UKPylot’s MINI Blog

To me, tyres are a necessary evil which I know does them an disservice. They are as integral a part of the experience as the supercharger and yet I pay more attention to the metal Union Jack badge on the side of the car then I do my choice of tyre.

Last few week the tyres have been screeching round corners when they never used to so I went for a rotate and balance. After a bit the boy came and showed me how the metal was wearing through the front driver tyre (and it had a leak) and two other tyres weren’t far off. Now I don’t know if the kid had spent 10 minutes with a knife making cuts but it seemed like I would have to buy new tyres.

Since I do about 22k a year I like to buy tyres that will last. These had lasted 21k, less than I had hoped. But I had also not liked them from the moment I drove them of the lot. So I have new ones, I listened to a bunch of choice and ended up with the most expensive of the options presented to me: Bridgestone Pole Positions. It was claimed they are a sport tyre but they also have a “40k lifetime” so we’ll see. I certainly liked how they handled on day one. And in the meantime I need an alignment to ensure they last as long as they can.

Today is the fifth anniversary of owning my MCS cabrio, having enjoyed around 110,500 miles in her. She’s holding up surprisingly well, really just the speedometer being an issue at this point and it is real intermittent (just got to keep a watch for it lest I am doing 90 when indicating 75). A lot of creaks in the joints but doesn’t that happen to all of us as we get old? It surely can’t be long before I get some major component failure but I’m keeping fingers crossed on that.

Sometimes the titles write themselves!

My intermittent speedometer problem continues but yesterday I caught it failing. As I was accelerating I noticed the needle rising and then it got stuck for an instant. I could see the needle trying to rise but instead it just shivered before finally breaking free of whatever was keeping it there. After that and for the rest of the trip the needle was consistently 6-9 mph under the actual speed (which was being accurately shown on the OBC). This morning the needle was fine.

I’d love to know how the speedo gets the speed information – I assume it’s not off the wheels. So does it get an absolute speed signal, or is it analogue?

So thanks to a business trip to England I couldn’t do MTTS and so far I haven’t seen much that has made me sad about that (missing the chance to meet Ian and Margaret being the main thing), but today’s run to the Bonneville Flats would have been very cool!

So, finally, there is going to be a MINI dealer in San Diego proper, rather than having to make the crappy trek up to Escondido. I pass the construction site (or rather the conversion site as it looks like they are transforming an existing dealership) every day on the way to work and I am always confused by the billboard that goes with it.

Don’t tell anybody? Why the heck not? I know many people who refuse to buy a MINI because they won’t go to Escondido but I’m not supposed to tell them to wait because there’s a dealer coming soon? Yeah, go buy that Fiesta, no dealers coming, no siree.

Maybe it’s just me, but I totally don’t get it..

Thought I’d share my latest, um, pastime – I’m going to try building my own plane, and so I’ve created a website for it:

Not sure if I have the skill, time or money to get it done but we’ll find out, click on the image to go to the site.

I had originally been thinking we’d try and do the first leg of MTTS and when I heard Ian would be in CA I was definitely going to try and work it out. But since then I’ve been sent (or rather I am sending myself) to our London office at the end of July and will then spend some time at home. All this means I won’t be back in CA until after everyone has set off from LA.

Hope you all have a good and safe drive.