Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

On the way home from work yesterday, my MINI hit 40,000 miles. It’s a mental landmark that many people believe a car turns old, a point at which resale value drops. But mine is anything but old. It’s just as peppy and fun as the day I bought it. I’ve had no major problems without cause. And I still have no desire to replace it despite the temptations of newer models and features. The year has been busy for me and I could not give the car quite as much attention as in previous years, but it remains by far my favorite toy, and still puts a smile on my face each day commuting to work. I look forward to doing my own maintenance in the future and perhaps a few more mods. Time will tell. On to 100k?

On Sunday, several of us met for lunch at Famous Dave’s BBQ, and beforehand a drive through Boston. Meeting less than a mile from my house, we drove Storrow Drive into downtown. Storrow is one of my favorite roads to drive around here, as it is one of those old roads with no shoulders, sharp curves, drastic dips under bridges, yet still high-speed two-lane highway, and the added crazy Boston drivers all combine to make it a good challenge. We then turned off and drove through downtown and the swanky Newbury Street, which was a slow but challenging slalom of an unbelievable number of double-parked cars (and Hummers).

We then continued up Rt. 1 to Famous Dave’s in Saugus where we joined a few others and surprised the staff with a group of 20+ for lunch. A chain BBQ place will never score high with a BBQ snob like me, but they do a decent job considering and are still as good as most of the local places in the area. There was some understandable food confusion, but the staff was positive and the manager became very interested and asked if we could pose our cars in front of their truck for a photo (above).

What we thought would be a much smaller impromptu event made for a fun Sunday break from all the holiday shopping and parties that make this time of year so busy. We had a number of new MINI people (and plenty old too) so there was plenty to talk about. These smaller events are my favorite because they are more about the people than the event itself. Thanks Sheena (and Ian!).

This weekend I finished one of the many projects with my new home: upgrading my garage. The garage isn’t much more than a metal shack, and wasn’t very nice inside:

Once the winter months arrived, I quickly realized that I could not get any work done on the MINI. It was already dark out when I got home from work, and of course the temperatures were dropping. I decided to make a few simple improvements to the garage to make it a better place to work on the car, and even wash it in the winter.

This first step was lighting and electrical:

Running power to the garage would not be easy as it would mean destroying asphalt. Instead I made it an appliance…everything plugs in when needed to my house’s outside outlet via an extension cord. I installed two fluorescent light fixtures which really light things up, as well as an outlet on each side. There I can plug in any tools, additional clip-on lights, or a space heater in the winter months. (You may also notice some solar powered LED garden lights as well; I installed them when I first moved in, they provide just enough light to see your way in and out of the car at night)

Next was some insulation:

Though the garage certainly keeps snow, rain, and wind away, it is still freezing inside, especially considering its walls are metal. I figured at least a small amount of insulation would help the plug-in space heater to keep temperatures inside more reasonable. After some research on price and ease of insulation (as well as what would fit in the MINI’s boot!), I settled on Reflectix Double Bubble Foil insulation, basically a roll of bubble wrap with foil on the outside. A side benefit is it can handle getting wet if I wash the car. I simply rolled out the insulation and used binder clips to clip it to the vertical metal support beams. And I noticed the temperature get more comfortable inside as I was installing it!

The final step was the floor. My floor is uneven, and slopes toward the back, in fact heavy rain often seeps in a runs across it. The popular epoxy coating was not an option for me as it requires a perfect floor and a lot of labor or money. I then found out about Race Deck Free-Flow tile, which is a snap-together plastic tile that is perforated so water flows through and underneath. However it was out of my budget when I called for a quote. After some extensive internet research, I found a very similar BigFoot Perforated tile from Greg Smith Equipment at almost half the price, $1.89 per 1/3-meter tile. Installation was simple, taking about an hour, and the added design really dresses things up!

A nice benefit for us New Engladers is melting snow will just drip through the tile and not create puddles to step in. Just in time for tomorrow’s forecast snow! I still have some pink styrofoam sheet insulation to glue up to the underside of the roof, but I’ve already accomplished the goal of making the garage a better place to work in. A big thanks goes out to all those contributing to the Detailing ideas for your garage thread on NAM who helped discuss the details and have similar garage improvement stores and photos of their own.