GPMINI ready for winter

Posted on by Ian C.

(if it ever comes!)

It seemed a bit silly having heated washer jets and snow tires installed on GPMINI today, with sun and 55 degrees! But supposedly it’s winter in New England so …

The heated washer jet retrofit (p/n 61 66 0 029 716) for some reason isn’t available from MINI USA – so I got it from MikeyTheMINI. Installation is quite easy – the jets are replaced, a wiring harness is added under the hood and wired back through the firewall to the fusebox in the driver footwell … The more important job was fitting snow tires to GPMINI – there’s no 18″ snow tires available, so I needed new wheels too. Initially I was going to use the 17″ S-lites but I just don’t like their look! So I paid extra to get 17″ bullet-spoke wheels … a much nicer look for GPMINI. The tires are Pirelli Winter 240 SnowSport 205/45R17 84V, and I bought MINI tire totes to keep the original wheels / tires nice.

So now we’ll see if it ever gets cold / snowy … but really I won’t mind too much if these snow tires get no use 😉

GBMINI

Posted on by Ian C.

Today, for the first time since the snow a month ago, I decided to drive GBMINI#3. Because I feel guilty leaving it parked up forever.
The brakes were very noisy for a while, after sitting so long and getting rusty, and there was a sort of knocking/bumping sound from the back for a while – not sure if it was flat-spotted tires, or just the brakes rubbing.

What surprised me most was the stereo – the $2500+ install in GBMINI is great, and has lots of nice (but not nauseous) bass … although GPMINI with the new Alpine head unit can’t match the bass, it does win on clarity – a bit like comparing the stock MINI system with the Harman Kardon version … so maybe I need to replace the Kenwood in GBMINI with another Alpine!

Other than that, there’s of course the fact that you don’t have to change gears, and that there’s much less “audio feedback” from the engine! Less power too 😦
I did notice that it was smoother on the bump where a bridge is on my route home, so although the GPs suspension is amazing, it still can’t quite make up for the runflats (GBMINI is on 16″ non-runflats).
One other HUGE difference is the steering wheel – after a month driving GPMINI with its JCW wheel, the stock 3-spoker in GBMINI feels cheap and not pleasant to hold! It’s amazing how important the little things are 🙂

Overall, I just don’t have the same “smile factor” in GBMINI now that I get every day in GPMINI. And with tomorrows trip to MINI of Peabody to winterize the GP (although it doesn’t seem necessary so far this year), I’m wondering if I really need two cars … anyone want to buy a nice ’05 MCS auto? 😉