Mini Life

Swapping Minis – Part 1

A few weeks ago I noticed that Donna was walking with a slight limb. We got an appointment with her foot doctor and he diagnosed it as a “drop foot”. He recommended getting a brace and set us up with a place in town to get fitted for one. When she asked what causes drop foot, he passed a referral on to a neurologist. Met with Dr. Neuro and he tested her with some electrodes and the left leg was noticeably weaker. The nerves that that control this run down each leg and exit the spine between a couple of vertebrae. This usually is accompanied by pain, but she has none, so they scheduled an MRI.

Well, the MRI did show some slight bulging in the disc that is in the right spot, but the neurologist thought it really wasn’t bad enough to cause the problem. He said he’d have a spine specialist he knew take a look. We haven’t heard back from him yet. This weakness also makes it so she can no longer operate the clutch in the Mini which is a fairly heavy clutch for such a small car. So we started looking for a Mini with an automatic transmission.

Couple of Sundays ago we found a 2016 Cooper S at the local Ford dealer. On Monday we went down to test drive it but they couldn’t find the keys. The salesman said it was possibly already sold because it was parked far away from the rest of the used cars. His manager was in a meeting so he couldn’t ask. We looked around the lot and found the only other car on the lot that was possibly small enough to fit on the short side of our garage, a 2020 Honda Fit. We took it for a test drive and it wasn’t a bad car but it lacks any character and is too long to fit on that short side of the garage. When we returned the Fit the manager was still in the meeting, so the salesman said he would find out about the Mini and call us, so we exchanged phone numbers.

Naturally he never called. Nor did we hear from him on Tuesday morning, So I called. They couldn’t find the salesman, but the woman who answered the phone said she’d find out about the Mini and call me right back. She didn’t. After lunch we just drove back down to the dealer and this time our salesman was magically there. The story on the Mini was that it had something wrong with the radio and they were waiting on a part. We asked to test drive it anyway so we could see if we even liked the car or not. We did like it (not really fond of the green with white roof combo though) but what about the radio? The screen of the “radio” was stuck and the only thing you got out of the speakers was AM static. But the radio is also your interface for setup of what your key does, your tire pressure, oil level, setup your Bluetooth, etc. Their answer was we’ll give you $1,000 off the $20k. I said I’ll go home and check out some forums and see about a possible aftermarket solution.

Poked around in a couple of Mini forums and found out that replacing the radio with an aftermarket unit was a dicey play at best, so I decided they would have to fix it before buying. The next day Donna asked me to call the shop over in Medford that we have had Mini fixes from in the past to ask their opinion. I was connected with a very nice guy who took 5 or so minutes explaining how the system worked and letting me know it would be a couple grand at minimum to fix this. His advice was to walk away and never buy a Mini with existing electrical problems. Called the Ford dealer and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Part 2

Small Road Trip

Off to the Great State of Washington. We are heading to the World Famous 4th of July Picnic of Les & Joanie Gilbert, something we haven’t been to for the past 5 years. Today’s leg was around 280 miles and for the first 100 and the last 80 of those miles it was smooth sailing, but the middle section from south of Bend to where US197 splits off was crowded, slow and quite a contrast to the end segments.

We did stop in downtown Bend for lunch and had a great meal at a place called The Point. We split an order of beer battered fish. But the real highlight was something that Donna saw on a chalk board inside, Fried Apples. It might have been advertised as a desert but we had it as an appetizer. The half dozen slices tasted like a sublime fried apple pie and were served with a caramel dipping sauce and some whipped cream.

For the fun of it and to break up the drive we snagged 3 Post Office photos. There were a couple more we were close to, but on a Friday their parking lots were too full to even find a spot to park in so that I could get car and Post Office in the same frame. We may try and stop at a couple few on the way home next Tuesday.

Wash Day

Yesterday was tire swap day for the Mini and today was bath day. Even broke out the Tire & Trim Care liquid and shined up the the black trim that runs around around the lower part of the car.

14.0 mile drive running errands and enjoying the springtime.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 15

 

Seasonal Tires Part 2

Ten days ago the weather had warmed up enough to go ahead and put the summer tires on the Miata, now it is even warmer and I took the snows off the Mini and put its regular all-season tires back on. That order seems a bit backwards to me, but that is the way it has to be because we don’t have dedicated snow tires for both cars.

We don’t need snow tires for the Miata because it doesn’t get driven enough to warrant the extra spending. Plus the mild winters here snow-wise mean that the borrowed Mini all-seasons suffice for taking the Miata out for an occasional drive to keep from having to do a winterized storage procedure.

18.9 mile drive before and after our walk at in Moore Park.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 14

 

Coincidence?

