2026 Mini Cooper

Defect. BMW of North America, LLC is recalling certain 2025-2026 X1 and X2, MINI Cooper Convertible, MINI Cooper, Mini Countryman S ALL4, and 2025 MINI Countryman SE ALL4 vehicles. The torsion bar in both front seat belt retractors may have been damaged during production.

Risk. A damaged seat belt retractor may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.

Remedy. Dealers will replace both front seat belt retractors, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed November 13, 2025. Owners may contact BMW customer service at 1-800-525-7417. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) will be searchable on NHTSA.gov on November 7, 2025.

The contact owns a 2026 Mini Cooper. The contact stated that while driving approximately 65 MPH with the AC unit engaged, the driver’s side window shattered. The contact stated that the window was not impacted to cause the window to shatter. The contact stated that the failure had occurred approximately 15 minutes after the AC unit had been engaged. The contact was able to drive to the nearest BMW dealer. The dealer did not diagnose the vehicle. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 6,255.

Either closing the moonroof or the wipers activating caused the screen to flicker off and back on. Sustained usage or frequent usage caused the screen to completely deactivate for 10+ minutes and the Driver's HUD to deactivate and retract. During this time, the car was operating on the highway in rain conditions with zero driver's instrumentation, including speed, navigation, fuel, battery, safety warnings, blinkers, or other indicators. It was unclear if blind spot indicators or driving assistance features were impacted, or if vehicle lights were impacted as no indicators were present in the vehicle. This incident lead to driver anxiety, reduced situational awareness, reduced confidence in the vehicle's safety and operational capability, and reduced safety to other vehicles around the car as it could have led to changes in driver behavior or lane changes due to surprise at vehicle behavior. The problem has been reproduced by the dealership's service station, however the dealership has changed ownership recently and has lost some records. The car has been in dealer service for the past 70 days but the fault is still not understood or remedied. The dealership was made aware of this roughly 60 days ago and is resisting even replacing the vehicle, let alone understanding and remedying the quality issue.