Most liked posts in thread: What did you do with your MINI today?

I was hoping to find a mobile guy, no such luck. If I had wanted him to do all the work he wasn't going to get to me until October. Pulling it myself gets me in this week and saves me over $100, win - win

 

Replaced some bulbs today:

3497 (Stanley version from Honda, not the cheapo Taiwan or China ones) - 45 candlepower, 27 W as opposed to 32 cp, 21 W for standard 1156/7506/P21W
for the top brake/parking lights in the back. They measure about a half to 2/3 stop brighter than stock.

Solaris (from Bimmian.com) 7507 (PY21W) lightly silvered amber bulbs for front and rear indicators. They test equal in brightness to the stock yellow bulbs.
Solaris (from Bimmian.com) 194 lightly silvered amber bulbs for front side indicators. They also test equal in brightness to the stock yellow bulbs.

796 Halogen 35W bulb for the rear (lower right) backup bulb. 2 stops brighter than stock 1156/etc.

I didn't upgrade the rear (lower left) fog bulb since I practically never use it.

Have not been impressed with most LED lights, which is why I stayed with incandescent bulbs,
plus you don't get bulb out lights on the dash or have to add parallel resistors or bulbs with built in resistors
to fool the CanBus that all the right lights are there and working.

 

I like to drive fast too. Ask anyone who knows me. I will not race on the street, cops show no mercy & I think that's OK. If you are driving fast & get pulled over you may get off with a warning. Playing Ricky race may see the book thrown at you.

 

Nothing special, just make sure it’s really clean.

 

It depends. If winning is your thing, then your car should be spotless. Some people carry it to the point of insanity. I have seen people cleaning their tread of rocks,etc, and other stupid stuff like that. I clean my car extremely well at the beginning of the summer (and again many, many thanks to Dave O) and just touch it up before a show. I don't care if I win, I really enjoy walking around looking at the cars and talking to all the other old farts.

 

Sold my old JCW brakes today. Who hoo

 

Thanks for the reminder. My wife and I took a trip to visit her family in West Virginia a few weeks back (in my wife's Audi A6). The low tire warning went off and when I went to check, I found a screw sticking out of the center of the tread. I pulled the emergency bag from the trunk and found some pliers. Screw came out... pfffffssssssst... along with the air! I grabbed the Dynaplug and shoved in a plug. Air leak stopped! The screw was rather large at one end, so I pushed a second plug in. I popped the compressor on for 5 minutes and poof... potential loss of my vacation time dodged!

I need to get over to Amazon and order a refill, plus a kit for my other 2 cars.

 

Checked the air in Skooby's tires. We are soon to be entering the TPMS light season. I wanted to get a head start.

Drove the GTI over to Discount tire for a tire balance & rotation.

 

I drove it on dry streets for the first time since about last Wednesday. Thursday, our local municipal water reservoir was at 80-percent. Today it is over 100-percent. We averaged 11-inches of rain over the last five days. And... loving it. (Maxwell Smart mod) No better way to end a drought than with a flood.

CD

 

Installed a new Raceseng Tow Hook with GoPro mount.

 

I got Rufus out of the garage and ran some errands at lunch. I've been busy around the house and finally got him unpacked over the weekend from a track evening event several weeks ago... poor guy! He still needs a wash, but it was good to get him out for a bit of exercise. Ever since I started working from home, I've gotta be careful to get him out of the garage every week for a bit of movement.

When I got to my track event, I found that the driver's side window wouldn't go down. I could hear it click when I hit the switch and a bit of a nudge in the glass, but not drop. I was reminded on a MINI Facebook forum of the 'Fonzie' maneuver (pound w/ a closed fist just above the speaker in the door while pressing down on the window switch) and it worked like a charm! The window unstuck after 6-7 hits and it works great now. Aaaaaaaaaaaay!

 

Today put new tires on the 2016 MINi Countryman, the run-farts had lots of miles left, but 2 had cupped and they were hard as rocks, even harder than when they were new. They started going away at about 18K miles, I lasted until today, at 24K miles and bit. So I feel good to get 3 years and 24K out of them. I do wish MINI and BMW and the other manufacturers would get over this tire design and put a spare back into the various cars.

I was looking at our 3rd set of Continentals in DWS 06 for the Countryman, tirerack had some nice comparisons and I have used Vredestein tires in the past on some of my classics, so why not try their new stuff. I think they worked out good for me. 225/45/18 Quatrac 5 Grand Touring All-Season with some decent rating on the rack. My local Discount Tire guys bought direct from the Denver Tire Rack warehouse and beat the Rack's online price per tire.

Of course after I put on the Discount tire replacement certificates they became the normal replacement costs for tires. Very happy, I have a quiet Park Lane again, so far they feel great, traction, turn-in and noise. I will get to test the snow rating on Sunday as we are projected to have 2.5 inches new snow during the day.

I can now compare one to one Contis vs Quatrac as we still have them on the 2011 CM.

After I clean off the crud from the past few days of snow/road crud I will try to get a decent picture of tires on the MINI.

Don

 

New brakes all around, thermostat housing and coolant pipe.

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

 

Fixed passenger door handle today and took the MINI out for a nice run.

Washing cars tomorrow.

 

15k on the '03 R50 since the cvt replacement 2 years ago. Now, it's at 75 and is going strong...it even told me yesterday it wants another trip back to MOTD. I think my R53 is getting jealous at being shut out of going Dragonslaying, as it hasn't been there for the last 2 years...

 

Hahahahaha nice one.

I drive in the rain, how do you think I get my car home from the Dragon every year.

It swear it rains every year on my 12+ hour ride home from Fontana to Philly.