many of us have followed the online instructions to safely take out our front passenger side seat before, usually for the purpose of sound proofing the floor pan or to place an amplifier beneath the seats crevice. i did both, so i am well aware of what torx setting i need and how to unclip the male and female wiring that connects to the seat.

here is the problem:
my 2002 mini cooper r50 just went in to Mini of Stamford to have an emergency clutch replacement. it was too far from mini of westchester. as far as i can tell the clutch is fine. however, upon re-entering and driving the car i discovered my amplifier no longer worked. so after checking the easy things like speaker terminal connections, i finally took out the wrench and began removing the front passenger seat when i saw the horror!! (just kidding, kind of)

it looks like whomever removed the seat must have forgotten to unclip the male female clips, because where there was once an easy way to disconnect the seat, there is now hardwired, or crimped wire. it looks like if if the seat were ever need to be removed again, that it would require cutting wire, adding more wire, and then resplicing the whole mess back together.

i am frustrated because i was planning on selling this car. but now my sound system is no longer functional. additionally, the car is unfit for normal mini service. and on top of that, were one of these wire connections to fail, and there were an accident, someone could die. yes... the negligence of stamford of mini's repair of my clutch could actually-god forbid-lead to the injury or death of the passenger, due to airbag failure.

should i call corporate?! (half joking there)

any/all help appreciated. i NEED to remove the seat to investigate the amp that MINI of stamford somehow ruined. and i NEED to be able to take that seat out the way it is supposed to be taken out... by unclipping. not uncrimping.

thanks and if you have any ideas of who i should talk to about this please let me know.

 

They clearly botched something and rigged a half-a** "fix". Under the seat, all of the factory connectors have proper male/female housings that can be unplugged (obviously necessary, to allow seat removal). My guess is that a tech mishandled the seat (or forgot to unplug it) and the rest was history.

You should have a connector for the seat airbag and one for the seat belt tensioner. The seat belt buckle sensor might be a separate connector. Heated seats adds another connector and 2005+ has yet one more for the seat pad weight sensor. This is a photo that was posted elsewhere:

 

ughhhh!!!! i am currently in manhattan, ny so the mini is at home,but if they had to take both seats out for the clutch replacement i could be in big trouble.

or more likely they're in big trouble.

any advice on how i should handle their service peopl?

 

It sounded a bit odd to me when you mentioned seat removal for a clutch replacement. I just looked up clutch replacement instructions, and it doesn't mention removing the seats, nor does any part of the procedure involve doing anything even close to the seats.

I'm assuming you installed the amplifier yourself. Have you had any other work done on your car since installing the amplifier?