Month: April 2021

42,000 Grains of Salt on 7,000 French Fires

This morning we drove the Mini over the Cascades to Medford to have our leaky water pump fixed and a few miles from home the Lady Bug passed 42,000 miles on the odometer. The 75 mile drive was pleasant and didn’t take as long as the Google maps estimate, but that was because even though the speed limit is posted as 55 MPH I cruised along without an issue at 65 most of the way. I wasn’t worried about a speeding ticket because I was passed by several cars and pickups along the route like I was standing still.

I told the car place I’d be there a little after 10 and had the rental car reserved for noon. We pulled into John’s Auto Care Center right at 9 AM. Instead of our planned leisurely 1 mile walk over to the airport to pick up the car, the folks at John’s said they’d give us a ride over there, as crossing the street to get to the airport was kind of tricky/busy1, so we excepted. This put us at the rental counter by 9:15, way earlier than expected. The lady manning the desk said, “No worries, we’ll fix you right up.” and true to her word, by 9:30 we were exiting the airport in a 2020 Audi Q5.

So far, our being early had not been an issue, but because we planned to eat lunch in Medford, we needed to waste a couple of hours. We didn’t want to head right back because we wanted to eat at a fast food spot that we missed from Aiken and didn’t have in Klamath Falls. At first I drove around aimlessly, then we said lets drive into downtown and see if there was anything to see, Somehow I didn’t really make it. Then we thought, let’s find a donut place. We found a place, but you could only use the drive up and because we like to look before making a choice we got back on the move again. We then reconnoitered where our lunch choices were, but it was still too early to eat or for them to even be open. To kill some time I said let’s go check out the town of Jacksonville. It is a little town east of Medford that has a lot of historic buildings. We drove over, circled the center of town, went hmmm, and drove back to Medford and had our lunch.

There was a Chick-Fil-A and a Five Guys in the same little strip shopping center and these were two of the places we wanted to get food from. A plan was devised that I would go to Chick-Fil-A and get the sandwich portion of the meal and Donna would go to Five Guys and get an order of fries and we would have the best of both restaurants. But you could only get the chicken by going through the drive-up, so we said forget it. We’ll do Five Guys now and save Chick-Fil-A for the return trip when we get the Mini back. While we certainly enjoyed the salty abundant fries we so missed, but it turns out they just didn’t measure up to what our memories made them out to be. Certainly not a 150 mile round trip for.

A few miles out of Medford on the way home the Q5’s odometer changed from 6,999 to 7,000.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

April’s End Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 26, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1988 Ferrari 328 GTS 1962 International Harvester Scout 80 2017 BMW M6 Coupe
I’ve got a couple of Hawaiian shirts in my closet, just call me Brian P.I. What sells this for me is the hand painted Mound Nurseries advertisement. BMW calls this color Sakhir Orange, I call it Outrageous (in a good way.)

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 2004 Honda S2000 Sold for $18,900
Off-Road: 1972 Ford Bronco Sold for $41,000
Touring: 1953 Chevy Panel Truck Sold for $41,000

79,000 Drops of Something or Other

A couple of weeks ago when I pulled the snow tires off the Mini the inside of the front wheel on the passenger side was all coated in a icky gunk. Back when I had put the snows on, I put the Mini wheels on the Miata and I certainly didn’t see anything like that on any of the wheels. This leak issue has to have come about in the last 3-1/2 months.

My first thought was an oil leak. When I looked at what I could see of the engine and suspension bits they appeared coated in the same grimy stuff as the inside of the wheel. Now I can do some minor car repair stuff on the Miata, but the front wheel drive Mini is a nightmare for the novice me. The engine, all its related subsystems, and transaxles are stuffed into an area the size of a Navy seabag, meaning you would probably have to remove the entire front body works to do any repairs. I decided to call for professional help.

The local place we have used before is very busy, so we had to wait until yesterday to get the car in to have it looked at. We dropped it off after breakfast. Donna drove the Mini and followed me in the Miata so we could leave it with them for as long as needed. The folks at the repair shop didn’t call us back yesterday, but we know it is a popular place and figured they just hadn’t got to it yet.

