Category: Non MINI

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?

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.

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.

Honda is making its gas-powered Honda Civic sedan available to the public in CA, customers can lease a home fuelling system which taps into their existing gas supply. Sounds interesting to my eco-friendly ways. The site says it can go about 200 miles on a full tank but it does take 12 hours to fill her up. My quick look at the website didn’t reveal anything about acceleration or top speeds though whatever they are I know they won’t be as appealing as the MINI. And the website quotes 34 mpg which I assume is some kind of gasoline-equivalent metric; that doesn’t sound real good but the real issue is the cost per ‘gallon’ and I have no idea what that is.

Anyway, good to see more options coming for those of us who want less fuel consumption and/or harmful pollutants. Roll on the hybrid (or diesel!) MINI.

I am saddened to see that MG Rover has gone into receivership. My very first car was a Mini Metro made by Rover.

Got overtaken last night by a shiny looking Lotus Elise. I saw a couple in England on my last trip but this was the first one I’ve seen in the USA. If I win the lotto on Saturday, it will be my second purchase.

Back from a weekend in Vegas, took about 5 hours each way from Brawley. Because we thought there would be 4 adults, two with three weeks of luggage with them, we didn’t take the MINI but still made good time. Saw the extremes of gas prices whilst we were gone. In Needles, CA, the price of premium unleaded was an amazing $3.19!!! Contrast that to the prices posted on the CA/AZ border which was advertising the regular unleaded at just $2.03. Median price round here is still around $2.60 for a gallon of premium.

According to this article on CNN the Cadillac Escalade is the car most likely to be stolen. Its a tremendously hideous vehicle so I can’t think why anybody would want one other than for the fact that its also hideously expensive ($53000).

Just in case anyone was wondering where the links to eSchwa and w(t)f etc have gone (yes I know I am deluding myself in thinking someone might be), I have resurrected my homepage blog and moved them to there. The links on this page will be MINI-only from now on.