How old are your tires?
This was a surprising discovery to me…
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897
Leave a comment! I want to know how old your tires are!
My Mini Cooper has tires from 2006, Josh’s truck’s tires are from 2005.
Mini Takes the States!
I’m so ready for this year! They’re doing a whole weekend thing in several cities and one is LA (August 1-3), so I’m all about it. It’s going to be at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. They have a huge festival goin on there and there will be a Mini Rally Saturday morning. I can’t wait. They even have a small track set up to test drive Minis for the “future Mini owners”.
Other fun stuff:
- MINI Parking Corral at festival grounds
- MINI-Autocross Test Drive
- Live festival entertainment
- Headliner band Saturday night
- The “Bootload of Fun Zone” with activities for all ages
- MINI Vendor Village
- An official MTTS Welcome Kit for each paid attendee
- Friday night Meet & Greet (MINI Owners only)
- Rise and Shine Saturday Rally (MINI Owners only)
Josh is in (mostly for the test drive I think)! Who else is in??
Whoops! Flipped the car…
How does one do this??? This is outside of our neighborhood this morning. During the 30 minutes between when I leave for work and Josh leaves for work.. this accident happend. I’m not sure how it can possibly happen… It’s a straight road for a long way with intersection… no launch ramps.
Josh took the pic with his cell phone.
What’s wrong with my car?!
Last Friday morning, I get into my mini cooper to go to work and it doesn’t start. Argh. Not this again. My brand new mini was plagued with problems the first year I had it until they replaced the computer that they say was the cause of the problems. Sad experience for my first new car. Now this. I’ve been having a rough couple of months so this was the last thing I needed. I got a ride with Josh to work, thank goodness I only work 3 miles away. A friend of mine at work drove me back home for Mini Roadside Assistance to tow my car to the dealer.
The dealer called later that afternoon…. the problem… here goes…. a RAT was living under the hood of my car! Three things go through my head:
- Wha?
- The engine barely fits under the hood of a mini cooper, how does a rat find room to live under there?
- Where did this rat come from??
They said this rat lived under there for a while because they found rat droppings (but I drive the car everyday! granted it’s only 10 miles of driving a day… but still!). They also found the rat alive. So they pulled it out and killed it. They say they have photos of this rat because it’s the largest rat they’ve ever seen. I guess it’s a common thing the dealer says they get about 30 of these a year… is it just minis?!
So the rat apparantly did $2000 worth of damage to a few electrical wires as well as the engine harness. It was a Friday at 4 so of course the insurance company is closed. I opened a claim and just today they sent an inspector out there to look at the damage. They say they can now start the repair, but need to order parts. It’s looking like I get my mini back on Friday or Saturday. Glad the insurance covers it and I only pay my $500 deductible. They insist my insurance premiums will not go up, but I find it hard to believe. So I got names of the people that said it won’t!
Photos of said rat to come when I get my car on Friday or Saturday.
i want this car… in 2010
I saw the Chevy volt at the LA Auto show last year. What drew me to it was that it was electric AND it looked sporty. But then I started actually reading up on it and it just gets better and better.
“It is primarily an electrically driven vehicle and it has an electric traction motor and it has a large lithium battery pack down the center of the vehicle. So just by simply plugging your car in a standard 110 volt outlet, you can drive 40 miles on pure electricity. No gas at all.”
It does have a small gas engine, but unlike the hybrids out in the market now, the gas engine recharges the battery rather than being used to drive the car.
The idea behind this car is that the average person drives less than 40 miles a day. So the average person would be using this car on electricity rather than being reliant on gasoline (foreign oil!). Going to gas stations so frequently would be a thing of the past, just park your car in the garage and plug it in! Only going on long trips would you need to go to gas stations.
Did I mention it’s pretty??
What spurred all this electric car talk? I recently saw this documentary on TV, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and thought it was very well done! I learned a lot more about gas alternative vehicles and even the issues with hydrogen vehicles that I’d never even thought of.
oops! i broke nucleus…
I broke my nucleus CMS install when trying to upgrade to 3.24 and then move it over to word press… Just the upgrade broke it for a while and I finally had time to play with it and figure it out.
I’m working on getting all my posts over to Word press AND properly tagged.. maybe another week and it will be all set… I’ll post the new RSS link in the last post from this system so if you only look via RSS you can update that feed link…
New Years I did the mini skirts annual rally from Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank through Mulholland drive and PCH and ended up in Santa Monica and the group did some bowling down there. Really fun! 9 minis… which is a LOT more than it sounds like… I’ll post pics in the photo gallery and in the word press post when I move it over 
Car remote + your head = extended range!
I’ve never heard of this until Josh told me (he used to install car alarms). I’m kind enough to share this helplful information. When you’ve forgotten and you’re not quite close enough to lock your car via remote.. try holding it directly under your chin, chances are it will work. I do this all the time now (though Josh thinks it might cause brain cancer like cell phones). The idea is that your head acts as an antenna to extend the signal. A lot of places I see online say it’s a myth.. but it works for me. Perhaps mythbusters can explain it.
It also works to open the gate in my neighborhood from the street rather than waiting until I get up to it. Bonus!
Position remote like so…
new mini advertising
Josh pointed out this new advertising campaign for mini:
Billboards that talk to you when you drive by, if you’re a mini owner and vouched in for this campaign. Cute. It’s like a personalized amber alert sign just for mini owners 
My mini is still at the dealer. Their diagnostics computer is out of service. It will be fixed tomorrow sometime so I don’t expect my car until Wednesday where I’m going to demand they drop it off to me. I’m so stressed out with this mini lately.
Mini Rally!
Here’s a pic from the MINI skirts rally I went to on New Years Day. Josh got sick from my driving + what we call his ulcer and we had to end it at PCH but it was a fun drive starting in Universal City- Mulholland Drive
(The MINI skirts is an all girls MINI rally group. If you have a MINI and you’re a girl in so-cal, you should join!)
I drive it in manual mode most of the time now. I really like driving it that way too.. perhaps I could drive a stick one day!