They did call back this morning and apologized twice. Once for not getting back to us sooner and second for not wanting to fix the problem. From their troubleshooting they determined it wasn’t oil leaking, but coolant coming from around the the water pump. The one guy who was the real Mini expert no longer worked there and the other mechanics there were as excited about tackling the job as I was. They recommended a place over in Medford that was better equipped for Mini work, John’s Auto Care Center.

I called and made an appointment to drop off the Mini next Wednesday. Medford is 75 miles away, so we won’t be doing the follow the leader thing over, we’ll drive the Mini, drop it off, pick up a rental car to have for a couple days. We used to drive 50 miles one way to get the Miata worked on back in South Carolina, so this is not too big a deal, plus this will give us a couple of chances to eat in some chain restaurants that we miss and don’t have here in Klamath Falls.

So the 79,000 drops of what I thought was oil was actually a mixture of coolant, brake dust and road dust from the traction stuff they put on the roads around here in the winter. On the way back home yesterday we stopped and filled up the Miata with gas and when I went to reset the trip odometer I noticed that the main odometer read 79,001.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

City Connect Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 19, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2004 Honda S2000 1972 Ford Bronco 1953 Chevy Panel Truck
I guess I’ll have to add some blue/black stripes to this silver car too. Big V-8 power and big off-road tires, look out forest service roads. I almost chose a 1950 Chevy Suburban, but this one is here in Oregon

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1993 Toyota Supra Sold for $57,000
Off-Road: 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser Sold for $26,000
Touring: 1984 Toyota Century Sold for $11,500

Discovery+

We each have our own set of favorite channels on the the TV and they fall pretty much along the stereotypical gender lines. I could live with just a few, Motortrend, MAVTV, NBCSports2 and WE tv3. Donna needs literally just two, HGTV and the Food Network.

We both could do with out all the commercial interruptions while watching TV. I can tune mostly tune them, especially if I hit mute, but Donna really despises them. You would have thought we would have jumped on the Discovery+ streaming service when it first became available, but we held out. We are already spending a fair amount on cable TV and while the base rate of $5 a month isn’t much, it seemed a bridge too far. But when we discovered4 that they offered an ad-free version for just 2 bucks more we decided to give that 7 day free trail a go.

So far, two days in, the jury is still out. Very little of the Discovery+ originals have been worth anything extra, so whether we stick around after this coming Sunday is going to come down how long we can be entertained by watching the older shows from Donna’s favorite two channels.

I thought it might be fun to watch one of her favorite shows from the beginning and watch them in order, sort of like the Law & Order marathons on WE tv. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has 419 episodes, roughly the same amount as Law & Order’s 456, but if we did that what would we watch on Fridays because Food runs them all day long.

Today we went back and watched the first episode of Love It or List It from HGTV, their mere 154 episodes seemed less daunting. We are used to seeing the later episodes and were surprised how different everything was. The real big difference was instead of the two stars do the setup dialog, there was an announcer doing it, that sounded like the same voice that does House Hunters. Both leads had aged pretty well in the 8 years the show ran and looked only slightly different. When I asked out loud, “Aren’t they married?”5 Donna said no, but went to look it up on the internet. We discovered that they were not ever married to each other, but we did discover6 that the woman, Hillary Farr, was actually an actress back in the 70s & 80s. She even had a small part in that cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Right-Hand Drive Toyota Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 12, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1993 Toyota Supra 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser 1984 Toyota Century
We’ll be fast and furiously driving all around Oregon in this silver bullet. Rough and ready for any off-road adventure we can find or dare. Donna will be driving while wearing white gloves and I’ll ride in the back.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1971 BMW 2002 5-Speed Sold for $50,000
Off-Road: 1986 Jeep J-10 Pickup 4×4 Sold for $21,500
Touring: 2008 Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series Sold for $125,000

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Sold for $74,000
Off-Road: 1988 Mercedes-Benz 240GD Sold for $37,600
Touring: 1965 Ford Falcon Country Squire Wagon Sold for $11,200

It’s Baseball Season Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1971 BMW
2002 5-Speed		 1986 Jeep
J-10 Pickup 4×4		 2008 Mercedes-Benz
CLK63 AMG Black Series
This is almost too nice looking to hoon, but it wouldn’t stop me. It is a 4×4 & a pickup which checks 2 big boxes on our automobile wish list. A land-based rocket ship for when you have to be there NOW!.