Other engine problem on the 2009 MINI Cooper
4 fires 4 of the 15 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 other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2009 MINI Cooper report other engine problem at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 87,350 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33,500 miles | 53,775 miles | 65,700 miles | 86,575 miles | 120,850 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 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2002, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 19; the 2009 has 15. 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.
On july 25th, aprox 9:00pm. My daughter (driver) have just arrived from college internship and arrived boyfriend family home (12-15mi trip). Upon turning off the engine and getting out of the car she smell burnt and saw sparks and fire through the car front grill. Boyfriend came and open the hood and noticed the fire. The boyfriend's father came and used dry chemical extinguisher to put fire out. Report was made to mini cooper. I came later and notice several wires burnt. The car was towed (7/25, 7/26 early morning) and is today (8/7/2012) at montgomery county mini cooper rockville, md, awaiting inspection by bmw engineering. The car still pending repair. I took pictures last saturday (8/4). These pictures are available upon request. *tr
The timing tensioner on my mini cooper s backed out, resulting in a massive oil loss while at highway speeds. This is apparently a known issue by mini, but no known recall has been issued at this point. *tr
I was driving home from work on 21 november 2013 when the check engine light on my mini came on. I called the dealer to schedule the appointment. By the time I got off the phone with the dealer, the light turned off. Around 5 miles further down the road the light came back on and then the car erupted in flames. I am unsure where else to file a complaint but I thought I would begin here. *tr
Also reported on the 2009 MINI Cooper
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Other electrical problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
Overheating
Head gasket failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 15 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 2009 MINI Cooper?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2009 MINI Cooper?
15 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 4.3 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