My car began experiencing issues with the "passenger air bag off" light staying lite whether or not a passenger is in the car. I paid $110 to the dealership to diagnose my car and they said the problem is the seat mat sensor, and they want $1,500 to replace it. I googled this problem and I found that this happens quite often to cooper owners. We have no kids and nobody but my wife and/or myself use this vehicle, so this should not happen. I also found out that in the past there was a recall for the same problem to older MINIcoopers, so I guess the problem persists with newer vehicles. Additionally I found that this is such a common failure on all MINIcoppers that E-bay and others sell what they call a "seat occupancy mat sensor bypass emulator" and what this does is simply substitute the vehicle sensors so that the air bag is always armed in case there is a accident. Of course this prevents from placing children or car seats in the from seat. This emulator also eliminates the dreaded air bag light and/or code for the seat occupancy detector. After looking at the availability of all these aftermarket emulators and people complaining about the same problem, I truly believe that there must be something wrong with these sensors, otherwise there would not be an aftermarket part to partially fix the problem. Although I am not willing to risk using this aftermarket part.

- San Antonio, TX, USA