AutoUtility currently tracks 7 official NHTSA owner defect complaints for the 2021 MINI Convertible. Electrical System issues are the most frequently reported category, appearing in 3 complaints (42.9% of submitted records). Among these NHTSA complaint records, 1 filing cites a crash, 1 cites a fire, 1 reports one or more injuries.

Key Problem Findings
  • Total NHTSA Complaints: 7 reports
  • #1 Reported Problem Area: Electrical System (3 reports • 42.9% of submitted complaints)
  • Secondary Problem Areas: Fuel & Propulsion System (1), Steering System (1)
  • Crash-Citing Complaints: 1 filings
  • Fire-Citing Complaints: 1 filings
  • Complaints Reporting Injuries / Fatalities: 1 injury filings • 0 fatality filings
Reporting Methodology: Statistics describe unverified consumer submissions voluntarily filed with NHTSA. Complaint volume is not normalized for vehicle sales volume or miles driven. Multiple components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission.
Total Complaints
7
Submitted to NHTSA ODI
Crash-Citing Complaints
1
Filings citing a collision
Fire-Citing Complaints
1
Filings citing smoke or fire
Complaints Reporting Injuries
1
Filings citing one or more injuries
Complaints Reporting Fatalities
0
Consumer filings citing fatalities

Most Reported Problems for 2021 MINI Convertible

Top automotive subsystem defect categories ranked by unique owner complaint volume in federal records

#1 Problem Area 42.9% of complaints

Electrical System

3 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
🔥 1 fire report
#2 Problem Area 14.3% of complaints

Fuel & Propulsion System

1 owner complaint submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#3 Problem Area 14.3% of complaints

Steering System

1 owner complaint submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#4 Problem Area 14.3% of complaints

Air Bags & Restraints

1 owner complaint submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ 1 crash report 🩹 2 injury report entries
#5 Problem Area 14.3% of complaints

Wheels & Tires

1 owner complaint submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
Domain Share Note: Share percentage represents the proportion of unique complaint filings referencing each vehicle system. Because single complaints may cite multiple systems (such as engine and electrical simultaneously), domain percentages represent individual category incidence and may sum to over 100%.

Recent NHTSA Owner Reports for 2021 MINI Convertible

Representative defect filings submitted by owners to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation

Fuel & Propulsion System NHTSA ODI ID: #11629967
Filed: 12/10/2024

"No incident occurred. On October 18th we received a high voltage battery recall notice for this car. Apparently there were some thermal events (fires) and BMW has released software to help protect the car from such an event. We have been trying to get in touch with MINI, and just recently found..."

Incident Date: 12/10/2024 • Raw NHTSA Component: FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM
Electrical System NHTSA ODI ID: #11571293
Filed: 02/11/2024

"Digital instrument cluster of electric Mini SE (includes speedometer and battery/range information) turns off without warning while driving and does not turn back on until car is powered down for over half an hour. This has happened more than ten times. Vehicle was inspected by MINI dealer locally..."

Incident Date: 02/09/2024 • Raw NHTSA Component: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
Steering System NHTSA ODI ID: #11519216
Filed: 04/27/2023

"The car completely lost steering in traffic. I brought it back to the Mini dealership, they informed me this is a known issue for Mini Coopers equipped with the click-and-play system, and they needed to re-wire the click-and-play to fix it. However Mini decided this should not be a recall. I..."

Incident Date: 04/22/2023 • Raw NHTSA Component: STEERING
Electrical System NHTSA ODI ID: #11499386
Fire Cited Filed: 12/29/2022

"After work, I started the car in a parking lot. Before leaving, a fire started under the hood behind the passenger side headlight. After using the jaws of life to take off the hood, the fire department contained the fire. No injuries. There was extensive damage to the right front. The contents were..."

Incident Date: 12/13/2022 • Raw NHTSA Component: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
Air Bags & Restraints NHTSA ODI ID: #11493154
Crash Cited 2 Injury Entries Filed: 11/10/2022

"On October 4, 2022, the Mini Cooper hardtop 4 door was hit in a head-on collision by a driver who was going at least 40 MPH, possibly more. The car that hit the Cooper was a Toyota Prius. All the Prious' airbags deployed. No airbags deployed on the Mini Cooper hardtop 4 door. None. The Mini Cooper,..."

Incident Date: 10/04/2022 • Raw NHTSA Component: AIR BAGS
Consumer Narrative Notice: Excerpts are sanitized text descriptions submitted by vehicle owners to the federal ODI database. They reflect the reporting consumer's observations at the time of filing and have not been independently confirmed by vehicle manufacturers or government investigators.

Complaint History for MINI Convertible

Reported defect complaint volume across sibling model years (2015–2026)

Model Year NHTSA Complaints Crash Reports Safety Recalls Detailed Report
2015 MINI Convertible 53 3 0 View 2015 Problems →
2016 MINI Convertible 0 0 0 View 2016 Problems →
2017 MINI Convertible 10 1 0 View 2017 Problems →
2018 MINI Convertible 2 0 0 View 2018 Problems →
2019 MINI Convertible 0 0 0 View 2019 Problems →
2020 MINI Convertible 0 0 0 View 2020 Problems →
2021 MINI Convertible Current Page 7 1 0 Current
2022 MINI Convertible 1 0 0 View 2022 Problems →
2023 MINI Convertible 0 0 0 View 2023 Problems →
2024 MINI Convertible 0 0 0 View 2024 Problems →
2025 MINI Convertible 1 0 1 View 2025 Problems →
2026 MINI Convertible 0 0 1 View 2026 Problems →
Comparative Disclaimer: Complaint totals are unadjusted historical counts and are not normalized for vehicles sold, active fleet size, or total road mileage. Newer model years naturally have had less calendar exposure time to accumulate owner filings.

Detailed NHTSA Component Breakdown for 2021 MINI Convertible

Complete distribution of consumer defect reports across all 5 granular NHTSA system and subsystem classifications

Vehicle Component / System Total Complaints Crash Reports Fire Reports Reported Injury Entries Reported Fatality Entries
Electrical System NHTSA category: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 3 0 1 0 0
Air Bags NHTSA category: AIR BAGS 1 1 0 2 0
Fuel & Propulsion System NHTSA category: FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM 1 0 0 0 0
Steering NHTSA category: STEERING 1 0 0 0 0
Tires NHTSA category: TIRES 1 0 0 0 0
Data Attribution & Reporting Methodology: Complaints are unverified voluntary submissions to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Because multiple vehicle components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission, component-level rollups may sum to more than the unique complaint count (7). Injury and fatality entries in the detailed table reflect raw values entered by reporting consumers across individual submissions; they are not deduplicated casualty statistics and may include duplicate or unverified entries. Complaint volume is not normalized for sales volume or vehicle mileage and does not represent an audited component failure rate.
Official US Government Data Provenance

The complaint records on this page are retrieved directly from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) public database.

Local Production Store Compiled: August 2026 • Deterministic Audited Dataset • Zero Dynamic External API Runtime Latency.