A week ago I purchased a certified 2013 cooper automatic with 33k miles. On my 3rd drive, a total of 254 miles of driving since I left the dealership- the accelerator failed in the middle of an intersection. I did not loose all power, simply the gas pedal would not work. I received no warning codes. After getting pushed out of the intersection I turned off the car. After about 5 min I restarted the car and the gas pedal was operational. The dealership and Mini Usa says that they have never heard of this issue. The service department was not able to read any codes from my car and said they rechecked everything that had just been checked days prior when they did the certification. So, they escalated the issue to their East Coast Technical Division, which I was told are engineers. Today the dealership called and said that the Tech Division said that the failure was due to a needed software update. The Techs want the dealership to 'update the software and then drive the car around a bit and... see how it goes...'
This does not sit well with me. Do any experienced Mini owners feel like that explanation makes sense? I would hate to be doing 90mph in the fast lane next time I need a software update.

 

I would go ahead and get the software update done. Considering all that is computer controlled, sounds like they know something you don't.

 

Thanks for responding. I'm definitely getting the update. But I have concerns that a needed software update would cause me to loose access to continue to power the accelerator while I was driving. That is dangerous.

 

Software has taken over! I hate it, only solution is to buy an older car.

 

Definitely sounds like a software situation unless there is an intermittent electrical connection problem, but that is unlikely.

 

Usually the first step is reflash the software on the car...it could have become corrupted somehow....
Would find it highly unusual that this would occur to only you on a 3 year old car....
Know that sometimes an ignition issue can make it feel like the pedal is dead...just coasting...
Had a home civic with an issue...stick...would just turn off...but since it was a stick, no lights or errors, and rpms would stay matched to road speed...then it would catch...and have power...
Bet when they look deeper they will find something....think you got the "oversimplified" explanation....

 

It is next to impossible to be certain one has fixed an intermittent problem. Confident, yes, certain no. It sounds like they are guessing and aren't entirely confident in their fix. There is a federal government agency for reporting such problems. You can also search for similar complaints.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/

Edit: I see you did so. Did you see this:
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs...59114-7842.pdf