Had my airbag light come on and stay on a few weeks ago. Did some searching and found NHTSA campaigns on this issue at safercar.gov. #PE5053 and #DP5006 to be specific.

These campaigns state that 2002 up to January 2003 cars are covered for specific airbag faults up to 150,000 or 10 years, whichever comes first. This campaign was first issued in 2005 and is still in effect as my car was repaired for free yesterday (8/8/11).

MINI of Seattle replaced the following items:

61-12-9-118-130 (side airbag cable)
61-12-9-118-132 (belt tensioner)
61-13-1-377-134 (cable strap)
61-13-8-353-746 (cable connector)
61-13-1-379-833 (shrinking hose; probably shrink wrap tubing)
61-13-6-916-946 (cable strap with bracket)

At least I think those are part numbers. I'll check with realoem.com to see.

I wanted to get it out there that the extended warranty for the airbag light coming on is almost up.

Val

Here's documentation, courtesy of miniproblems.com:

http://www.miniproblems.com/investigations/Cooper/2002/

 

my light came on 2 months ago and since thw warranty is gone i thought i SOL. so i take my car to mini bretch for a complimentary check up and the tech did not even mention about the light on his report. i went home and think of nothing since the warranty is gone. i will bring it in tomorrow and will see what they say. did you just bring a printed copy of the investigation and they fixed the car?

 

A printed copy would probably be a good idea. I can't remember if I brought it in or not. I do remember telling them about the extended warranty on this problem and asked if it would be covered. They said they didn't know what was causing the airbag light until they tore into the car. Turns out the parts they replaced were covered.

Good Luck.

Val

 

good jobmight be a good sticky

 

I went to Morristown Mini for a coolant flush-n-fill with no lights on the dash. Gave it back to me with airbag light on. It then became a he said, she said kind of scenario. Service Manager said he'd check, but then he said the OBD connector won't connect to car , which I thought was funny since NJ state inspection was able to.

Long story short, light is still on probably because midget technician slammed my seat forward getting in and ripped a connection?

Screwed because they can't connect to my car?

Build date is May/2002 so I have until then before the 10 year period ends.

This sucks.

 

Not sure where Morristown Mini is, but I'd find another dealer if one is anywhere nearby. It might not be related to the flush and fill- my airbag light wasn't on one morning and then it was. A regular OBD scanner won't read the codes and reset the airbag light but a more specialized dealer one will.

You do need to act fast- you only have a few months left on the extended warranty. I'd be surprised if moving the seat rapidly caused this- and there was lots of parts that Seattle MINI replaced on my car, so you don't want to pay to replace this stuff if you don't have to.

Good luck and get moving.

Val

 

IF the airbag system were that sensitive, it would be a manufacturing defect. First gen seats are pretty fragile, BTW.

 

Val,

I will take your advice and head out to another another Mini dealer.

The light came on in October and ever since the incident at Morristown with them telling me they would have to diagnose why the OBD wouldn't connect, i've been reluctant to take it anywhere near a dealership and planned to take it to an independent Mini mechanic when school was done.

I had a feeling that the OBD wasn't required to reset the light, but I will post my findings tomorrow.

 

From what I've read, you are correct in saying it a defect. Some cases involved the wiring harness under the seat not being fully secured from the factory or not being long enough when adjusting seat positions thereby disconnecting and tripping the sensor.

Granted the seat never moved since I am the only driver, the possibility of the tech moving the seat forward may have been a cause. Not his fault, but obviously a design flaw.

 

I have a PDF of the warranty repair order I can send you if you want to see what they replaced on my car. I'm not sure if that would be helpful or not; it might serve to jog their memory about what needs to be replaced in this warranty situation.

Val

 

Val,

Thanks. I'll let you know if I need it, but I still have the original TSB letter which i'll bring with me. I'll end up calling first to schedule, but hopefully they can squeeze me in the same day.

 

*Update*

So my MCS went to Prestige MINI in NJ. I paid about $200 for the diagnostic charge, but the light is gone and I'm happy.

I know you're wondering why I paid for warranty work, but when my SRS light went on last October after I had gone to another MINI dealership for a coolant flush and fill .. ti ended up being a he said, she said kind of deal (I posted about that a while back), but I left disgruntled because my car came in clean, but left dirty.

Anyway, life and school got in the way and things just got busy.

I popped over to Prestige MINI last week because my 10 year warranty was coming up and the service advisor there, Carolyn, was more pleasurable to deal with and they still had trouble getting the codes, but gave me a loaner and gave me prompt updates on what was going on. I'm not exactly sure which part it was, but it had something to do with the cluster that was faulty and could not get their system to communicate with mine. The part was $600 and unfortunately was not supposed to be covered under the warranty because it was not part of the SRS system, but she had contacted MINI USA and got it covered anyway. I just ended up having to pay for the techs time to figure out why the system wasn't communicating before they could proceed with the warranty work. I believe they changed over the harness under the seat, too. Plus I got a drive a new Clubman, which I hated and made me appreciate my 2002 even more.

 

Glad to hear they covered it. It was not the cluster that was faulty on my car but they did replace cables and tensioners and things like that as seen above. I believe the recall covered that, not the cluster.

Val

 

And now my airbag light is back on! What do you suppose the chances are that this will be covered by the warranty as well? I'll keep everybody posted.

Val

 

Good Post! I had the same issue with my 2002 MCS July build. The dealer replaced the clips in mine that trigger the light to come on. I think they just swapped out all the parts per the original recall. I had another mechanic looked at it just too see where it was coming from and it appears to be triggered from the A pillar Airbag Sensor (The shop that worked on my pothole damage thought it was from that accident but turns out to be a recall issue).

 

I've got this going on in my 2002 MCS now. It's going to MINI of Tempe in AZ tomorrow. Thanks to this forum and this thread hopefully it'll be covered under the extended warranty. I had them check my build date based on my VIN and the warranty is up in less than 2 weeks!

 

Note in an earlier post that my airbag light came back (at least) by 6/5/2012, and may have been on earlier. This was within the 10 year warranty for this item, but I did not have it diagnosed until today (7/10/2012). Bad on me for not running to the dealer right away. They ran the code and said that it would have been covered if I would have gotten in before 6/9/2012 (in service date of car was 6/9/2002) but now it won't be covered.

Called MINI USA and explained my case and they too, declined to cover this, even though the airbag light came on within the warranty period and even though the left side had already been repaired.

Didn't want to be one of those people who has become disappointed with MINI but it's looking to be that way.

Any ideas? Anybody else I can call to try to get this resolved? I did talk to Mark at MINIUSA, 1-888-275-6464.

Thanks-

Val

 

Wow