After I connect the seat belt and drive a few miles, the dash light for the seat belt turns on. I have a 2005 MCS. It's the red light with the person wearing a seat belt. I reconnect the belt thinking the belt didn't latch but it did. I already took my MINI to the dealership once to have this problem resolved. The dealership told me they replaced the tensioner in the pillar next to the driver's seat. I obviously have to take the car back since the light is turning on when it's not supposed to. Any one else have this problem? If so, what was the solution? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

I would personally ignore the light, as I used to with the airbag light. Maybe you can get at the LED for it somehow and disable it.

 

I dont know if your car has the whole passenger seat airbag deal, do you have anything there that is making it think there is a passenger and they arent buckled? I dunno.

 

There was a whole campaign with the older MINIs about the airbag light going off due to the wiring harnesses under both the driver's and passenger's seats. Not sure if the seatbelt light has anything to do with it, but my dealer replaced the wiring harnesses under both seats under a 10-year warranty campaign for those parts.

 

Same story for me, but not before another dealer "fixed" it with spliced lines and electrical tape.

 

Do you have a campaign or TSB number for this?

 

I do not, but I'm sure you can call a dealer and they could tell you about it. All I have is the work order form that they gave back to me after they were done with it, stating that everything was done under warranty & what parts were fixed/replaced.

 

I almost never have a passenger in my car. So the passenger side seat belt is rarely used and buckled in. I am concerned because it turns on when I am already moving and the seat belt is fastened on my (driver's) side. My airbag light has not come on. it's just the seat belt light.

is there a place to see all of the tsb's that have come out for the R53's?

thanks for all of the info!

 

Since I was having the same airbag warning light issue in my car, I did some research and found some information online with regards to the extended warranty for the airbag safetry restraint system. MINI did in fact extend the warranty on the early cars for the SRS for 10 years / 150,000 miles. My car being an '02 and having 141+ on the odo was still covered.

I took my car to Assael MINI of Monrovia and the service department there took very good care of me. They found that the repair had been done in 2006, but that it was done incorrectly, thus causing the same problem again. They removed the carpet and replaced both side airbag and belt tensioner harnesses for both front seats, repaired the left seat harness, and replaced the right side belt tensioner assembly. All of this was done under warranty with no cost to me.

By the way, before going to MINI of Monrovia I went to Alexander BMW as it was close to my work, the customer service I received was poor. Not only that, they wanted to charge me a diagnostic fee just to see what the problem was even though they recognized the fact that it was covered under warranty. Stay away from Alexander, go to MINI of Monrovia

 

Just a possibility, based on my experience this week.

I was driving along and my seat belt warning light was flashing on and off, in other words intermittent. Checked everything and nothing appeared amiss.

A minute later it stopped. Then it started again. Turns out the backpack I had on the passenger seat was setting off the warning.

Backpack weighed about 15 lbs. Buckled the seat belt [passenger] and all was well.

So... any chance you have heavy objects on any of the seats? Just an idea.