Swapped out summer wheels for snow tires on freshly powdercoated wheels. First time trying snow tires.
Went to one of the local MINI dealers to get an oil filter and a couple of bottles of windshield wash fluid. It wasn't very expensive at all and got a discount. Then had a peak at the new Clubman. The two in the showroom were sold already and they had one for test drives.
^^^ I just lit my grill too... It's 47F here, but the grill still works... Oh.... And used the MINI to get some nice steaks....
I had driven through some construction zones on the weekend and MINI was caked in mud. So I risked looking rather silly washing my car in the pouring rain and wind this morning before going going to work. At least I got most of the mud off.
Blew a tire on the Porker today coming home from work. Hit a piece of road debris that probably fell off the back of a fracking truck, can't stand all the oil companies setting up wells within city limits around here... So tomorrow I've got to spend more money I don't have, and the only tires they have in stock are either high performance summers, or cheap snows... Going with the cheap snow tires, if they're not dead by Dragon time, the Dragon will kill them for sure. On the bright side, I get to take Dad's truck to work, and freak everyone out again.
Put the "new" red Mini on jacks and removed the wheels to clean the brake dust from the inside of the white wheels, then went underneath and sprayed Boeshield T9 over everything that could ever corrode. Car looks like it was built this year, no corrosion on anything, even the exhaust looks near new. Almost a sin to drive this in winter, but I did my best spraying down all metal suspension parts and lower engine and gearbox Car runs great, just no punch due to lack of pulley. Also needs to lose the stock air intake, as you can't hear the super charger unless you really step into it. Never driven a stock suspension R53 before, so this is good as a baseline to judge the BCs I have on my car. It doesn't steer as crisp (alignment for grandma, I guess), but overall quite firm. Both rear coil contacts were corroded. There is no rust anywhere on this car, but you pull off the spark plug wire from the coil and a puff or rust is in the air! Strangest thing. Polished all that, contact spray and some dielectric grease around the boot and good as new. Spent an hour cleaning the glass inside, but that's still a bit gunky. Florida sun not so nice to the plastic, I guess, but we're getting there. A few more cleanings and it'll lose that haze from the outgassing of the plastics. Car has a built in garage opener - too cool, as I didn't expect that without the fancy electronics package my car has, the setup that has mpg realtime readouts and all that other computer stuff. The red car only shows mph and temp. Now we just need to read the manual a few more times before we can figure out how to program that garage dorr thing
Took the Porker out to play on some snow/ice packed twisty and steep mountain roads with a Subaru buddy today... Got to test out the new shoes (225/50/17 Hankook snow tires) and decided they grip too much in the snow. I really had to push it hard to get it to slide around the curves, which most people would prefer, but where's the fun in always being in control?