1st Gen R53 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: My 2005 R53 Daily Driver build thread

It's not a dull sound. The best way to describe it is like a piece of zip tie plastic scrubbing on the disc, or cardboard touching the rotor. Not dull at all. Relatively high pitched, but more scratchy, not squealing. Even if not needed, replacing bearings is a good idea - did the fronts on the other car last summer. This blue car will get front bearings next summer when the subframe comes down for lower C-arm bushings and a few other parts. I could just do the rears at the same time, get it taken care of, especially if I don't find anything wrong with the pads or sensor. Definitely don't have a pull/resistance coming from there.

 

The tough stuff isn't the weather or the distance. It is staying alive among the absolute morons that are allowed to operate motor vehicles in this country. Right now my most likely cause of death death is called Dodge RAM. A Honda CRV got close but no dice - I jumped and the bike took one for the team. Thing is, foul weather and winter seem to be the safest time to be out there. My theory is that people are more likely to be attentive to the road when conditions get less than perfect and in the dark I can run big ass lights to get their attention away from their phones.

 

30 miles on ice and snow today. Traction control is far too aggressive, but I still only turned it off a few times when the car just didn't want to go at all

As for programming - I assume that is all done with NCS Expert. Was going to buy a cable and the software a while back. Read about some things you can do with it. Coding examples I saw looked like it is all in German, but that's fine, since it is my first language.

 

snow here for a few days before the side roads were cleared. With the new BF Goodrich all season rubber, the car works quite well on the white stuff, even with the TC on. Just drive it right and it won't kick in too frequently. I am glad I didn't buy winter tires - given I have driven a total of 250 miles since Dec 23, the last time I got gas, the expense of mounting/unmounting and the tires themselves would not have made much sense.

Getting a little warmer again today and tomorrow, so maybe it'll get a quick bath. I've managed to keep it out of the worst salt so far, so the car will likely still appear like it never saw salt after this season is over.

 

Snow has become a rare entity even here in the upper Midwest. We used to get 100 inches per winter, but now, if I were to add up what I shoveled so far this season, we may be around 15" max and a lot of that was fluffy light powder.

Last weekend we got the most snow of the season over two days, but as of today, only a fraction of that is still on the ground. 40+F for two days, lots of sun, and we are back to dry salty roads with maybe 2" of snow where no plow has gone. I sold my big Toyota 4x4 and when faced with the choice between Subaru WRX and another Mini R53 as my daily driver to use year round, the choice to go with another Mini was quite easy. I thought I might need proper winter tires, but as stated above, that fat bike with studded winter tires works far better anyway, so that's my new winter situation. Yes, there will be days I wished I had a big old 4x4, but the cost/depreciation of such a monster just don't make sense given our changing climate. I also don't plant to spend too many more years around these parts. The mountains in the west is where I want to live, and depending on where that may be, I may look at that Subaru again.

 

Just ordered a cable and NCS Expert plus other software collection. Not for traction control, but to disable the silly bulb check the car does on first key turn (and later I guess as well). The goal is to reprogram a few things like how the car unlocks and disable bulb checks that make LEDs flicker. It may even let me do something about that seat occupancy sensor so I can put the Sparcos into the dark silver car this year..