GBMINI#2 – Page 8 – M&I / GBMINI

Stowaway!

Posted on December 12, 2004February 10, 2017 by Ian C.

This morning was just about warm enough to wash GBMINI (well overdue); when I opened the engine bay to top up the washer bottles, I caught a movement – a mouse ran from its nest and vanished! The nest is impressive and I guess the mouse has good taste to choose to live in GBMINI – but I wish it elsewhere. I can’t imagine it would survive there while I was driving, so I think the whole nest must have been built yesterday while we were out in Margarets car.

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I hope the little guy has gone now, and not damaged anything …

MINIs Making-A-Wish

Posted on December 4, 2004February 17, 2017 by Ian C.

Back from a long weekend in Rhode Island, including meeting 35 other MINIs for MINIs-Making-A-Wish (a repeat of this event held last year).
On a cool Saturday morning, we drove to the southern end of Rhode Island and met up with everyone at Steve Scales home. There was coffee, a raffle for the unique Whalen shift knob (congratulations Jeff, thanks Gavin for the pic), Santa hats and meet & greet with other MINI owners.

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An excellent drive had been planned, taking us all through various back roads of Rhode Island, including a stop at “Rhode Islands largest body of fresh water” – in a couple of places we had police to assist with crossing traffic, and we even had an escort up 15 miles of Route 95!

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After a stop at Krispy Kreme (very long lines for the bathroom!), where the toy collection launch occurred a month ago, we finally arrived at the Make-A-Wish headquarters and delivered 1400 toys! Steve also presented $2500 raised by the Whalen raffle and by other activities including the sale of “wishes” organized by his daughter Jessica – very impressive!

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The last picture is a group pic taken by Gavin – thanks!

We finished the day with a late lunch and lots more chats – hello Steve (*2), Max, John, Gene, Diane, Jared, Rich, Gavin, and everyone else.

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Steve (PinCity) posted a final summary of the event here: 1,409 Toys, $2,501.10 Donations, Fun with you guys…… priceless!

New (non-runflat) tires

Posted on November 23, 2004February 10, 2017 by Ian C.

Today at MINI Peabody I had new non-runflat tires fitted to the stock 16″ wheels:

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After some amount of online research, and discussion with Alex at TireRack, I chose Pirelli PZero Nero M+S tires in 205/50R16 size – I was more concerned about ride comfort and wet handling than outright performance, and the TireRack survey results suggested these would be a good pick.
My old Dunlop runflats were very noisy after 20K miles, and they have never been all that great in wet weather – the new tires are definitely quieter and I will see what the wet & snow performance is like in the next few months. Disappointingly there is not much of an improvement in ride comfort.

While I was there, I met a few other MINI owners (Hi Chris! Sorry I did not get a chance to chat Paul!)
I also saw stock of the new iPod MINI interface.

There was another MINI having wheel work done while I was there – I don’t know what it hit (the owner was not around) but I could hardly believe the damage to the front wheels; both (17″) wheels had a massive dent and were split around the middle of the wheel! There was (not surprisingly) other damage to the car (some suspension work, I think, and a split in the bottom of the front bumper).

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