It hurt a little bit, because that MINI was a WONDERFUL car, but it was time to move on as the MINI was quickly approaching 100,000 miles, and there were major systems that were due to begin breaking any minute.

The Mustang has just 19,000 miles on it (so it’s still covered by factory warranty for a while), and is in phenomenal condition.  A very minor ding in the driver’s door and some trivial scratches on the center console are the only things that I have found that are less than perfect.  It’s a pretty basic car — with the base 4.0L V-6 engine — but is wonderfully fun to drive and remarkably comfortable.  Plenty of room for a big guy (I’m 6’6″ tall).

The best part?  I have instantly and irrevocably been elevated to the level of “Coolest Dad in the Universe” by Christopher.  Christopher is pretty sure that there is no better car on earth than the Mustang, and he’s still not sure that I really, truly bought one.  He’s already seen many years in the future, and has decided that it would be OK for this to be a hand-me-down car for him when he goes off to college.  We’ll see…

The last time it happened, the car was going in for service anyway (to fix a cracked coolant overflow) so I had them check it.  They wanted $400 to put a new motor in it.  Hrumph.  I said I’d live with it.  Curiously, when I got the car back, it worked fine.  They claimed it was because they disassembled and reassembled the door to check it out.

It worked fine for about six months after that until about a month ago, when once again it took some time off.  I’ve been living with it.

A couple of days ago, I ran into a friend who has a similar ’03 MINI Cooper and we were comparing notes.  He’s got 126,000 on his MINI, I’ve got 95,000.  Both cars still drive like they’re new.  He just got new brakes (or something similarly expensive), I just got a new A/C Compressor.

Then Donna mentioned that my window has been on the fritz, and Pete blew my mind:

“Oh, that’s easy.  Hold the window switch down and hit the door hard about halfway between the door handle and the speaker.  Then let go of the switch and try it.  Should work fine.  I’ve been doing that for three years.”

Yeah, right.  I said I’d try beating up my car when I got home.

Doggone if it didn’t work!  It was like getting a new car!  I don’t know why I never thought of percussive maintenance before.

Thanks, Pete.

I offer this story here so that if anybody else has a MINI Cooper with windows that periodically stop working, perhaps it will be helpful to them as well…

Here’s the history:

• Pirelli eufori@ Run-Flat (OEM) – Pretty good tires, but they wore really quickly.  By 20,000 miles they were done for.  One of the four had a persistent super-slow leak (it would take weeks before it lost enough air for the “low tire pressure” indicator to light up, and since they were run-flats, you could never tell by looking at them that they were low).  I ditched these when I replaced the set because replacement run-flats are too expensive; it would have cost well over $1,000 to buy a new set for the car.
• Falken Ziex 512 – Switching to the Falken non-run-flat tires made a slight difference in the handling characteristics of the car.  It was a little less harsh (the run-flats are really stiff) and seemed somewhat more responsive (the Falkens are quite a bit lighter than the OEM run-flats).  I got about 33,000 miles out of these, which is great.  In the last 10,000 miles they got noticeably louder and developed a bad case of cupping and wear on the inner edges of the rear tires.  The odd wear is probably due to the wheels being slightly out of alignment, but the shop where I took the car tells me that Falkens are prone to cupping.  By the end, the Falkens were quite loud.
• BFGoodrich g-Force Sport – Admittedly, I’ve got all of 50 miles on these tires now, so you can take my comments with a grain of salt, but I’m stunned at what a difference they made in the road manners of the car.  It feels like the car lost 500 pounds (this is a car that only weighs in at about 2,300lbs)!  Turn-in is much crisper, and steering feel is lighter and more responsive.  The car rides smoother and is MUCH quieter than it was before.  If my experience long term is anything like the initial impressions, I’m going to be VERY happy with these tires. 

The tires weren’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination — just shy of $600 mounted and balanced — but when you’re buying tires in this size (205/45×17), you have to expect you’re going to drop some dough.  Sports car tires don’t come cheap.  But these were comparatively inexpensive at about a buck-and-a-half a piece, and they seem far superior to the old Falkens (which were about the same price…$125 each or so). 

So…if you’re looking for replacement tires for your MINI Cooper S with the Sport Package, take a look at the BFGoodrich g-Force Sport.

Throw your body through the air with reckless abandon and try to
land in a MINI Convertible.

It's the MINI Jump game at: http://www.miniusa.com/?open=jumpgame

LET'S MOTOR.

Atlanta MINIs had their second birthday party today at Global Imports.  There were lots of nice MINIs to look at, food, fun, and competition.  I was entered in the Fine Shine contest but didn't win…no matter, it was incentive to get the car washed and waxed and really looking nice.  Global had several MINI Convertibles around, including this Cool Blue one with blue bonnet stripes.  This one apparently belonged to someone; it had a standard Georgia tag on it.  The convertibles are really nice, with lots of nice little touches, including the ability to retract just the front part of the roof like a sunroof.  The back seat is a bit narrower than standard, but both kids were able to fit back there with no real problems.  The view out the back is basically non-existent.  Not surprisingly, Park Distance Control is standard on the convertible.

Below is a picture of my MINI with the kids.  It's as good as it has looked since I got it a year ago.  OH!  The dent guy was at the show today, and was able to remove two little dings on the driver's side for me!  These had been driving me nuts because they were right there in plain view every time I got in the car.  Makes quite a difference to have them fixed!

Of course, I'm good friends with the fellow who installed them. 

Note the new license plate, too.  This was ordered back in September, 2003, when I bought the car, but I wasn't allowed to actually get them until the tag came up for renewal this month.  Curious thing about this: The license plate is actually B-L-U-C-zero-zero-P.  Apparently, you can't buy a vanity plate in Georgia with the letter O on it.  They always use the number zero.  I guess that old wive's tale about buying license number 01OI01O (combination of zeros, oh's, one's and i's) to throw off the cops isn't worth a hoot if you live here!

This afternoon, the warning light came on, indicating that one of the
tires has lost pressure.  I've looked, but I can't find any
problems…no obvious screws or nails in the tires or anything like
that.  Unfortunately, my tire pressure gauge is broken, so I can't
isolate the affected tire tonight, either.

Guess I'll have to run by the tire store tomorrow and see if they can figure out what's up. 

On a somewhat related note, I'm dreading the day that I have to replace
these tires (which is likely only about 15,000 miles from now). 
Putting the same tires on (Pirelli eufori@ Runflats) would run about
$200/tire.  I'm seriously considering putting some non-runflats on
and simply tossing a can of fix-a-flat in the boot in case of a
problem.  Believe it or not, there's no way to carry a spare tire
in the car…the exhaust system precludes it!


UPDATE:
Two good things!  Looks like the pressure had simply dropped over
time in the tires.  When I went to the tire store, they gave me
the dentist's flossing speech, only adapted for checking tire
pressure.  But they also said that I could probably expect about
40,000 miles out of my tires (assuming I test the pressure frequently,
heh-heh).