Last weekend the MINI and I went to the Ramona Air Fair, somewhat north of San Diego: had a great day watching the planes and their acrobatics. I was looking at their website today for pictures of the event (I had been stupid enough to forget my camera) and to my surprise, Sarah made it into their photo album!
Month: June 2004
MINI’s Magic Fuel Producing Engine
I love the optimism that the MINI trip computer shows. Yesterday before I left for San Diego it was showing a range of 367 miles. On arrival in San Diego, 120 miles later, it was showing a range of 407!! How many cars get that kind of mileage!!
Slow Off the Mark
I’ve had Sarah for almost a year now and I am still often not getting it right when I pull away in first gear. The Cooper has a high torque engine and it doesn’t really respond until you get above 3000 rpm. So I try to get the rpms up before I bring the clutch up but what happens quite often is that it’s about 1500 rpm when the clutch engages and the first thing that happens is the revs go down to about 1000, its like the accelerator has fallen into a hole. Then it picks up and we’re off.
Its annoying because I get challenged quite a bit, either implicitly or explicitly. I’ll roll up to a stop light and the car (usually a pickup of a Neon) behind will pull alongside me. 9 times out of 10 I should have no trouble leaving the car in my dust but when I get that first gear wrong, it takes a few seconds to catch them up – leaving the wrong impression about the might of the MINI!
Dirty Rats!
Not really MINI related, but MINI financing… and I really should have caught this earlier so its all my own fault really. I thought I was being fiscally smart, each month I was making more than the required payment on the loan, get that thing paid off early! Well, they are smarter than me… they’ve been reducing the required payment each month so as to keep me on track to take the whole term of the loan! Yeah, I should have noticed the payments were getting smaller but I still feel duped.
Must Have MINI Item
Happy Birthday Sarah!
So I’m a day late posting this but HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH! Yes, June 1st was her second birthday, only 27500 miles on her but her natural parents only put 10000 on her in her first 14 months so I’m trying to make up for it. She’ll get a nice clean and wax today as a celebration.