2016 MINI COUNTRYMAN — Complaint #1859886
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about AIR BAGS: AIR BAG/RESTRAINT CONTROL MODULE filed December 16, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1859886 (ODI reference 11497798) concerns a 2016 MINI COUNTRYMAN and was filed on December 16, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on September 16, 2022. The vehicle had 86,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New Mexico based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as air bags: air bag/restraint control module, 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 COUNTRYMAN cohort independently describe similar air bags: air bag/restraint control module 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 2016 MINI COUNTRYMAN shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2016 Mini Cooper S Countryman. The contact stated that intermittently the âPassenger restraint system malfunction - Fault in passenger-restraint system affecting air bag - Consult Nearest Service Center" message was displayed while the seat was occupied. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer, where it was diagnosed that the front passengerâs side seat sensor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact stated that the failure was reoccurring more frequently. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 86,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1859886 |
| ODI Number | 11497798 |
| Date Filed | December 16, 2022 |
| Failure Date | September 16, 2022 |
| VIN | WMWZC3C53GW |
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.