Other engine problem on the 2010 MINI Cooper S
4 fires 4 of the 9 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 7 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 other engine problem gets reported
There are 9 reports of other engine problem on the 2010 MINI Cooper S, 7 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 95,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 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, 4 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 $300–$4,000 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 44; the 2010 has 9. 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.
Car driven two miles to market and returned home to high rise condo. Parked in garage of high rise. No problems noted during drive, parking or locking. Within 4-6 minutes, another resident in the garage reported a car on fire, hood/engine area to the management office. A 911 call sent out, took fire department ~ 1 1/2 hours to extinguish the blaze. Car has no history of any problems. Car in for tire rotation, oil change, gas gauge float replacement and xm radio antenna check six weeks earlier. Never any problems mechanically or electrically. Had manual transmission. No indication of any problems ever noted. I was in total disbelief when told my car had burned. Saw all the fire equipment from my unit and had no idea it was my car, had just been in it, and parked it as I always do. My insurance company adjuster and mini dealership all said there were no know reported fires starting spontaneously. Fire and police did not know of any mini fires reported. Just purchased another, am now concerned. Car was 23 months old and had 26,000 miles. My car was a joy to drive and always reliable. Thank you for the opportunity to share my…
Tl* the contact owns a 2010 mini cooper. The contact received notification of NHTSA campaign id number: 12v008000 (engine and engine cooling) and took the vehicle to the dealer for repairs. Two days after the recall repair was performed on the vehicle, the contact noticed smoke coming from under the hood of the vehicle while sitting at a traffic stop. The contact turned the vehicle off but the vehicle proceeded to ignite into flames. The police and fire department were called to assist and a report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed. The dealer and the manufacturer were notified of the failure and the vehicle was pending investigation. The VIN was unavailable. The failure and the current mileage was 32,000.
My car shut down when I was driving out of a highway on a ramp. It stopped on the ramp. I noticed this because when I stepped on the gas my car didn't speed up but slowed down. I tried to restart it multiple times but it didn't work. Finally it was tolled to an mechanical shop and they told me the engine was broken.
Also reported on the 2010 MINI Cooper S
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Excessive oil consumption
Fuel pump failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Seat belt or retractor failure
Complete engine failure or seizure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 9 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 9 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 other engine problem happen on the 2010 MINI Cooper S?
Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 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 other engine problem on the 2010 MINI Cooper S?
9 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.9 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