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

Very good most folks have no clue what it is. Yes it's a Plymouth Fire Arrow. Also known as a Mitsubishi Celeste.

 

Full washy washy for Cars & Coffee on Sunday, got the new side marker in, new hood scoop (a clip had broken), new green John Cooper signature puddle lights in, and redid the headlights with their chameleon film. All freshened up and ready to go. Will get some pics of the new lights once it gets dark.

 

I'll see if I can find it on Youtube or somewhere else and post a new link.

 

She turned over 150k and got some fresh oil and a filter. New gear oil this weekend.

 

I will be retiring next spring and moving to Longview WA. I will make sure to look you up when we do!

 

Yes used car pricing is crazy nuts. Both of those cars Coup & Exige are specialty cars. Selling them on BAT is the place. If you sit on them they will sell later & possibly for more than they do now. I don't believe the cars that sell on BAT are in the crazy bubble regular cars are.

Don I don't know what to tell you, but I'll try. Fix up your wife's MINI & keep driving it until things normalize in the market. Or buy her a new car if you can find one.

 

I really don't care if the new car market is slow. My car is 16 years old ,but still feels like new to me.

 

Now that temperatures are moderating a bit here in North Carolina, I need to get out and do some maintenance on Rufus, my R53. I've got the regular plugs / belt / oil / filter / cabin filter bits out in the garage... just need to get under the car and do the work!

Right now, my wife's fancy new (well... 2 years old, but 1.5 of those were COVID years, so they don't really count) Audi A6 has a frozen actuator on the fuel door, so it's parked in the garage and not moving until I can get it into the shop (still under warranty). It has 1/8 of a tank of gas and I have no way of getting any more into it! There's an emergency pull cable in the trunk, but even that isn't working (so much for redundant backups).

 

Well here we go again. I found a British car show to go to on Sunday so I signed up. Now the weather report says it's might rain on Sunday. We are in a drought and on the day of the show it's going to rain. That's my luck. I don't take my car out when it rains. It's to hard to clean.

 

Getting everything tidy and sorted for this weekends tri-state run with DCMM, my local club. It'll be great to get out for a while.

 

Got the 2011 CM back on Friday morning the Denver dealer had it valet'd to the house since it would be 120mile round trip in two cars. Could have had it sent up on a flat bed but Schomp has a valet service for those who want to pay, they ate the cost and reduced the bill down from $1700 for a low pressure fuel pump replacement amost $500 in labor to replace as they have to take out the back seats to get to that little piece. The oil and filter change and brake fluid change I had budgeted for, so not the crap from Saturday as mentioned.

We are looking a potential new car in the Spring, the 2011 MINI parts are under warranty but I noted they wanted to do the front crank seal again, it was replaced but I have check the past bill to see if it was over 2 years ago. So it may go soon, in the spring or in the summer. Might be time. Brakes and rotors all checked out well, even though the sensors say 4000 miles for the fronts, do not trust the sensors as they wear weird.

Anyway, overall a good experience with the dealer, not to fond of the labor cost but I did like the reduction in prices and comp. valet. Just have to remember to have them not wash or touch the inside of the car. I had them wash in windshiled inside and the monkey that did the work put grease on my white leather seats Idiot.

Little things, car is running well, appears the LPFP was going bad overtime and we just figured with 86K miles it was just losing a few oats.

I did see a nice 1year lease Audi Q3 return hit the local dealer today, it was listed at 40K ++, funny it had an MSRP of $39,500 about 1 year ago when it was leased for 12 months by a corp. user in our area. They put the Window sticker of the original sale in the photos, I wonder if I would be the only potential buyer who noticed that.
Yes, used car prices are more that new nowadays. I wonder if I should try to sell my 2020 JCW Clubby and ask $46K and eat the taxes as well. Registation is due this month and another $700 going out to Colorado, hummm.

Well long posting time for dinner, going to look at an Volvo XC 60 Recharge Hybrid on Sunday, might be the wifeys car next.

Take care, love your MINIs.
Don S.

 

And thanks to all for the replies, good to see some activity here on MA.

 

Last Friday I took my wife's 2019 Audi A6 to the dealership for service (the fuel door is locked by the central locking system and the actuator died and the emergency pull-cable wasn't working, so I couldn't put gas in the car). They normally have 100+ new cars on the lot. There were 8-10 in the "new" car section and I noticed that at least two of those were actually used (under 2 years and 30k miles, but still... not "new").

 

Getting ready for winter. Swapped out the carpet floor mats for the rubber mats, vacuumed and cleaned the interior. Checked my wiper blades, Checked my oil and topped up 1/2 litre. Put the conditioning charger on and topping up the battery. I'll wait a week or two for temps to drop a bit more before putting on the snow boots.

 

I'll pretty much do the same thing and then park it in the garage until the weather gets better.

 

I was amazed at how well the walnut blasted the carbon buildup off the valves. (fine grain walnut from Harbor Freight)

 

Overnight temperatures dropped to zero degrees celsius and there has been severe rain the last week so I finally got snow boots on all three MINIs in my household. Surprised the tireshop was not busy. 20 minutes for each car. I was all done by lunch time. So pleased with the guys at the tireshop, I bought them a box of Krispy Kreme donuts.

So...what's happening here....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wyntk-bc-floods-nov-17-1.6251839

 

Yes, nice family boating in the low parts. We had a nice surprise Colorado snowstorm this evening, of course I have to take my sweet wife to airport in the morning, I will be driving my MINI daily while she is gone, must find good good food at lunch.

Everyone have a safe and great Thanksgiving Day.

Don

 

I took the MINI out for a drive this weekend. It was the first time I've driven it since a few days before Thanksgiving. I've been too busy with family stuff. It was not happy with me, at first. It ran pretty rough. After a few miles, it was running smooth.

I need to do a few basic repairs. The struts that hold the hatchback door up are toast. I got smacked in the back of the head as an indictor. None of the parts stores have them. I'll call my friend at RAC Performance, and he'll get them for me, and he won't mark them up. I still need to find the decorative chrome and black topper for the shift knob. Maybe my friend can get that, too.

I think I have my rat problem under control, but we are just now getting really cold weather. We've had a lot of record high temperature days so far this winter. I'll have to check under the hoods of both cars for rat's nests regularly now, and especially on the MINI, as it parks for longer. I have minimized their supply of materials for nest building. Shop rags and paper products are up high on shelves. I'm not seeing rat poop or acorn scraps on the floor, which is a good sign.

CD