I took the MINI in to the shop to have the airbag warning light diagnosed. Both the light in the speedo, and the passenger airbag light have been on intermittently, with both coming on at the same time. I did some research on this issue, and I was seeing many instances where the seat mat in the passenger seat goes bad, and needs to be replaced. I was not looking forward to replacing the seat bottom ($$$).

The shop called back and said they had one fault code, 80, which corresponds to the door sensor in the driver's side door. After searching the interweb, it looks like I can get this part rather inexpensively, less than $100, and simply remove the door panel, and swap them out.

Are there any tricks to doing this? Or is it a simply plug & play?

 

. Are there any tricks to doing this? Or is it a simply plug & play?[/QUOTE]
Never done it, just suggest disconnecting battery when messing with airbag sys components!

 

I just had the seat mat done ($1300), so I half expected you to say you need to replace the entire door to fix this ;-) Sorry, no help !

 

Yeah, I was hoping it wasn't the seat bottom. The cheapest I've found is around $600. I did find an emulator on eBay that is designed to bypass the system, keeping the airbags turned on all the time, with the lights in the dash turned off. I may go that route if and when the seat mat goes bad.

 

Can you imagine the liability when you sell your car though ? unless you keep it forever...
Anyway, good luck w/ the door !