Cigarette Lighter Delete

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:40:09 -0500

My cigarette lighter has always annoyed me. I don’t smoke, so it’s pretty useless. On top of that it always slipped into the pushed-in position so when I pulled it out to charge something I would burn myself. Today I looked at my iPhone charger (which I also use for all of my other car devices) and noticed that it was the same size as the cigarette lighter. I decided to take it apart and wire it directly to the 12V input. A little plastruct bondene, epoxy and solder and voila, cigarette lighter deleted. Now I have a much more useful permanent charging solution in my car.

Hood Scoop Fixed

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:44:22 -0400

I got a call from Downtown MINI the other day letting me know that my hood scoop was finally in and painted. I made an appointment and stopped in today to have it installed. While I was there, they also replaced the front fender trim that had been stained by the cosmoline that had been leaking out of the hood.
UPDATE: After looking at the scoop a little closer, I noticed that the left side of it had a bit too much play in it, like it was installed incorrectly. I tried to see if I could fix it myself without another dealer trip, but couldn’t figure it out. I stopped by DTM on the 12th and they took care of it then and there!

Hood Scoop Melting

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:44:12 -0400

Today I took the car in to Downtown MINI to have them take a look at the depression in the hood scoop that I noticed while sitting on the track for the group photo at MINI Takes The States. They have ordered a replacement and I should have it installed sometime within the next couple of weeks.

MINI Takes The States

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:30:02 -0400

We spent this past weekend at MINI Takes The States in Miami. It all started out on Friday morning. We caravanned from Downtown MINI towards the Queen Mary pub in Jupiter. We had a great lunch and met up with the group coming from Jacksonville and Tampa. Next it was on to Vista MINI just north of Ft. Lauderdale where we were treated to snacks and swag bags. I loved the roadside assistance Car that they have.

Friday night it was great to see all of the MINIs and Minis gathered in bicentennial park, but we didn't know about the need to bring chairs, so we skipped the movie and headed back to the Travel lodge in Florida City.

By the time we arrived for breakfast on Saturday, there were only dry bagels left and I regretted skipping the continental breakfast at the TL. Driving thru Miami with the rally was great and the Popsicles in the park were a nice surprise. Miami-Dade PD stopped traffic for us until we got to Coconut Grove. Even though everyone seemed to get split up, I thought it was a lot of fun!

Saturday the festival was fun, the rain gave us a good opportunity to get some fully cooked food. We headed back for the parade lap, which I had been looking forward to for weeks, and had some "shave and a haircut" fun with the horn while lining up. The lap, however was a huge disappointment. It turned out to be 3/4 of a lap of heavy traffic, made worse by seeing the head of the line going around the banks at a good speed when we pulled on. Oh well. The band was good, we stayed for a while and then left a little early.

The best part of the trip wasn’t MINI related at all. Around 6 am Sunday we started driving south and ended up in Marathon Key for a great breakfast seaside. We contemplated driving another hour to Key West but I wanted to head back to check out and hit the Autocross. It was kind of deserted by noon and everyone was packing up. I ended up driving every MINI currently available save the JCW and was reassured that I bought the best MINI for me! At the festival grounds we were given more swag bags, pennants, bought a limited edition MTTS Ridemakerz car, and the MINI tent gave my daughter a nice pull back model car!

Overall I must say that we had a great time at MTTS despite a few disappointments and would definitely do it again!

6th Annual MINIs on the Dragon

Sat, 3 May 2008 12:00:24 -0400

Kim, Haley and I just got back from the 6th annual MINIs on the Dragon in Fontana Dam, NC. As always we had a great time meeting new people, hanging out with friends and, of course, driving some of the best roads in the country. This year Kim attended MINI Monte Carlo Night with me and did very well with the TV Trivia Game. Friday morning we gathered everyone for the Dragon Parade with the help of Barry (Snooter) and Steve (Meilnicki). There were some great new events this year too. The car show was cool to check out, and I attended the Geocaching Meet and Greet while Kim and Haley attended Little Dragons. The Sunshine MINIs Farewell Dinner was great and I even won a $100 gift certificate to 1fastmini.com! As usual it was over too early and time to go back home.

Final Dragon Mods

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:52:22 -0400

Today I got my final mods together for MINIs on the Dragon. Not too much this year, but cool stuff anyway. I finshed the 2 coats of Zaino which gave the car a great looking shine! I finally got around to putting on the OutMotoring grille badge holder that I bought at last year’s Dragon, and I finished re-wiring the auxillary input so that I don’t have to look at the wire anymore!

A couple of old mods re-done

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:13:27 -0400

There weren’t many mods from my R53 that I was able to carry over to my R56 because of the complete car redesign. I did finally get around to installing the two that would carry over. First up is the Light-In-Sight. If you don’t have one of these, get one! It is simply the best twelve dollars that you can spend. Second is the strut tower caps. I don’t know that they do much good, but hey, better on the car then in my closet!

New Water Pump

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:24:05 -0400

Last night we dropped the car off at Downtown MINI for the replacement water pump that was ordered on the 28th. We had a 10am appointment and I recieved a call at 11am this morning letting me know that the car was done! The squealing at idle is now completely gone! Another great job by the service department at Downtown MINI.

Garmin GPS

Sun, 9 Mar 2008 18:51:54 -0400

My birthday isn’t actually until tomorrow, but we had the party today! My wife got me a Garmin 350 GPS and a Kuda mount. I have already loaded the MINI software onto the Garmin, complete with a custom British Racing Green MINI with a white roof and sunroof! I haven’t gotten around to installing the Kuda mount yet, because I want to do some custom work to it before installing. I did, however find that the Garmin fits nicely in the cubby below the switch panel. It sits at a nice angle and the switch bank provide a nice bit of shade which helps visibility in the sun!

The First Issue

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:24:26 -0500

Today I took the car in for service at Downtown MINI after my wife and I noticed a squeal coming from the engine compartment at idle (and only at idle). We were concerned that it wasn’t making the noise when we first got there, but after a minute it kicked in. After the techs looked at it, they came to the conclusion that it was the water pump pulley. They have ordered a replacement water pump and the car should be in for service sometime next week.

While we were at the dealership we also picked up one of the increasingly elusive MINI plush bulldogs for Haley!