CUSTOMER TO APPEAL THIS SAFETY DEFECT REPLACEMENT REJECTION. THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT MINI KNOW THEY HAVE A DEFECTIVE SAFETY SENSOR AND HAVE A HISTORY OF THIS BEING A BAD PART BUT ARE UNWILLING TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND REPLACE IT. THEY INSTEAD WANT THE CUSTOMER TO SPEND OVER $1,000 DOLLARS TO REPLACE IT FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY. THIS IS A BAD COMPANY DYN
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1601992 |
| ODI Number | 11254721 |
| Date Filed | September 11, 2019 |
| Failure Date | April 3, 2019 |
| VIN | WMWMF33529T |
Similar AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION:FRONT PASSENGER Complaints for 2009 MINI COOPER
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.