Tire Juggling

The last couple of years when it came time to put snow tires on the 2013 Mini for the winter I would take the all-seasons off and mount up the non-studded Blizzaks and MSW wheel package we bought from Tire Rack. Because the Miata and the Mini both had 15″ wheels with the same bolt pattern I could take those all-seasons and put them on the Miata. I’d then take those ultra high performance tires off the Miata and store them. You don’t drive on them when the temperature is below 40 degrees because they turn rock hard and stop handling/riding well.

Even though the Mini’s tires fit on the car they weren’t a perfect fit, they would scrape against the plastic inner fender liners when I turn the steering wheel almost all the way in either direction. This was really okay, because it was not like I was going to drive it in the snow or take a trip in it. This was just so the Miata could be driven on dry roads about once a week to keep the battery charged and give the car a little exercise keeping from having to winterize it while it sat for 4-ish months.

Well, the new Mini has thrown this routine into disarray. The 2013 was a 2nd generation of the “new” Mini and the 2016 we just bought is a 3rd generation, besides growing a few inches in all directions they changed to a 5 lug wheel. So, now what do I do about putting an all-season tire on the Miata in the winter? Turns out the solution was relatively easy.

After test driving the 2016 Mini we realized that we were going to need new tires for the car. CarMax put on two new tires because they were worn down enough as to not be safe and replaced them with a bargain Chinese brand that were very noisy. Maybe the 6-year old OEM Michelins contributed to the sound some too. I went to TireRack and found a Grand Touring All-Season that was the quietest of all the options, the Kumho Majesty 9 Solus TA91. We still wanted to maintain the ease of wheel swapping that we had previously, the Kumhos were ordered mounted and balanced on their own set of rims.

While the lug count on the 2016 Mini changed, the wheel diameter stayed the same at 15 inches, so that meant we could keep using the 2-year old Blizzaks, we just needed some 5-lug wheels to put them on. Those wheels were literally right in front of us, the current wheels that on the 2016 Mini. All I had to do drive to a local tire store in the Mini with the old Mini’s winter tire package and have them flip flop them. So, now the new Mini sports the Blizzaks on the OEM wheels and the crappy tires are on the MSW Type 22T rims, that as you can see above, I’ve put on the Miata as its winter wear.

Swapping Minis – Part 3

Go read Part 1 and Part 2 and come back, I’ll wait.

When I got off that phone call with CarMax on Saturday, I posted a question on the Mini forum to see if anyone had any ideas or had seen this “no high beam shutoff” issue before. I got a quick reply that it sounded like it was the switch assembly because the ‘flash to pass’ function didn’t work either. They had looked it up somewhere and it is a $700 part.

So, when Monday rolled around, before I called the CarMax service department, I called the shop in Medford, John’s Auto Care Center, and get their opinion. Once again, they passed me along to Dean. He didn’t tell me to run away from this one too, but said that I should bring the car over so he could hook it up to their diagnostic machine to read the codes, if any, and check that the right sequence of events occurs on the CAN (Controller Area Network) bus. We scheduled an appointment for Friday the following week.

On that Friday we got up, had breakfast and drove over the Cascades to Medford. After a quick stop at our favorite bagel place, we made it to John’s. In an effort to ingratiate us to the staff Donna had baked some chocolate chip cookies the night before and we gave them a couple dozen of them when we checked in. After maybe 15 minutes of chilling in the waiting room, the friendly voice on the phone, Dean in the flesh, came in and said, “Follow me.” So I did. We walked out to where the car was and he got in the drivers seat, while I plopped down into the passenger spot. He had his big ol’ tablet plugged into the OBDII port.

I then got a brief synopsis on how the high beam system works. Back in the day when you turn the high beams on or off you’d push or pull the stalk and that would activate a relay that switched voltage between a couple of wires. But now in the modern world pushing (or pulling) on the stalk sends a signal to the main ECU which then passes it to the two headlight modules who in turn signal the LEDs to change state. Looking at the tablet we could see confirmation that the main ECU got our request for the high beams to come on and then on the next screen we could see the headlight module getting our request and the high beams would come on. Pulling back on the stalk, the ECU never got a signal. Dean agreed that the combination switch was more than likely the culprit.

