Overheating on the 2008 MINI Cooper S
2 fires 2 of the 4 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.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When overheating gets reported
There are 4 reports of overheating on the 2008 MINI Cooper S, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 102,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 27,750 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, 2 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 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2008 has 4. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
I bought car new in nov 2007. Car was used as transportation every day to and from work (~100 mi total). Car was well cared for, service was performed as required, etc. In sept 2008 after sitting undriven for 10 days while I was away on vacation, I drove 50 mi to work and there were no signs of trouble except that an indicator for a blown headlamp came on when I initially started up. When I arrived at work and pulled into a parking space I noticed wisps of smoke coming from the grill and intake and suspected overheating. I peered into the intake and saw glowing orange, and smelled the smoke and realized this was a fire not an overheating. I had a colleague call 911 and grabbed a fire extinguisher. When I got back to the car smoke was pouring out of the hood. Not wanting to open the hood I aimed the fire extinguisher into the grill, intake, and gaps but it didn't do much. At that point I grabbed valuables from car and walked away. Flames began coming out of the hood over the windshield. Car was completely engulfed within 10 minutes. There were no injuries or property damage except for the car itself. Insurance declared it a total…
Tl* the contact owns a 2008 mini cooper s. The contact stated that smoke was seen coming from the engine. The vehicle was unable to cool down so the contact had the vehicle towed to a dealer for diagnosis but they were unable to duplicate or diagnose the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact stated that the failure recurred and he was unable to drive the vehicle for more than a few miles without it overheating. The manufacturer was contacted and offered no assistance. The failure mileage was approximately 7,400. The current mileage was approximately 8,234. The VIN was unavailable.
Found large oily mark under parked car. Turns out to be the thermostat hose leaking due to cracks because of being made of plastic. This is a known design issue by mini/bmw that could cause an engine to overheat producing a file or blowing the engine. This should come under a recall. Checking online, you can see that it was such an issue last year, that dealers were not even able to get parts for weeks due to the number of failures. Calling the dealer, they readily admit it is a huge problem and they have to replace lots of them. Of course, it is $600 a pop for the fix. Due to the large cost and admitted design flaw, these should all be placed under a recall before someone is badly hurt. Also anyone that has had to have this fixed should be reimbursed for that expense. *tr
Also reported on the 2008 MINI Cooper S
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Other engine problem
Oil leak
Seat belt or retractor failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 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 overheating happen on the 2008 MINI Cooper S?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is overheating on the 2008 MINI Cooper S?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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