Mini Life

Curiosity (Nearly) Killed the Mini (Part I)

Last week I mistakenly thought the falling pine pollen was through for the season, so I decided to wash the several levels of yellow that had accumulated on the Mini. When drying the car off afterwards I raised the hood to towel up any water that might have settled under there and might drip down the exterior when next driven. Because this is like only the third or fourth time I have had the hood up, the first couple were battery related, I looked around a bit.

The battery sits on the left side up against the firewall, under the windshield, and to see it you have to lift a plastic flap. Well, there is another little plastic flap on the driver’s side too. Hmmm, I wonder what’s under there. I unsnapped the top and there was a small reservoir. Looks like it could be for windshield washer fluid. I unscrewed the cap and as I was lifting it off it slipped out of my hand and dropped down. It wasn’t for washer fluid, it was for brake fluid. This became obvious to me when I looked down to find where the cap was, it was tucked neatly underneath the brake booster.

In every other car I have owned or worked on this would not be a problem as the master cylinder and booster have been there in the wide wide open space in front of the firewall. In the Mini there is an enclosed area that runs along the whole firewall that hides the battery on the left and the brake componentry on the right. There was no way to retrieve the cap through the small opening of the flap, there was barely enough room to unscrew the cap.

The plastic cowl cover is in two pieces. The passenger side piece where the battery sits is about 1/3 long while the driver’s side piece covers the remaining 2/3. It tucks under the windshield at the back and at the front it snaps into the plastic front wall of the enclosure and a rubber gasket is pressed onto that to seal the elements out. This picture is not of the Ladybug, but it close enough to show what I’m talking about:

To get in there I needed to pull off the rubber seal, undo the two nuts that hold down the cowl on the driver’s side, separate the top plastic piece from the front one by pulling up hard to unsnap them, then squeeze my arm down in between to blindly poke around hoping to find the errant cap. There was just enough room to get in there, but not enough to get to where I needed. To do that I was going to have to remove the driver’s windshield wiper.

Try as I might it wouldn’t come free. So instead I pulled the passenger side of the cowl off hoping to free the left end so I could get just a little more room. That is when I discovered that the front plastic piece could be lifted off enough from the left side that I could actually slip my arm in to grab the cap. At this point I was bleeding in a couple of places on each arm from scratches with only one requiring a band aid.1

With the cap back on I was no longer swearing under my breath, and occasionally out loud, about selling the %#$!@% car. Then, when I went to reach for the 13mm socket wrench to put everything back together, I nudged the plastic case of the socket set just enough to knock it off it’s convenient resting place on the exhaust manifold shield and spill the entire contents into the engine bay. Double %#@$!

To be continued… in Part II

Fun With Stickers

Like with the Miata, the Mini has a forum for answering questions and bragging about how cool your car is. Well the other week I was poking around in the General Mini section when I came across a thread about some promotional stickers that the Mini marketing company produced back in the beginning of the “New” Mini, circa 2002. Somebody wanted to know where they could get some of them. The thread started back in 2014, but someone had resurrected with the same question just before Christmas.

I chimed in that I thought I could probably print some out on a plain vinyl sticker and put them in my CafePress store for a couple bucks. I spent a couple hours cleaning the image up and because of the size of the sticker and the available space I got to add another column of 4 sticker images from a different picture in the post. The base cost of a 3″ x 5″ sticker from CafePress is $2.99 and then they add $1.99 just to mail it to you. I added 2 cents to the base cost to make the total cost an even five bucks.

Before I posted a link to my creation on the forum I wanted to buy one and see how the finished product looked. My toggle switch label stickers arrived Friday. Yesterday I cut out a few and stuck them on the lower toggle switch panel. They actually look better in person than in the photo shows. Now all I need is 250 other people to buy one of my 3″ x 5″ labels and I’ll have recouped my cost of buying the sample one.

P2177

The empty can with an exclamation point inside wasn’t the only light that appeared on the Mini’s speedometer yesterday.

After lunch Donna went to the other side of town for her allergy shot. On the way back home she noticed that to go along with the tire pressure warning light there was one that she recognized right away. It was the one that preceded the downfall of the Emperor, the check engine light.

