Flat Tire!?

Posted on by Ian C.

On my way home from work last night, there was an unexpected “bing” (the same sound as for low temperature or low fuel); looking around I spotted a yellow light on the center speedometer and eventually figured that the picture might be for the “flat tire” warning (it’s not very intuitive to me!)
So I stopped and walked round GBMINI, but all (aftermarket non-runflat tires) looked perfectly OK … so I headed home:

Flat tire warning

Once home, I went round the car and pressure gauge checked each tire … 33psi, 33.5psi, 33.5psi … really starting to think I had a new gremlin in GBMINI but then … 27psi!
The last tire I checked (left rear) was down 6psi – not enough for me to see even though the tire was not runflat (with runflats you can’t really see when they are completely flat) – but GBMINI knew the tire was down and told me.

I am newly impressed with GBMINIs low tire detection – good job MINI!

Bangle’s Passionate Pursuit

Posted on by Ian C.

Another interesting article recently in Automotive Design & Production, which mentions the various MINI concepts seen recently (interior, Detroit, Tokyo, Frankfurt) and the contributions of Chris Bangle:

With the BMW brand work essentially complete, Bangle will focus his attention on another automotive icon, MINI … a partial glimpse at the next iteration via the MINI Concept Frankfurt … Bangle is mum on specifics when it comes to the future of MINI design … but he is willing to say that MINI is more than the car itself: “MINI is a brand, not a car. To me it’s less a question of what kind of MINI will be out there, but how will MINI make a jump to the next paradigm,” Bangle says. “There’s a lot of room to work in”

I don’t know about you, but “a jump to the next paradigm” does not inspire me 😉

GBMINIs nuts!

Posted on by Ian C.

Last Saturday, I started hearing some very worrying sounds from GBMINI; whenever I hit even the slightest bump in the road, there was a “clunk” type of noise from the back of the car 😦
I thought maybe an exhaust mount had come loose, so checked for that when I got home and all looked well; then I thought to check the engine mounts – I found that the mounts were fine, but my engine bay was full of chestnuts! I cleared them all out, with some tightly jammed between engine and car body (forgot to take any pics) … then I could no longer hear any noise from the car when driving.

Yesterday, GBMINI had already started a new nut collection:

Nuts in the engine bay

I even saw the little red guy (chipmunk? squrrel?) standing in front of the car with a chestnut in his mouth!

Still a bit concerned about the noise, and taking corners very slowly and carefully just in case, I took GBMINI to MINI of Peabody and Brian did a thorough inspection of everything – no problems found (hooray!) and more chestnuts removed.

So now I can happily drive GBMINI again, but I am parking in a different place further away from the chestnut trees, in the hope that I won’t get filled up again.
Still don’t know what the original noise was, although Jons theory that it was chestnuts dropping out of the engine bay and banging the car seems plausible!