MINIs-Making-A-Wish

Posted on by Ian C.

At the recent MINIsOnTop we raised almost $1200 for childrens charities in England and USA, auctioning a poster that I had acquired while in England earlier this year, thanks to the generosity of Mike Cooper and John Cooper Works.
In addition, a custom Whalen Shift Knob was auctioned, raising around $800.

Now Steve, who organized last years Make-A-Wish Toy Run and is organizing another run for this year, has created a web site to support these events:
MINIs Making A Wish

Unfortunately Steves web site uses frames and I cannot link to the MINIsOnTop donation page – but click on “MMAW Contributors” to find a write-up:
In conjunction with MOT 2004, MINI’s Making-A-Wish presented the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a check in the amount of $1,413.00. Thank You to the committee and the particpants for their generosity.
If you want to combine MINI motoring and making children happy, consider joining Steve in December this year.

UPDATE: Pictures of the check presentation:

21,000 mile service

Posted on by Ian C.

Took GBMINI in to MINI Peabody today for an “in between” service; I just can’t let the car go more than 15,000 miles to the next service so we did an oil / filter change.
The driver window motor was also replaced – the window was failing about every other day, refusing to move up or down unless I thumped the door panel just below the door opener handle (the motor is fitted here inside the door). Gary & Bob dismantled the old motor and it appears that the commutator had rubbed against the plastic case, shredding swarf which then jammed one of the commutator brushes so it did not make good contact any more. Cheap quality 😦

I also had the engine “adaptation values” reset in the hope of temporarily curing the cold start issue. In the warmer weather GBMINI stalls almost every day when first started – but the second start is always fine.
My experience suggests that the MINI does this when the initial start conditions (temperature, fuel, whatever) are very different to what the car learned when it was “new” (or when the engine was last updated – which happened to GBMINI in January when the John Cooper Works Upgrade was installed).
I will report later if this cured the cold start issue.

While there, I met Jim, owner of the NIIICE MINI – he had a short-shift kit installed (major amount of disassembly!) and also had the “adaptation values” reset. I installed an auto-up-windows MINI circuit in his car too (tricky because of his satellite radio install occupying most of the space between the downtubes).

Finally, a watched a delivery of three MINIs (I am still very impressed by the delivery trucks – a side benefit of BMW owning MINI is that our cars are protected during transport):


This brings the total count of new cars at MINI Peabody to three, as far as I could tell – and of course all three are sold already (one of the new owners, Keith, dropped by later in the morning – another ex-Brit!)