Stupid Weather

I risked death on Sunday by finally getting around to washing the automobile in the heat of the afternoon. So of course, yesterday it rained and now the paintwork has lots of lovely rainspots on it. Just great.

Not much going on in MINI-land though I may have some engine problems to report later, am currently trying to decide if I can hear odd noises whilst idling or if its just in my head (perhaps the bubbling noise I hear is the blood in my brain). With the paucity of updates, and unlikelihood of this changing, I’m thinking of merging this blog into my regular one but am so far undecided.

Getting Hotter!

On my way home from San Diego yesterday afternoon, the OBC showed 119 when I got to the desert floor. I was willing it to hit 120 but it didn’t happen this time. Its only July, I think I will see 120+ before the end of the summer. But 119 is a record for Carrie in her first year.

Dust to Dust Costs

Found this from a link of a link…. CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This was translated into a “dollars per lifetime mile” figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. I’ve seen plenty of discussion saying that the method is flawed but I thought it interesting enough to pull out some of the items:

Model Cost Per Mile ($) Est. Lifetime (Miles)
Maybach 11.582 257,000
Lamborghini 4.009 121,000
Prius 3.249 109,000
Expedition 3.058 284,000
MINI Cooper S 1.908 161,000
MINI Cooper 1.795 169,000
Focus 0.803 169,000
xB 0.478 189,000

So the MINI comes out pretty well.

Clean Me!

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.

Got My MINI Visa Card

I know I said I wouldn’t be applying for the new MINI Visa card but I did, so there. The lure of having a card with a picture of my very own auto on it proved too hard to resist. I was going to post a picture of it but I couldn’t find a way of obscuring the credit card numbers that left the picture reasonably intact. Its kind of a shame that I don’t have the old MINI as that combination (red, white, union jack roof) would have made a great looking card but it is neat to see Carrie on my card when I buy things.

Now…. should I use the introductory 0% credit deal to pay off some of my loan….. just kidding.

Any Finance Wizzes Out There?

Would you save on your car loan if you used those “use you credit card as cash” cheques that have a good interest rate for a fixed term? Lets say the cheques have a good rate for a year. Make a year’s worth of payments on the loan with one of the cheques, and then instead of making loan payments you pay the credit card company for a year. You’d be paying less interest on the credit card, and your total car loan repayment amount would be less because the monthly interest would be accuring on a smaller total amount.
Does that make any financial sense or should I stick to being paid in gummy bears?

Strange Spam

This is odd. I keep getting spam comments on my Nearly There post from the end of April. Nothing unusual there except that according to the WP management panel, and the database, comments for that entry are closed. I assume I must have a permissions problem in my install or something but I can’t work it out. Might just delete the entry.

3,145 miles per US gallon

Vancouver to Halifax on a single tank of gas: A team of engineering students from The University of British Columbia has built a vehicle so efficient that it could travel from Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon of gasoline. The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 litres/100 km) — equivalent of Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon (3.79 litres) of gas — costing less than $5 at the pump.

Carrie Turns 16

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.

New Server

Moved the guapacha.com family of blogs to a new webhost last week. At the same time I moved the WordPress install location which I think has probably broken everyone’s RSS bookmarks…. I’m still in the process of testing everything but if you see something wrong let me know.