When I got home, after filling all the tires up with air, I downloaded the Torque Lite app onto the phone, took my bluetooth OBD2 scanner out to the Mini and found out the Ladybug was suffering from a P2177, AKA: System Too Lean Off Idle Bank 1. So I Googled “P2177 Mini” and got a couple dozen hits on forums, but almost all of them included other codes and scary symptoms like won’t start & rough idle. Some of the cures sounded even scarier like replacing the high pressure fuel pump or pulling the cylinder head of to de-coke the guts of the motor. Or my favorite, multiple dealer visits with still no resolution.

To fully reset the low tire pressure system you need to drive the car around for a few minutes for the sensors to calibrate to the new pressures. So, I started the car, it fired right up. It idled fine. Donna hopped in and we went for a couple mile drive around the neighborhood with no problem. Not wanting to take any chances, we called up Newton’s Automotive and we dropped off the car tonight for an oil chance and some diagnostic work.

Empty Can with an Exclamation Point Inside

The Miata resides in the garage while the Mini sleeps outside. Monday night it was cold as all get out, so I was not really surprised when Donna called me from the gym to tell me she had a light on the Mini’s speedometer that looked like an empty can with an exclamation point inside. The small info screen on the tachometer also indicated that the right front tire was low.

It was obvious that the tire wasn’t flat or she wouldn’t have made to the gym, but I asked her to take a look at the tire and see if it was noticeably lower looking. It wasn’t, so I told her I’d fill them up when I got home.

The sticker inside the driver’s door said the tires were supposed to be set at 33 p.s.i. The right front had 28, the right rear had 30, the left rear had 29 and the left front had 30 p.s.i. I dragged out the long extension cord and my little air compressor and filled all four tires up to 34 pounds.

After I rolled up the 50′ extension cord, stored away the air compressor and was nice and warm inside the house I realized I didn’t check the tire pressure in the spare. I wonder if it has ever been checked since October 4th 2012 when the car rolled off the assembly line. Better put that on my list to do tomorrow.

Mini Wiper Blade Fun

Back in October, the first time we drove the Mini in the rain, we found out that the wiper blades squeaked/squealed when they do their job. So I did a search on the North American Motoring Mini Forum and found that the most recommended replacement blades seemed to be the Bosch Icon, so I bought a pair from Amazon.

On a side note, is it really too hard to design it, so the wiper blades are the same length? Mazda didn’t have a problem with the Miata, it uses two 18″ blades. Our recently departed Hyundai Sonata had a 24″ drivers side and an 18″ passenger side blade. The Mini? An 18″ blade for the driver and a 19″ one for the passenger side. (I wonder if on the right-hand drive version of the Mini those are flipped?)

Two days later I got some really nice replacement blades that will not go on our 2013 Mini Cooper. This is because in the middle of 2012, Mini in their infinite wisdom, changed the standard hook ends on the arms to a straight connection and forgot to notify Amazon. So I boxed the Boschs back up to return them and headed to the local parts store. Of the 8-10 different kinds of wiper blades they had hanging there, none of them included an adapter for the Mini’s straight-ending arms.

When we got home, I went back to the forum and re-did my search for wiper arms. This time instead of stopping after the first couple of threads and posts, I dug deeper and discovered that there really isn’t an off the shelf aftermarket blade that’ll work on the 2013 and up cars. I ended up buying some stock blades from a forum sponsor ECS Tuning.

While perusing that site, I discovered that they actually sell a kit to change from the earlier style to these new-fangled aero blades. Is there a 2-ounce weight savings involved here? Am I crazy for considering going the opposite way and getting the older hook-ended arms next time I need wiper blades? OK, maybe I am crazy for wanting to go backwards (and I probably won’t), but for someone like me who drives longer than he should on crappy wipers, finally decides that enough is enough and buys news ones on a rainy day, it is a little unnerving to not be able to walk into the local chain auto parts store and get some replacements.

Curiosity Satisfied

The Mini is Donna’s daily driver and it is extensively “her” car, but sometimes when we run to the store on weeknights or on weekends she’ll let me drive it. It is kind of like a luxury Miata with a hardtop and it is not unenjoyable to drive. Sometimes I think maybe it is time to ditch the Miata and become a two Mini family, one for her that we leave alone and one for me I can add different wheels, sticky tires, a slightly noisy exhaust, etc., etc.

