Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

With less than a thousand miles remaining on my warranty, I will soon be on my own troubleshooting issues with my MINI. For a long time I’ve wanted an OBD code reader to read and reset check engine light issues, but I’ve also wanted the ability to view live data. So it was the right time to purchase the ScanGauge II, which does all of this and more.

It installs in seconds, plugging into the OBDII diagnostic port under the steering column (and will work just as easily in any modern car). I mounted it to the corner of my dash for easy viewing, especially of real speed. While running my GPS, I’ve noticed my MINI’s speedometers read as much as 5mph fast. The ScanGauage shows real speed and can be further corrected by percentage…I used the GPS to get it as accurate as possible. (Even without a correction factor, it still showed lower speeds, which means MINI is intentionally displaying a higher speed than it is calculating..interesting!)

It has many of the MINI’s OBC functions like live miles per gallon, overall MPG and miles till empty, and also adds gallons per hour, time remaining, and gallons remaining. It tracks all of these by day and trip as well. Most importantly, these OBC values can be calibrated by indicating the fuel pumped in your first few fillups. My MINI’s OBC was mostly useless because it would always read extremely high..sometimes 34mpg for a tank that was really just 28.

Of course there are plenty of nerdy diagnostic gauges to display live as well. Displayed above is MAP pressure (essentially a vacuum and boost guage–values over 14psi are boost) and intake temperature (see how close the intercooler gets the pressurized air down to the outside temp). It can also show RPM, voltage, spark timing, throttle percentage, engine load, loop status, and coolant temperature. It’s fun just to watch, but I’m also hoping the added data might give insight to problems such as the cold start issues with ethanol gas.

No doubt I will mostly be using the SPeedGauge as a more accurate speedometer and toy. But it will prove invaluable when I get a CEL (or for that matter, anyone I know no matter what car they drive). It is even more valuable if you have a MINI without an OBC, or navigation with no temperature gauge.

I first noticed the ScanGauge at one of my favorite stores ThinkGeek, but it is also available at at Amazon. More information is available on their website.

I will finally be hosting a MINI event for the first time: This weekend, I will be holding a detailing day (at Gavin’s house for more driveway space). I will be demonstrating the many techniques and products for detailing the MINI inside and out. Washing, waxing, polishing, trim and more. You’ll see my wide selection of detailing products firsthand and compare many of them. We are shooting for Saturday at Noon in Bedford, raindate Sunday. Please visit this MINI2 thread for more information and to sign up.

MINIsOnTop was a huge success this year. For the first time the weather was excellent all weekend and we finally had good visibility on top of Mt. Washington. Even more important, everyone seemed more social as hundreds browsed and chatted with each other around the lots and events throughout the day and night.

I picked up the final part of my bumper from the MOP on the way up and installed it in the T&C parking lot as soon as I got there, so I didn’t have to live with the previous week’s damage all weekend. This year I ran the first car show/concours which was successful, with about a dozen participants who put forth some great effort to compete in the various categories. I was also part of a more organized photographer contingent and stopped at various points on the auto road to get some great shots.

I have a few photos posted already and will be adding more each evening over the next week or so. Visit my MOT 2007 Flickr gallery for some of my best and my personal gallery for all my photos of the great weekend.

In keeping with my annual bad luck each week of MINIsOnTop, I ran over some debris late Sunday night. During a long drive from Philadelphia, on 84 just West of Hartford, I hit what in a flash looked like a black bumper on black pavement in pitch dark. Not seeing it till the last instant, I ran over it at full speed, and it was nearly the width of the car. Of course it sounded terrible and I pulled over to investigate.

Some scrapes on the bottom of the plate mount show it was initially quite high and therefore took the front lower spoiler with it. The remaining pieces of plastic at the bottom of the bumper were damaged and left hanging. No big deal there–I’ve had the bumper apart before and these plastic pieces are easily and inexpensively replaced.

The radiator (technically the front one is the air conditioner condenser) was spared a direct hit and I have no leaking fluid (yet) allowing the car to continue driving just fine. However, the impact did split the lower radiator support and bent back the entire condenser, and possibly the radiator behind it. Because this may gradually start to leak, I will be bringing it up to Julian at Sublime Restorations for a look over.

With MINIsOnTop starting on Friday, I hope I can simply pick up the plastic parts from MINI of Peabody and do the cosmetic repairs myself before the weekend. My fingers are crossed that I can hopefully wait till afterwards for the radiator repairs. It is both good and bad: If it were one inch shorter, I probably would have no radiator damage and a quick and inexpensive repair. But if it were one inch taller, it may have punctured the radiator and left the MINI undrivable. I’ll see what the prognosis is at Sublime.