According to the IIHS you’ll want to be extra careful to avoid low speed accidents if your a MINI driver. A recent study gave the car a “poor” grade in low speed impacts due to the repair costs. Here’s an excerpt from their report:
Pricey styling decisions: The Mini Cooper is the only car the Institute has tested with a hood that buckled in the front corner test. This is a pricey styling design on the manufacturer’s part, Nolan points out. The minicar’s hood wraps around the front of the car like a fender, so instead of replacing just a fender, the car needed an $810 new hood. Repairs total $2,637 in this test.
The IIHS recently finished its side-impact crash testing of the 2008-2009 MINI Cooper. Below is an extensive look at the testing with both exterior and interior mounted video cameras. Overall the car got an “A” or acceptable rating – not bad for a small car. However when you look closer at the ratings you’ll see the MINI got pretty much all “G” ratings (as high as it gets) except for two categories: rear passenger torso and driver leg categories.
The IIHS has been crashing cars again. We all know the MINI scores well front and rear, but so not hot for side impact.
Mini Cooper results: This minicar was redesigned for the 2007 model year, and it earned a good rating for frontal crash protection in a previous test. New side and rear tests were conducted to assess further design changes made for the most recent models. This minicar earns a good rating for rear protection and an acceptable rating for side protection. Measures recorded on the driver dummy indicate that a fractured pelvis would be possible in a side crash of the same severity, but there’s low risk that other significant injuries would occur to the driver. For the rear passenger, rib fractures and/or internal organ injuries would be possible. ESC is newly standard for the 2009 model year.
Sent in by MF Reader James, it’s the actual letter he received regarding the service action MINI USA will perform to shorten the exhaust pipe on the R56.
MINI division’s quality monitoring has learned that some Cooper S owners have contacted the centrally-located tailpipe extension at the back of their vehicles, while hot, with their uncovered legs.
To address this issue, MINI has decided to conduct a service action on these vehicles and we have shortened the tailpipe extension to help reduce the chances of inadvertant contact with the leg
If you have an R56 Cooper S, keep an eye on your mailbox for the same letter or head to your dealer and have this tended too. Click the image for a full size scan.
The federal government is looking into complaints from some consumers that they have received leg burns from contact with the exhaust pipe in the 2007-’08 Mini Cooper S. The engineering analysis, which is sometimes a precursor to a safety recall, involves up to 20,000 vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Here’s an excerpt from the complaint report on the NHTSA website:
The office of defects investivation (ODI) opened this investigation based on three consumer complaints on the 2007 model year MINI COOPER S. The complaints reported being burned on their legs by the hot exhaust pipe tip while they were removing cargo items from the rear hatch area of the their vehicles.
No injuries and no recall has been announced yet. Something to keep an eye on. And be careful loading and unloading the boot after you have been driving. Those pipes do get very hot!
Washington and California joined the ranks of about 30 other states yesterday banning the use of cellular phones while driving.
The new laws are almost identical in both states, with California having stiffer rules for those under 18 and Washington having a total ban on text messaging too (since Jan 1).
The good lads at Jalopnik did a great break down of the new laws in both states.
We know how safe our cars are. We’ve read the reports and seen the data. It’s a point that we take great pride in. Even to the point of extolling the safety features of our cars anytime someone makes the “I-wouldn’t-feel-safe-in-that” comment. But just how safe is a MINI? From Minifinity.com via AUSmotive.com.
Yikes! Images of this R56 MINI Cooper S rollover have recently surfaced on the Minifinity.com internet forum. The accident happened in Malaysia and, while details of the moments leading up the incident are only speculation, there has been an alledged eye witness report stating the driver and passenger walked away with no serious injuries.
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Sections: Safety Jun 11th, 2009 23 Comments 