On the route of my normal drive to and from the Valve Store I pass a Bail Bonds office (the county jail is about 2 miles further up the road.) They often have a used car or two sitting out front. I imagine it is something they have taken as bond and the person subsequently skipped town. About a month ago, they added a 1st generation Mini Cooper S to the 1989 Camaro Z28, a 90’s vintage Camry, an 18′ fishing boat and a small backhoe. It is Electric Blue with a white roof, mirrors and hood stripes with a sunroof and looks just like this only without the driving lights. Every time I pass by it, I think, “Man that is neat looking little car.” After a half dozen or so passes I started to wonder how much they wanted for that thing, knowing that unless it was under fifty bucks Donna would not let me bring it home like some stray puppy, although the thing is as cute as one.

Well, last week I gave them a call, just to see what they wanted for it. A woman answered the phone and said, “I didn’t know anything about the stuff for sale out front. Donnie2 does, but he doesn’t come in until around ten.” I said, “I’ll try back then.” Forgot all about it later. Remembered on the drive home when I passed by, too late. When I saw it the following day I told myself I’d call around 11. When I did, the same lady said, “Oh you missed him, he just left to apprehend someone.” After that I told myself that that was an omen and to forget about the car. And I did.

Until this past Monday on my way to work. It was still there. Now I’m thinking it is just taunting me and that’s like a 15-yard penalty in the NFL now. I started to rationalize that I might be able to get Donna to let me buy it if it was in real nice shape, had around 70 or 80-thousand miles on it and was like only three thousand bucks. I had to run an errand mid-day on Wednesday this week and my return trip to work just happened to take me right by the bail bonds place. So, I stopped in.

When I entered the building, there was the phone answering woman. I asked if someone who know anything about the Mini Cooper that was out front. She shouted, “Tom!”3 When Tom came out from the back I asked him what year, how much and how many miles. He replied, “2005, $5,000 and I’m not sure. Let me get the key and we’ll go out and look.” I’m thinking 2005 sounds nice (2nd to last year of the 1st gen, so everything would be all sorted out) and $5,000 sounds high, but I have no clue, so internet research will be required. I grab a business card and a pen from the counter as we head outside because I want to write down the VIN so I can see the configuration it came with from the factory. When he opens the driver’s door to get in I get a peek inside and the first doubt starts to materialize through the fog of desire. I see the VIN sticker on the door jamb and I’m copying it down when he calls the mileage out to me as one hundred sixty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-six. Jason with a bloody kitchen knife just appeared from nowhere. I almost drop the pen, but hold on long enough to finish writing the last 4 digits.

He asks if I want to sit in it and to finish being polite I do, (it is not running right now because the coolant overflow tank is cracked and will be replaced) but there is no way I would buy this even if Donna had given me $5k that morning and said go get it. It had leather sport seats and while the leather wasn’t worn out or torn anywhere, it was sloppy loose on the cushions, you could still see the impressions of Tom’s butt who had just got out of it. Plus, remember back when we first bought Donna’s Mini, I posted photos of a side by side comparisons of the dashboards and said that it hadn’t changed that much since the 2003 we didn’t like? Well the dash in conjunction with the overly busy looking door panels made the inside very unappealing, I can see why we didn’t like the looks back in 2003.

Curiosity satisfied.

Man Flu

Big news today is that there is such a thing as “Man Flu.” The term was coined for men who present with mild flu-like symptoms but who complain of feeling much worse than they appear. A Canadian researcher found that men are actually more susceptible to complications from many respiratory diseases and our immune systems may be naturally weaker towards them than women.

I don’t know about respiratory, but my version of the Man Flu is more like I can’t leave a car alone in stock form. I have a compulsion to add, subtract and modify them until I think they are just right. Donna puts up with it with the Miata, but she has told me in no uncertain terms to leave the Mini alone.

Because the online forums are a great place to learn about the car I joined the North American Motoring one. I’ve used it, so far, to figure what battery to buy, what the heck the Sport Button really does, how come the windshield wiper blades are so different and other stuff. The problem with the forums are they are chock full of men like me who have modified their Minis and I can’t help be exposed to them. There are some that I see and think, “Oooh, that’s cool,” and then think about it for a minute more, visualize it, then think, “Naaah.”

Here is an example. In the center of the black bottom grill of Ladybug is chrome horizontal bar. There I guess to somewhat echo the chrome grill above. I think it looks weird and some folks have painted it black or covered it in black tape. In the same thread someone else posted a picture of where they had painted theirs red. So I thought, let’s go to Paint Shop Pro and do some mock ups. First is how it looks stock, then blacked out, then red. I even tried blue and green, but in the end, the way it came from the factory is best.