We walked back inside and he looked up how much the Kombi Switch would be and whoever it was on the Mini forum was dead on, its actual cost is $704.68, which they have to order from Mini of Portland. Because it was late in the day Dean said, “Let me work this up and I’ll email you the repair quote. “You’ll probably get it before you get home.” Total for the part, labor, programming the car to talk to the new switch and miscellaneous shop supplies came to a grand total of $1,092.33.

When I called the CarMax service guy on Monday to see if they had a problem with that number and they said, “Nope, go ahead. Just make sure the repair shop have no issue with taking a credit card payment over the phone.” When I hung up I called John’s back and was told that was AOK with them and they would order the part. Now we wait.

Part 4

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Pre-Halloween Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 24, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 1974 Ford Bronco 1977 Volvo 244 DL
If a 911 GT3 wasn’t already a hard core sports car, let’s add the RS for more. Almost too pretty to go off-roading in, but we’ll be going for it anyway. This car is for the person who digs retro road cycling and vintage Volvos.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1990 Mazda Miata Sold for $13,000 on 10/22/22
Off-Road: 1988 Jeep Wrangler Sold for $21,988 on 10/18/22
Touring: 1952 Hudson Hornet Sold for $29,750 on 10/19/22

29,000 Shuffled Items

Our go to grocery store here in Klamath Falls is a Fred Meyer, a Kroger brand store. Because of our previous relationship in Aiken with an actual Kroger, we fit right in. Didn’t even have to get a new loyalty card. Over the last couple of months they have been updating the store, they’ve refreshed the outside paint, added a Starbucks, totally revamped the Pharmacy, updated the interior signage, etc.

Of course the biggest thing was updating the shelving which involved moving all the items from one place and temporarily placing them in seemingly random spots around the store. Then this stuff was placed back somewhat near where they were, but not always. This constant shuffling made our weekly shopping grocery shopping trip an adventure to say the least.

On yesterday’s shopping trip it seems like they are getting pretty close to finishing up shuffling around the twenty-nine thousand grocery items in the place. Now have to finish up updating the the clothing, shoes, garden, electronics and hardware sections, but at least those won’t directly effect our weekly trips on Thursdays.

On the way home from Fred Meyers the new, to us, Mini shuffled past the 29,000 mile mark.

Swapping Minis – Part 2

Go read Part 1 and come back, I’ll wait.

As you can imagine, in today’s car world where the pick-up and 5-seat SUV are king, used Minis are hard to find, especially with our criteria. Internet searching for available cars in our price range ($20-25k) that weren’t in San Francisco or Portland turned up a few, but they were all over 200 miles away. This seemed to me to be the perfect excuse to try one of those “we bring the car to you” online stores. All I had to do was submit the car’s VIN and then answer a bunch of questions on what I thought its condition was. I tried Vroom and they offered $7,550 for 2013 Mini. I eliminated them because I had already done the price check thing with Kelly Blue Book and they said the trade-in value range was $8,500 to $9,500.

Carvana on the other hand said it was worth $11k. So, we found a car that we liked on their site and I started the process of selling our Mini to them and buy a newer one with an automatic. Trouble was when I entered the delivery Zip Code they told me that I had 2 options for the transaction location, a Walmart parking lot in Salem, OR (240 miles) or someplace off I-80 outside Reno near the CA-NV border (260 miles.) After reading reviews on the Miata forums about dealing with Carvana a couple folks reported that it went smooth, but one person mentioned they didn’t show up the first time for the appointment. So, we crossed Carvana off the list too because we didn’t want to drive that far for a car we hadn’t test driven.

In one of those Miata forum threads I found someone who mentioned CarMax as an alternative. Huh, I hadn’t even thought of that place, maybe there is one in Medford just 70 miles away. Nice thought, but the closest CarMax store is in, you guessed it, Salem (or as I found out later Reno.) A search of the Salem store revealed a 2016 auto Mini base model for $19,998. Well, what the heck, at least we can test drive the car first. I entered our Mini’s details again and within minutes they offered $10k.

