Category: My MINI

Forgot the camera to take a picture but Carrie rolled over her 20,000th mile this morning on the way to work.

I don’t often get to see my MINI on the road because, well, I’m driving it, but yesterday the wife was in Carrie and I was driving the Camry and I got to enjoy seeing my beauty on the road. And I couldn’t help thinking what a great looking car the MINI is.

Its the one year anniversary tomorrow and its been a pretty good year I think. A couple of irritating problems but mostly trouble-free, and always great to drive. Much to my shock I will be about 100 miles shy of 20K for the first year – yikes. I don’t know where all the miles have gone.

MTTS gets in full swing this week. I’ll be keenly watching Ian’s blog(s) (and here) for updates. I like Ian’s style and his honesty, very little of the “MINI could sell poo on a stick and I’d still rate it highly” that I see in on some other places.

Back home in the UK I was fairly proud of my parallel (or if you prefer, reverse) parking skills but 10 years of living in the US has left them unhoned since you rarely have to exercise them. Especially in Southern California where everyone valet parks 🙂 In the summer time the on-street parking at my San Diego apartment is pretty tight and I would regularly have to back Sarah into a spot and I was getting good at it again and, lets be honest, the MINI can get in pretty much anywhere. But with Carrie, the lack of rear visibility is making me a nervous parallel parker, to the point where I’m driving a few blocks to find somewhere “easy” to park. The reason: I hate the idea that people are watching “that incompetent MINI owner” taking several attempts to reverse into a spot “big enough for an H2”. But, honestly, its not my fault, I just can’t see behind the car and when the blinking beeping starts going crazy I’ll pull up and try again. I miss my rear vision.

Haven’t cleaned the MINI in at least three weeks and boy she looks dirty. I have discovered a downside to owning a convertible – you can’t take it to the car wash for a quick touch-up. When its 117 during the day, there’s no way I’m getting out there and washing the car. So it will just stay dirty for now.

Went through the 16,000 mile mark on my way to San Diego this morning. Carrie has been trouble-free since the oil change, I have my fingers crossed that will continue until the first inspection. 16,000 miles in 10 months means I’m going to be close to 20,000 for the year – yikes, at that rate there won’t be much left of her by the time the loan ends.

I know you all read MotoringFile so I shan’t repeat the story here but I do like the new MINI credit card, it would be awesome to have a picture of Carrie on my card. But I already have a cool pilot card that gives me rebates on aviation fuel etc and thats a lot more useful to me than money off my “next” MINI. You don’t want too many cards or it hurts your credit rating so I may sadly have to pass.

They say no news is good news so I think I have nothing but good news to report. Carrie seems to be fault free and other than the weekly commute to/from San Diego, there really isn’t any motoring going on. I haven’t been to a club event in what seems like years but I am entered in the Cruisin’ For a Cure event in September. I was booked last year but didn’t get to go due to the funeral, hopefully it will work out this year. Chances are there isn’t going to be a whole lot happening on the blog for a while but that if I think of something, I’ll put it up.

Ever since I got Carrie back in August last year I’ve been dilligently tracking my fuel purchases and consumption on sandiegogasprices.com but this weekend I packed it in. Its too depressing to type in that I spent $46 in gas and only got 12 gallons. I did get 25.5 mpg on the last tank and it seems that this is now the norm for my new commute pattern. This morning on the drive to San Diego the OBC is indicating 27.6 which is awesome though the week’s to/from work commute will soon eat at that. Anyway, I am going to keep an eye on my fuel consumption via the OBC but no more record-taking.

Carrie was back to Brecht’s today for the new seat sensor map install. They had it done in a couple of hours which was neat, no need to leave and come back. Driving to work it seemed wrong for the light to not be on, I think it will take a while to get used to not seeing the red light in the corner of my vision. We’ll see if it lasts a while, and then I have to decide if the seat covers are going back on or not.