Mini Maintenance

Wednesday the 13th

We got up at 5:30 this morning to go to the YMCA (The best time for lap swimming is between 5 and 7 AM.) When Donna went to turn on the bathroom light, it didn’t come on. She used the hallway light as a guide to do her stuff. When I went in I thought it might be a burnt out bulb, but when I tried to turn on something we had plugged into the outlets where the switch was, it wouldn’t come on either. We headed off to the the Y and I’d further troubleshoot when we got back.

The poor Mini has to sit outside uncovered and that means before we can go anywhere, the windows have to be cleared of dew or frost each morning. This morning it was frost on one side and dew on the other, with the windshield it was dew that turned to frost when swiped… We got underway fine, buy a half mile or so down the road the Mini started to hesitate when I shifted. While waiting on the next stoplight to turn green the idle became sort of rough. Accelerating away and shifting into second it bogged down a bit and a giant yellow half-filled check engine light popped up in the middle of the tach. The car ran OK the rest of the way with an occasional hesitation on the 1-2 shift. On the way home it ran mostly better, but still not perfect and the light stayed off.

When we got back to the AirBnB we discovered that not only was the bathroom effected, but every kitchen outlet was not working. Including the one for the refrigerator! So we frantically texted the owner (we had his number because we had been in contact before to repair the dishwasher and fix the very annoying sticky front door.) We also messaged via the AirBnB app the host. After about 45 minutes we started getting calls, texts and messages about our issue. Eventually the owner showed up around 9 AM to start trying to solve our issue. He tried flipping breakers on and off. He tried shutting off the main breaker and turning it back on with little success. We left him physically swapping breakers around inside the box as we had that other bug-a-boo to deal with.

I had gotten a Mini service place recommendation from a fellow Y member just the other day and when I called them they said they could read the code, but wouldn’t be able to do anything today because they were slammed. So we headed over there to see what was going on. The Mini on the way over was doing well under a mile or so from our destination when it was running crummy and the half-filled light came back on. They ran the code and it came back as P0302, cylinder #2 misfire. They asked if I wanted to set up an appointment, went I said yes, they asked how about next Tuesday. Uh, OK.

It really wasn’t OK, we were planning on leaving Thursday morning to go up to Granite Falls, WA to visit the Morrison clan. Having already cancelled on them once because of the house buying stuff, we decided not to repeat it. Solution, rent a car, there is an Enterprise office in town, so we headed there after the car repair place. Bad news there too, they didn’t have any cars to rent. The good news was that they were expecting some returns by 5:00 PM, so they entered our info and said they’d give us a call.

Returning to our home away from home, we found our landlord/owner just finishing up. He finally figured out the issue, a previous tenant had decided to keep his stereo equipment in the hall closet and as a precaution he had replaced the normal outlet in there with a GFCI one and for some unknown reason it had tripped.

For the trifecta of bad news all we needed now was the the owner of our prospective house to turn down our counter offer to return some money at closing so we care afford a new roof for her old place. Sure enough around 4:00 PM our realtor emailed to say that it was a no-go. At this point we both thought maybe this was the universe telling us it was time to tuck our tails between our legs and move back to Aiken.

Well, our realtor and the sellers realtor (not wanting to lose a commission) had talked and suggested an alternate offer might work. Ask for a reduction of the house sale price to match the amount we wanted at closing.

So by the end of the day our AirBnB was back to it’s normal mediocre self, we had a rental car to do the traveling to Washington and we had made a counter-counter offer on the house.

If a Wednesday the 13th was this troublesome, I hate to think what will happen a month from now on Friday, December 13th.

Ladybug’s New Shoes

The first time we looked at the Mini from behind, not long after we brought it home, we both commented on how skinny the tires looked. Being used to seeing the 205mm wide Miata tires, the stock 175mm wide tires on the Mini looked like bicycle tires.

