Total Complaints
7 filings
MINI COOPER · model year
7 NHTSA complaints, 1 crash report, and 2 recall campaigns listed for this cohort. A VIN lookup is required to determine whether a specific vehicle has an unrepaired recall.
NHTSA overall rating
Not crash-tested
New Car Assessment Program
The 2021MINICOOPER carries 7 consumer safety complaints in NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation database for this specific model-year cohort. Within that volume, owners reported 1 crash, 1 fire, 2 injuries, and 0 fatalities. No NCAP 5-star crash-test rating is available for this model year in the federal database.
The most frequently selected component label in reports for the 2021 COOPER is electrical system with 3 filings, followed by tires (1) and air bags (1). Complaint categories reflect owner reports and intake categorization; they do not establish a defect pattern or cause. This cohort has 2 NHTSA recall campaigns listed below. Enter a VIN in NHTSA's official recall lookup to determine whether a specific vehicle has an unrepaired recall.
NHTSA currently has 6 investigation files overlapping the 2021 COOPER. Owners comparing this cohort against neighboring years should read the complaint-by-year trend as report volume, not a causal diagnosis. Use the related-complaint feed and the official recall lookup when researching a specific vehicle.
Total Complaints
7 filings
Crashes Reported
1 reports
Source
NHTSA ODI
Federal complaints database
At or below the fleet median complaint volume.
| Component | Count |
|---|---|
| ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | 3 |
| TIRES | 1 |
| AIR BAGS | 1 |
| STEERING | 1 |
| FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | 1 |
SEAT BELTS
BMW of North America, LLC (BMW) is recalling certain 2021 2 Series (230i, 230i xDrive, M240i, M240i xDrive), 330e, 330e Xdrive, 4 Series Coupe (430i, 430i xDrive, M440i xDrive) M4 Coupe, M4 Competition Coupe, BMW 4 Series Convertible (430i, M440i), BMW X1 sDrive28i, xDrive28i, 2 Series Gran Coupe (2
AIR BAGS: AIR BAG/RESTRAINT CONTROL MODULE
BMW of North America, LLC (BMW) is recalling certain 2020 X1 xDrive28i, X1 sDrive28i, X2 xDrive28i and X2 sDrive28i, 2020 MINI Clubman Cooper S All4, 2021 MINI Hardtop 2 Door (Cooper, Cooper S, John Cooper Works and Cooper S E) and MINI Hardtop 4 Door (Cooper and Cooper S) vehicles. Due to a proble
No incident occurred. On October 18th we received a high voltage battery recall notice for this car. Apparently there were some thermal events (fires) and BMW has released software to help protect the car from such an event. We have been trying to get in touch with MINI, and just recently found that the dealer closed. They left their answering machine online for about a month after. The local BMW dealer says that they cannot perform the update (MINI USA requested we ask them). MINI USA now says that the car must be trucked 300 miles away to the closest dealer. The car cannot even be driven that far because it has about 100 miles of range, the roads are 75+, and there is limited charging infrastructure. We feel that this presents an undue time and financial burden since the dealer closed down, and this is a manufacturing defect. I have repeatedly been in touch with MINI but have received very little support or advice other than spending an enormous amount of money to have the vehic
Digital instrument cluster of electric Mini SE (includes speedometer and battery/range information) turns off without warning while driving and does not turn back on until car is powered down for over half an hour. This has happened more than ten times. Vehicle was inspected by MINI dealer locally and no obvious equipment defect was identified, although they were able to replicate it happening. After disassembly and reassembly by dealer, issue stopped for about two weeks after car was returned to owner. Now it has begun again, to the point of turning off within a few minutes of driving every day, rendering car unusable as driver has no other speedometer in vehicle. After sitting for half an hour, the instrument cluster will turn on when the car is turned on next, only to go out again after a few minutes of driving. Other electronics in car do not appear affected and car operates normally.
The car completely lost steering in traffic. I brought it back to the Mini dealership, they informed me this is a known issue for Mini Coopers equipped with the click-and-play system, and they needed to re-wire the click-and-play to fix it. However Mini decided this should not be a recall. I strongly disagree with Mini's assessment considering losing steering on the road could cause severe accidents.
After work, I started the car in a parking lot. Before leaving, a fire started under the hood behind the passenger side headlight. After using the jaws of life to take off the hood, the fire department contained the fire. No injuries. There was extensive damage to the right front. The contents were all smoke damaged. Neighboring cars were not damaged. The car has been totaled.
On October 4, 2022, the Mini Cooper hardtop 4 door was hit in a head-on collision by a driver who was going at least 40 MPH, possibly more. The car that hit the Cooper was a Toyota Prius. All the Prious' airbags deployed. No airbags deployed on the Mini Cooper hardtop 4 door. None. The Mini Cooper, after assessment, was considered to be a total loss.
Tire model is: Hankook Ventus S1 Evo Z 225/35R18 87Y. Failure started when vehicle turned the "CHECK TIRE PRESSURE" alert on while driving. Pressure started to drop from 32 lbs to 16 lbs in about 15 minutes. Worth to note: no pot hole or any other object was hit during the day of the incident; or even previous days. After stopping, I noticed that the failure occurred in the inner face of the tire. Inner face was pretty degraded and inner treads were visible. A 15 inch long breakage line was visible. Car has 18k miles on it. When comparing the tire that failed to the rest, its degradation was much higher.
The night of October 24th, while I was driving my CID back screen went to black and there were messages displayed in white color. Bootloader 11.035.000/ FFW 1.8.3 Dec 5 2017 Next line is displayed HWEL:42E5 2.1.5 Followed by a large white bar This display stays on even after lock the car. The morning of October 25th, There are warnings came on “ Battery discharged start engine” and “Increased Battery drain while stopped” After a while, I’ve noticed the instrument panel light were off. I had a day time running lights on, but lights weren’t on, only the fog lights. And when I unlock and lock the doors, those lights weren’t flushing. The morning of Oct 26th,my battery was dead.
Data vintage: August 2026. Sources: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, NHTSA recall campaign API, NHTSA NCAP crash-test ratings, and NHTSA FARS for fatality cross-reference.
Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. This year-specific record is rendered from NHTSA ODI, recall, and NCAP rows for the 2021 MINI COOPER; no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.