Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

We have had such a warm start to winter I been growing more and more anxious for snow. Not only for skiing, but of course as a test for my new snow tires. To say the least, they passed with flying colors.

It started snowing hard around 6am, and when heading into work not a single road had been plowed, sanded, or salted. The highway with its large hill was impossible for some cars, it had several inches of packed snow and slush and was very slick. The side roads were no better. Yet during my whole morning commute my DSC light did not even blink once! I often fire the DSC even on dry roads. I was very impressed with my new Nokians. At slow speeds, they made this crunching sound, almost like going over gravel, like they were just munching the snow and showing it who’s boss. But the worst was yet to come…

It snowed harder and harder all day, often a complete white out when peering out the windows from work. The storm finally stopped at 3. Unlike others who headed home early, I decided to wait till my normal time to give the most time for the roads to be taken care of. I walked out to the parking lot to find this:

The snow had bastardized my MINI into looking like a white SUV! It took over 30 minutes for me to fully clean it of (PLEASE people remember to clear snow off your roof!). I had to help another person as well, who was stuck despite the maintenance people with the plow unable to push her car out; I walked over with my collapsable shovel (don’t leave home without it!), shoveled out behind her car, and she was on her way.

Here was another test of the Hakkapeliitta 2s. Previously, any more than 3 inches of unplowed snow would bottom out my MINI and it would be stuck like a beached whale. Thanks to the new tires’ amazing snow traction, it ripped through 6-7 inches of snow without batting an eyelash. I was surprised to find that the roads were still mostly untouched. The highways were still coated with snow, and traffic was barely inching along. I had promised fellow MINI motorer Ivan that I would attend our holiday gathering of the National Motorists Association and I wasn’t letting these undrivable conditions stop me. Unfortunately after several hours, most did not show up, however the hotel lounge was abnormally packed because so many people were stranded there.

The trip home at 9am was unworldly. 128/95 was still packed snow. There were abandoned cars left and right. Accidents every quarter mile. Several SUVs were even stuck. Yet there was my MINI, zipping by all those stuck gas-guzzling 4x4s like it was a sunny day. Even at 60mph, I could make those normally frightening lane changes, without a hint of slipping.

I had been wondering if I should have saved a little money and gone with cheaper snow tires, I was very happy with the Michelin Pilot Alpins on my last car, and was eyeing the Pirelli Winter Carving for the MINI as previously mentioned. But I’m now very happy I went the extra mile and went with the Nokian Hakkapeliitta 2s. They truly are a cut above any other snow tire, and when the snow threatens, they are worth every penny.

There seemed to be less local MINI events this summer than last, but there were more than ever this fall. So many that I could only attend less than half. Here were the most recent two events I joined this month:

On November 5th, a handful of us went driving through the North Shore areas of Mass for “Burning MINIs.” It included a stop at Russell Orchards in Ipswich which had fresh homemade apple cider and apple cider donuts. At the end of the full day of driving, we had a big bonfire and barbecue.

The following Saturday, MINI of Peabody held a huge Care fo Kieth event at the new BMW service facility. As a benefit for Keith Polischuk, they brought in excellent instructors from the Boston BMW CCA (whom I autocross with over the summer), and held a school for emergency maneuvers and a tight first-gear autocross course. Despite already having my snow tires on, I got one of the fastest times of the day. Over 50 MINIs showed up and it was the first autocross experience for many, and every driver had a huge smile on their face by the end.

I am gradually posting photos of these and previous events in my galleries (I still have photos to process back through MINIsOnTop…over 1000!). In related news, I registered joshwardell.com on a spacious server at 1&1 and moved all my photos and videos there. Previously they were all hosted on my Mac at home, which means I may soon be able to sleep with it off for the first time in nine years! You can find all the photo galleries on the left bar of this page.

My MINI finally had its first real mechanical issue. For the last month or so, I’ve noticed the power steering fan more and more; it has been slightly louder than I remember but otherwise functioning fine. I assumed it may have had some dirt in it. Then in the past week or so, when first starting the car I could hear what sounded like water flowing behind the steering wheel area. Like the fluid sound you hear a refrigerator or air conditioner make when they turn off. I then realized it made these sounds all the time, but road noise or the radio easily drowned it out.

On Wednesday I was stuck in traffic on the way to work and decided to experiment. I turned off the radio and turned off the vent fan so I could hear the water sound. Then I tried listening to see what actions affected it. I then noticed that turning the steering wheel even slightly made it stop for a second.

When I got home from work I popped the hood and had a look. I opened the power steering fluid reservoir and to my horror it was completely dry!!

I would have driven to autozone to fill it back up but the MINI takes a special CHF 11S fluid, not typical power steering fluid, because of its electrical steering system. So Thursday morning I drove up to MINI of Peabody. They quickly determined that seals in the steering rack had leaked, however the fluid stays in the rubber boots so that you don’t see it on the ground. As is typical with MOP, instead of just patching the problem, they prefer to replace the offending system, so they took the car for a day to give it a whole new steering rack. Under warranty, of course.

In the meantime they gave me a rental from Enterprise, and thankfully not the Neon or Cavalier that I have rented before, but a new Chevy Aveo. Which actually impressed me, aside from the two pedals on the floor that apparently had no function whatsoever, and the steering wheel that needs a knob you have to turn it so much; it was built much safer and smarter than the Neon or Cavalier. Despite its size (and I’m sure you all know this argument) it was better engineered and you actually had more space inside and better protection in an impact. The other two cars were scary to say the least. It is nice to get a rental once in a while to appreciate all the qualities of your MINI, sometimes we need a good reminder of why the MINI is one of the greatest cars. 🙂

Anyway my MINI is back and good as new. I was lucky to catch that issue before I was caught somewhere with no power steering or the power steering pump burned out. A search on NAM turned up several others with the same symptoms and cause (one in my same May 04 build month), so it is an issue. So take an extra minute and check your power steering fluid every once in a while, so you catch a problem well before you drain the whole system. The fluid level should be within the plastic dipstick on the cap. The level should not normally drop. And remember you cannot replace it with regular power steering fluid, it uses CHF 11S.

I’ve recently noticed there are now a ton of MINI blogs out there. Some update often, but others only occasionally. Even when using a site like GoMotoring, it can be hard to keep track of what is new and what you have already read. I’ve been using Safari’s built-in RSS aggregator instead, which nicely lists each post in reverse chronological order:

This way I can see what is new today or the last few days at a glance. If there is a post in an occasionally posted blog, it gets inserted right in there with the big guys.

To create this in Safari (2.0, requires Tiger) you create a bookmark folder and check off Auto-Click. Then add bookmarks of the RSS feeds of each site you want. Once it is created, when you find a new site, you can just drag the URL icon of its feed address onto the button and it is added to the list.

…or you can just bookmark this link to all the blogs I currently watch.

This is also possible with RSS Readers that are commonly available for download. I would really like it to be implemented on a web page, for example as an alternate view at GoMotoring, but I’ve mentioned it to both him and MotoringFile, and they have more important things to do. 🙂 (So for the nerds out there, does anyone know of a good php app that could do this?) It sure would be nicer to have it server generated so that everyone could enjoy this wonderful way to get their fix of MINI blogs!