Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

Boston recently added a new hybrid bus line to its subway system called the Silver Line. I flew to Chicago last weekend, and used it to go to the airport, as it convienently stops at each terminal. What is interesting about the silver line is that it is mostly below ground in its own dedicated tunnels. But while riding I couldn’t help but imagine what fun it would be to instead be driving my MINI in those tunnels! Maybe we could talk the T into letting us have a late-night MINI drive recreating the best scene of The Italian Job. 🙂

Before last weekend’s autocross I got a stronger aluminum bar for my camcorder mount to prevent the bobblehead effect as seen in my MOT Video. It made a huge improvement and now the camera movement is only due to the seats flexing. So I took it for the ultimate test: the autocross course.

For those of you who aren’t quite sure what autocross is, this will show you. It is my last 3 of 8 runs on Saturday’s autocross with the Boston BMW CCA at Devens airfield in Ayer, MA.

Keep an eye on the instruments too, such as the speedo and especially my MotorMate G-Whiz which may give you an idea of how hard I am cornering. The camera will flex up and down for hard braking and accelleration too. Of course it still doesn’t reflect the real fun of whipping around a course–for that you’ll just have to try it yourself some time!

Download the video here. It is an H267-encoded .mp4, and you will probably need QuickTime 7 to play it. 20 MB, about 6min.

I had the day off of work today to attend MacWorld Expo Boston this morning. (The highlight of which was sitting in the new 3-series in HK’s display for its new iDrive for iPod)

With some hours free in the afternoon, I decided to head up to MINI of Peabody. I needed to pick up new wipers and touch-up paint, and it’s been hard for me to get there during business hours. I also had Bryan in service have a look at a small click that has been annoying me in the last few months that sounded like something loose in the left driveshaft, as detailed in this NAM thread. He was familiar with the the issue and said it was nothing to worry about, most likely some lube needed in the CV joint. I decided not to schedule a service appointment unless it became a problem or to combine it with any others in the future.

I chatted with many MOP employees as I haven’t stopped by in a while, including with Martin on the status of Keith Polischuk (Keith is an MA at MOP and recently injured his spinal cord). We were interrupted by Bryan who said they had a free bay, and they could fix the issue immediately if I had an hour. Why not.

Instead of an hour, in only 15 minutes they had swapped in a whole new driveshaft. I watched every step, they made it look easy, no doubt thanks to having the right pneumatic tools, but I laughed as I imagined myself attempting the same task, and taking a whole weekend to do so. Sure enough the clicking sound is now gone.

This is exactly why you’ll find myself and so many others online recommending MINI of Peabody. You would expect a normal dealer experience to be completely different: As if they would even bother with you walking in without an appointment, they would shrug off such a small issue, or possibly blame it on my aftermarket brakes or tires. If they were to fix the issue, you would suffer a long boring wait while they did the minimum possible to stop the problem.

Yet at MOP, everyone knows your name. Cheerful greetings from all staff; sales to mechanics. Candid conversations. Despite their constant lack of staffing, they are more than happy to look at your problem immediately–and truly care about the issue. And most importantly, a service department that goes above and beyond to completely eliminate the problem by replacing the whole component instead of just repair it. Without a second thought. I was even able to watch them work on my car, while another tech literally scrubbed the floor of another bay–the secret to why it’s always as clean as a kitchen! Not to mention a manager such as Martin who will chat with you for 15 minutes on any topic, including their upcoming MINI event plans and fundraiser ideas for Kieth.

Afterwards I headed home and gave the MINI a wash, and touched up those paint chips and scratches.

I finally had time today to explore the JCW Intake. I always like to know how things work, and it helps to know how to change the filter for the future anyway. I’ve made a new how-to page on the JCW intake with instructions, findings, and photos.

I also updated my Car Care page with some new products I’ve discovered, such as the new Meguires spoke brush that has really been saving me tons of time and trouble lately with washing my wheels. I think at this point I have more cleaning products for the car than most girls have in a lifetime…I just keep discovering more and more things that are great for a specific purpose!