In April 2013 I was merging onto highway I20 with my children in the back of my MINICooper S 2006. As I was speeding up to merge onto the highway the car completely cut off. I veered over into a median in the middle of six lanes of high-speed traffic. The car had completely shut off, even the hazard lights. I was very lucky that the median was there and that I had not yet entered the main stream of traffic. The police came, then a friend. After about a half hour it restarted without power steering and he was able to slowly drive it, and he fixed a belt that he said had looked like it had blown out. About four times in the year prior to this the car had cut off, but not while I was driving; it shut down as I was pulling out of a parking spot but then immediately restarted. No one could explain it. After the April incident I went to the MINIcooper dealer and spent close to $3000 to ensure that the car was safe for my children. However, yesterday, 11/5/13, I was backing out of a parking spot and the car completely shut down. I called the dealership for assistance and they said they had never heard of this kind of problem and couldn't help; fortunately the car restarted about ten minutes later. However, I am extremely concerned that this car is unsafe and I have heard from an acquaintance who also has a MINICooper S 2006 who said this has happened to her, that something random happened with her car and it completely shut down while she was driving. She told me that there was a recall, but I called MINIcorporate today, and was told there was no recall and referred me to NHTSA.

- Grand Prairie, TX, USA