Shortly after moving here we wanted to take a trip to Washington state to see the family. But just before we left to go, almost 2 years ago to the day from the present, the Mini started acting up. It was misfiring and unfortunately the local place we took it to couldn’t get to it until after our scheduled departure, so we had to rent a car.

Fast forward to this year and Donna’s friend for life Sally Lewis has retired from the State Department and has bought a home in Santa Fe, NM. She would like us to come down and help her settle in to the new home.

The Mini has had a Brake Warning Light on in the dash for a bit, but we thought we should get it looked at before taking the 1,300 mile drive to the New Mexico capitol city. We took the Lady Bug to our friends at Emmett’s yesterday morning so they would have a couple of days to sort it out. We got the call last evening that it was going need some new front brake pads and sensors. No big deal, those are the original brakes and at 44k that seemed about right. But the big bugaboo were the calipers, both sides were showing very uneven wear meaning that one side was sticking. These were the parts that they couldn’t get locally, so the had to order them and they won’t be here until Monday next.

In 2019 the Mini was all we had here at the time, this year we do have the Miata as a back up, but we don’t want take it because it is nearing winter. Our travels will take us through several mountain ranges and ultra high performance summer tires do not go together well with cold temperatures and any kind of winter precipitation. Rather than put off the trip, we opted to do what we did in 2019, rent a car.

Found It

Thursday is grocery shopping day for us. As usual we take the Mini so that no one has to ride home with any groceries on their lap

On the way to Fred Meyer she went to put some hand cream on and realized her small tube of the stuff wasn’t in the the bag. We spent the next few minutes guessing as to where the tube of hand cream might be. Back home on her desk? In the smaller alternate yellow knapsack? Maybe it was in dedicated Geocaching knapsack?

When we got back home, she started all the unpacking and I headed back out in the Miata to fill up the car with gas. As I backed out of the garage I head a cracking noise. I looked back and saw several dead leaves had blown into the garage and figured they were the source of the noise.

When I returned and opened the garage door I noticed something else on the garage floor along with the leaves that I didn’t notice before. So I stopped the Miata and got out to see what it was.

I found the hand cream.

While standing around in garage getting ready to go grocery shopping this morning Donna’s knapsack had slid off the the trunk of the Miata onto the floor. She picked it up and we got in the Mini to head to Fred Meyer. The tube must have popped out and slid under the Miata where I ran over it as I went back out.

Bathroom Refresh

While we are avid consumers of HGTV and its bevy of remodeling shows, neither of us are enamored with an open concept. Nor are we lusting after a lot of the newer “high end” finished drooled over by many. The current House of Bogardi is 57 years old and somewhere in its the past, some updating has been done. The kitchen and bathrooms were done sometime in their lifespan, from the looks, sometime near the turn of the century time frame.

And while we are pretty happy with the way most things look, there are a few small items that we would like to address. The first thing we want to improve on are the bathroom vanities in both the on suite and the other main floor bath. They are dull pale yellow color with dark tops and oil rubbed bronze fixtures and while they looked OK when the walls were beige, they don’t really go that well with the green and blue we have painted the rooms. Plus they are a might too big for the smaller mid century sized rooms.

Another thig we want to do is change out 2 of the 3 toilets. The main flor bath has a newer chair height unit while the on suite and lower floor bath’s have older lower seats. Considering that when we redid the bathroom back in Aiken we put the taller chair toilets in, whenever either of us uses the lower toilets those couple of inches feel like a steep drop.

Today we took step one, drove over to Home Depot bought a vanity, facet set and wall light fixture for the blue main floor bath. The vanity is gray with a white top and because the cabinet handles are brushed nickel we also bought a faucet set and wall light in the same finish.

I was careful to measure the depth and width of the vanity to make sure it would fit in the back hatch of the Mini with the seats down. It looked like as long as there was was not too much packing material around it we would be fine. When we got to the store and dragged the vanity box out from the shelf it was under, it looked awfully big, especially in the height department. So I went up front to the Customer Service Desk to ask if they had a tape measure I could borrow. Went back and measured the box, depth 21″, width 33″ and height 38″. Strolled out to the car and had plenty for the depth, pretty close to enough for the width and height.

I returned the tape measure and we put the three items on a cart and headed for the check out. when I got to the car and stuffed our vanity in the back of the Ladybug it went right in width and depth-wise, but the height was fine at the bottom, but 21″ straight up the box was hitting the slanted hatch. I sort of forgot that the box was three dimensional. The hatch would come down and almost close, but even moving the front seats forward slightly, it wouldn’t close. So I moved the seats all the way back again and bungee corded the hatch almost shut. Because the vanity consumed nearly all the hatch area, Donna had to ride home sharing her half of front seat with the boxes of the faucet and wall light.

Some time a couple three weeks from now I’ll see how hard it is to remove the old vanity and backsplash and put the new one in.