What did you do to your MINI today?

Realized I was 5 days from the end of my 3 years of free maintenance and brought her in to get rid of the brake fluid replacement reminder that’s been popping up for 5 months. Hopefully future unnecessary reminders can be reset without a trip to the dealership, which will now cost money.

Also I pointed out my loose active grille shutters on the left side and they said that was a design choice and pointed out that the new SE they had on the lot had the same problem. I am doubtful of that, based on what I’ve read on here…

 

My car must have a “kick me” sign somewhere. Not only did a ******* ding my passenger door about a month ago now someone did the same to the drivers door - no dent that I can see but broke the paint. I take pains to park away from people in parking lots - I give up :^{

 

Got pulled over by the provincial cops today in the EV lane going home heading into town. Cop asked if it was an EV I’m like yes there is a green license plate… he’s like oh didn’t know they had these EV. He said sorry, shook my hand and escorted me back over..

Meanwhile while I was pulled over a brodozer drove by in the lane

 

They have been out in force the last 2-3 weeks enforcing the HOV/Taxi/EV and I didn’t expect to get pulled over in an actual EV! I saw him dart over from the second to left lane and saw the lights on and figured he got a call. Nope, pulled me over at 32nd. Lame

 

Starting in June to September Yess

 

Finally made time to add some horsepower.

 

I swapped out the plain old pedals for OEM stainless ones. Biggest gotcha - SE uses the manual transmission accelerator pedal not automatic! They are ever so slightly different but not interchangeable.

Parts:
Accelerator pedal #35406889816
Brake pedal #35006860690
Dead pedal #51477149471

You have to order each piece, not a kit. Other than that it’s plug and play, no more than 15 minutes to swap it out.

 

I'd love to know why they need two different accelerator pedals and why the SE gets the pedal designed for manual-tranmission cars.

 

Is a single-speed transmission 'automatic'?

 

I vote "no". My SE doesn't go into forward or reverse automatically--I manually select when that happens.

 

I washed my two very opposite and complementary cars (with the "help" of Captain America).

 

I installed a set of of Yakima crossbars onto my roof rails. Once the bike rack arrives, I plan to get a bike to hopefully take on some rides. I like the look but also did notice the increased wind noise at highway speeds, so I’ll probably take off the rack when not in use.

 

Go Cards!

 

We hit temperatures in the 80s ºF last week, so I put my summer wheels on. I had worn out the tread on mine, so I got new Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3s, same as the original tires. But woe is me, there was a miscommunication and I got the runflat version! I've been driving on them for a week and they are somewhat noisier and cut my range, so I'm getting that corrected this week. And oh yeah, in a cruel twist of fate this morning there was over three inches of snow on the ground and icy roads, so I had to be very careful on my summer rubber until I got onto dry roads.

 

I would bet the reason they are different is that the automatic transmission accelerator pedal has a kick down switch in it. These are used when the driver floors the pedal to let the transmission know it is time to release all of the hamsters to their wheels and select the lowest possible gear for maximum acceleration. That would also explain why the SE uses the manual transmission pedal; no transmission therefore, no kick down...

 

We had a Westy vanagon when I first got my license, so that was the car I learned to drive. Now my SE is my favorite car I've ever owned, except for maybe my 1958 Westy I had in college.