Wiring harness or short circuit on the 2003 MINI Cooper S
5 fires 5 of the 8 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When wiring harness or short circuit gets reported
Owners of the 2003 MINI Cooper S report wiring harness or short circuit at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 50,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 5,800 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46,200 miles | 48,000 miles | 49,000 miles | 52,000 miles | 52,000 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 5 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$3,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Parked vehicle outside grocery store. Returned after <5 minutes to find smoke pouring from the hood. Opened hood to determine cause and smelt electrical smoke, and saw flames coming from under the engine. Doused flames using a fire extinguisher from store, and disconnected battery. Initial dealer investigation indicates that the damage was to the power steering pump and wiring harness. Had I not stopped for groceries, I would have been unlikely to notice the smoke/fire early enough to prevent the loss of the vehicle. Insurance and dealer root cause investigation is still pending, but after some research on the internet (mostly http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73527) I found at least 10 other instances of a fault in the power steering pump causing fires. Bmw is obviously aware of some of these problems, as they made changes to the power steering pump and power steering fan wiring harness in 04 models on. It seems to me that there is a systematic problem with the power steering pump on minis. No fuse blew, and to have an electrical component run to the point where is combusts, without any fuse or thermal…
I purchased my '03 mini copper s with 49k from a honda in mechanicsburg, pa dealer in august. In december, I purchased tires and then went to a self-service carwash afterward. When I got home and before I put it in the garage, I took out the hose and washed off the wheels and under the car. During the process there was white smoke, which I thought was steam from the water hitting the manifold. I put the car in the garage and later when my wife came home she commented on the smoke and mist in the garage (it was quite cold that night.) the next day when I pulled the car out, the steering was very stiff and I only drove it out the driveway and on the road before I realized the power steering was completely out. I drove it about 15 miles to the dealer after checking fuses and determining that the problem was beyond my mechanical skills. The power steering pump, fan and harness were replaced along with the battery (shorted out). Insurance adjusters from hondacare (extended warranty), state farm insurance company (my comprehensive insurance) and the dealership determined that the power steering pump had caught fire. Their conjecture was…
I purchased my '03 mini copper s with 49k from a honda in mechanicsburg, pa dealer in august. In december, I purchased tires and then went to a self-service carwash afterward. When I got home and before I put it in the garage, I took out the hose and washed off the wheels and under the car. During the process there was white smoke, which I thought was steam from the water hitting the manifold. I put the car in the garage and later when my wife came home she commented on the smoke and mist in the garage (it was quite cold that night.) the next day when I pulled the car out, the steering was very stiff and I only drove it out the driveway and on the road before I realized the power steering was completely out. I drove it about 15 miles to the dealer after checking fuses and determining that the problem was beyond my mechanical skills. The power steering pump, fan and harness were replaced along with the battery (shorted out). Insurance adjusters from hondacare (extended warranty), state farm insurance company (my comprehensive insurance) and the dealership determined that the power steering pump had caught fire. Their conjecture was…
Also reported on the 2003 MINI Cooper S
Other steering problem
Power steering pump or fluid leak
Other visibility problem
Loss of power steering
Windshield cracking
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 8 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does wiring harness or short circuit happen on the 2003 MINI Cooper S?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is wiring harness or short circuit on the 2003 MINI Cooper S?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed