Category: My MINI

I love my XM Radio but recently I had to change most of my preset stations as they were getting real blah, the rotation isn’t quite large enough on some. But a couple of the new ones are real good- U-Pop and Worldzone on 29 and 100.

But I have a dilemma: now I have both an XM radio and an iPod for playing music in the car. My MCS is a 2002 model with the radio that has no auxillary input (still amazes me that) so for the XM I am using the FM transmitter method of receiving. The sound is ok but the talk radio stations and any chat is mostly too muffled to understand. Do I go the same method for the iPod, or should I get a new head unit completely and get a much cleaner sound? And is there way to get both plugged into the same unit?

When I was waiting to pick up my MINI a year ago, a fellow MINI-owner in the lounge told me that I would get tired of people asking me “so what does it run?”. And he was right, not a week passes without at least one person coming up to me and saying ‘so, what does that car run’. The obvious answer to the question is premim unleaded but, no, the question that is being asked is really how much does the car cost. Maybe its a Brit/US thing cos no way do I get that from the actual words that are used. So my answer: it runs pretty damned fine.

I’ve recently given up on the automatic air conditioning. The temps out here now are firmly in the low 100s and rising so I want to get cold air on me when I want it, not when the MINI thinks its a good time. I do like the auto a/c but right now its better to be able to control it myself.