After lunch on Thursday, we packed an overnight bag, made a reservation at a hotel and took off. The drive is boring for the first half along US97, but after Bend and heading west on US20 it is up and over the Cascades with plenty of twisty bits. The CarMax didn’t open until 11:00 AM so we explored around the State Capitol grounds in the fog for a bit. Then we took our car through an automated car wash to clean all the bugs off we smashed on the way up. To kill the last hour, we did a bit of shopping in a Target because all we got is a Walmart in Klamath Falls.

We were the first people in the store. We filled out some paperwork, showed our licenses and insurance cards, swapped keys so they could look at our car while we were gone. The car was brought around for us and we took it for a drive. The auto tranny felt weird at first, but soon it felt normal. The car only has just under 29k on the clock and it looks in excellent condition. The cheap tires they stuck on it were noisy, but that was a non-issue because we had earmarked money for new tires and a new set of snow tires too. We can’t reuse our old set with this car because this generation Mini has moved to 5 lug wheels. It had a working radio, the windows and sunroof worked great and everything was working just fine. *foreshadowing*

We returned back to the store and settled in for the paperwork phase. They agreed that we would get the $10k for our 2013 and we wrote them a check for the remainder. In spite of not having to do the 4 square crap with a salesman, the sales manager thing and the finance guy dance it still took us 3 hours to get off the lot with our “new” Mini. After an exciting lunch at a Wendy’s (a whole ‘nother story) we hit the road home. What with the afternoon traffic around Bend, the twisty mountain roads and the slow 18-wheelers and motorhomes, just like the trip up, the 240 miles took us about 6 hours.

Everything was fine until I hit a quiet stretch of US97 and turned on the high beams. They worked fine until I needed to turn them off. Pulling back on the stalk had no effect. After a couple of cars flashed angrily at me, I tried another way, I quickly turned the off the lights totally and quickly back on. This did the trick, but it really is not the way to go forward.

CarMax has a fairly comprehensive warrantee of 90 days or 4,000 miles, so Saturday morning I called the CarMax store. After defeating the robot guardian by speaking gibberish at it (hitting zero had no effect) I was connected to a sales rep. The person I spoke to said that they would fix the problem for us, but at their service center. I explained that I was 240 miles away and would prefer someplace closer. She then offered up the closest Mini dealer to which I said its in Portland which is an extra 40 miles further away than they are. She said I should call the service department on Monday and that probably could be worked out.

Part 3

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Some Old Faithfuls Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 17, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1990 Mazda Miata 1988 Jeep Wrangler 1952 Hudson Hornet
My dream Miata is a copy of the first one I owned and this is really close. Square headlights mean it is a perfect Jeep for a Jurassic Park replica. An Alexa equipped radio, change the voice to Paul Newman’s -> Doc Hudson.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1992 Autozam AZ-1 Sold for $32,000 on 10/12/22
Off-Road: 1972 Land Rover 88 Bid to $24,500 on 10/11/22
Touring: 1962 Trabant 601 Sold for $6,100 on 10/13/22

Where Were You Mike?

Two weeks ago I was on a road bike ride when I flatted. Go read Thanks Mike and come back, I’ll wait.

Today is Sunday and I didn’t take my usual Sunday morning ride out to the end of Lakeshore Drive and back. The Oregon Interscholastic Cycling League was holding a big race near the mid-ride point, so I thought it best to avoid the area. I also started the ride a little later than usual, so I opted for the mountain bike and just rode the local alleys, a bit of a couple bike paths and some neighborhood roads.

While headed home the front tire started to buzz more than expected of a knobby tire on pavement should. As I continued on, the buzzing increased in volume – whirrrrrrrrrrrrr. I had a puncture. I made it a block and a half before the tire was so flat that if I turned the handlebars it would probably squirm right off the rim.

I have a seat bag that has a spare tube and a flat kit just for this occasion. so in theory I should be able to fix my problem. But I didn’t even try. At this point I was just 6 blocks from home so I didn’t need a Mike rescue this time, I just walked the last 4/10 of a mile home.

And to answer my parenthetical question of two weeks ago, it is not always the rear wheel.