After a little over 32,500 miles, the 7-year old tires were right at the wear bars, so I decided to go tire shopping. I started in the usual place, tirerack.com, and quickly found out that a replacement in the stock tire size left you with only a few choices. We sort of wanted something a bit wider to rid the car of that Conestoga wagon look, but because of the narrow stock rims, 5.5″, the widest recommended tire was only one step up at 185mm.

At least at the 185/60 R15 size there was a much wider range of tires to choose from. There were ten tires in the Grand Touring All-Season category, ranging in price from $65 to $125 a tire. After sorting through the group, weighing price and review results, I settled on a set of General ALTIMAX RT43 tires.

While I love the TireRack experience and have bought a ton of stuff from them, and will again, I always like to check at my favorite independent local tire store. I don’t mind spending a few bucks more to support the locals. Turns out Aiken Discount Tire could get a set of the exact same tires, for a little more than $10 a piece more than TireRack, so I bought the tires from them.

Road Closed

It was time for an oil change for the Lady Bug. I was going to take it back to Newton’s Automotive where we had taken it before, but when I called to set up an appointment, I got the answering machine and the outgoing message mentioned they were in process of moving to a different location. It would be a 30 mile round trip to drop of the car and another 30 to go back and pick it up.

Plan B was implemented, we choose another shop much closer to home. Auto Tech which is a 3 mile round trip. They at one time were an authorized Mini service center and still deal with them, as well as BMWs and other high end vehicles. They were pretty quick about finishing the work and did a nice job (meaning they returned the car at the same level of cleanliness as we dropped it off at.) They were about $30 more than Newton’s and right about the upper level of what I want to pay to have someone else do the job.

If I was to do the oil change at home like I do for the Miata I would want to get all 4 wheels off the ground, so I could rotate the tires too. The Mini (along with BMW) really needs an adapter to fit into a rectangular jack point to safely jack the car up. I would need 4 of these adapters and the official Mini part is $25 each. You can get some aftermarket bits for around $8 each.

The Mini oil change is more expensive than the Miata, but it might be cheaper in the end. The Mini uses 5 liters of synthetic oil compared to the Miata’s 4 quarts of regular dino oil and the filter is a little more expensive too, but it would last twice as long as I do the Miata every 5k miles and the Mini at 10k.

Might be worth the investment in those jack pad adapters…

No More CEL

At about three o’clock I got a call from Jason at Newton’s Automotive, the Mini was ready to be picked up. He did a little research about the P2177 code on Minis on some auto mechanic forums and found the same thing I did on the enthusiast’s forums; the code is always associated with cars that have a very rough idle or failing to start. Neither of which the Ladybug suffered from.

He cleared the code, took the car for a spin and the light didn’t reappear. He told us that if it does come back, bring the car in and leave it for a while to give him a chance to do some in depth troubleshooting before he starts changing things out.

So, with our shiny new oil filter and four and a half quarts of pristine synthetic oil, Donna in the Mini chased me in the Miata back home.

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.

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.

2 Months In

We’ve owned the Mini for two months now and have driven it a little over a thousand miles, bought 2 tanks of gas and a new battery.

I found a local shop here in Aiken that does BMW/Mini work, Newton’s Automotive, to register that new battery to the car instead of a dealer. I called them and the fellow who answered said if I brought it in before 4 PM he could do it in a few minutes and it would be $20. So, today, in the cold and rain, Donna and I dropped in on them. They did the battery registering for free. Probably for a couple of reasons, 1) it took all of three minutes to do and 2) it was a shrewd business move, it created a guarantee that if we ever needed something done on the Mini, they would be our first call.

Afterwards he compounded the good feelings by chatting with us for another 10 minutes or so about the meaning of the cryptic service messages and how they relate to real world experience and wear. I asked about oil changes and doing them myself because that is what I’m used to doing with the Miata. He told me that if that was what I wanted to do, it was certainly doable by me, no special tools. But they only charge $25 plus the cost of the parts, so why would I. Sounds tempting.