Category: MINI Cooper

I took Rabbit in for an oil change today. Turns out he also needed a fuel line and coolant flush. And there was a crack in the coolant reservoir. (That explained the slow leak on the carport floor.) I thought about putting it off, but I can't afford a really expensive repair, so better to do it now.

Unless we snag a winning lottery ticket, this will be my last car and I've got to keep it working. The good thing is that after January 31st, my mileage will drop to next to nothing…

Spotted this beauty downtown yesterday. So few Coupes were manufactured it's always a delight to see one in the wild—and a JCW build to boot!

The 2025 all-electric MINI Aceman

Then again, pending a Lottery windfall, I'm not going to commit myself to another 5 years of working to buy one…

The new MINI Aceman

There are still a couple things I'd like to do to the ol' boy, but nothing is a priority. I'd like to swap out the incandescent wheel well side markers for LEDs, and of course, convert all the interior illumination to LED as well, but both are a PITA to do, so there's no telling when I'll ever get around to it. Maybe that's something left for post-retirement?

But strangely still intrguing!

I present to you, the 2024 MINI Cooper:

But wait! There's more!

And don't even get me started on the MINI Countryman!

Even Ben, who is only a MINI fan insofar as his husband is one looked at these and said, "Ew! NO!"

The cars shown here are the new EV lineup, but MINI says this design language will carry over to their entire line.

I suppose change is inevitable, but it seems like MINI has lost some of its…quirkiness with this new aesthetic—especially the interior. And that fabric dash? It look like the fabric on Apple's Homepods, and that shit is a dust magnet. I can't imagine keeping it clean in an automotive environment.

I admit however, that the exteriors (with the possible exception of the taillights on the 3-door, whatever that white protrusion on the windows is behind the back seat doors on the Countryman and the wheels on both models) are kind of growing on me the more I look at them.

Maybe I'm just being a "GET OFF MY LAWN" curmudgeon and they're not really as bad as I first opined. (It's certainly possible.)

Of course, there's nothing wrong with basic black and white either… ?

And I love this too! Apparently coming to a MINI near you next year:

Just an oil change. Nothing serious today.

I'm such a geek.

Today was the front turn signals/hazard lights, completing the front end conversion. It was super easy since there was no coding required; just a matter of swapping out the bulbs and getting to them was surprisingly easy.

I'm still considering replacing the side wheel well trim lights, but those look like they'd be a bitch—especially the rear. Everyone recommends removing the wheels to ease the process, and ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue, but this would involve buying a jack (I don't have one since the car has run-flat tires all around), and I'm actually wondering if having that whole piece lit up would be too much bling.

It started with the sidemarkers.

Then it was the puddle lights.

A year later it was the taillights.

And yesterday it was the headlights.

Rabbit came with basic garden-variety halogen headlights. Once upon a time, shortly after they arrived on the scene, halogens were da bomb. (I remember driving either to or from Phoenix/Tucson one night and was amazed at how much brighter they were in my new Toyota Corolla SR-5 than the ancient incandescent bulbs my Chevy LUV had.)

Then, after a few vehicular mistakes in the interim, 20 years later I got Anderson, my first MINI. Anderson was a dealer demo model that came tricked out with pretty much every option available. Anderson had self-leveling xenon headlights. Their brightness was like day and night compared to the halogens I'd had in every car since the Corolla.

The xenons were great, and I swore I'd never own another car without them.

They worked fine until February 2020. The pneumatic lifts that propped up Anderson's bonnet had lost their pressure, and I kept putting off replacing them. One day, after checking the oil or something, I forgot they weren't working properly and after removing the wooden dowel I had propped the hood up with, the bonnet crashed down. I didn't think anything of it until the next morning driving to work before sunrise and realized the xenons were now pointing down to a location about five feet in front of the car. (No wonder I couldn't see anything!)

They were no longer self-leveling. Something had broken in the mechanism when the hood went down. (The headlights themselves were built into the bonnet, not the body of the car.)

When I looked into the cost of having them replaced, my heart sank. I knew this—and the extensive (and expensive) cooling issues I'd experienced over the past year—were signs as much as I was loathe to give up Anderson, the time was rapidly approaching to find a new vehicle.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I came home with Rabbit about a month later, right before the lockdown hit in 2020.

I thought I could live with the stock halogens that came with the car, but over the past couple years with my advancing age, it was becoming more and more difficult to see at night, so I'd started driving with my fogs on. (Those at least were bright white LEDs.) I'd did a bit of research into replacing the halogen bulbs with LEDs, but there were so many contradictory discussions as to the wisdom of doing such a thing it seemed it was more trouble than it was worth.

But a couple weeks ago after I replaced the taillights, I thought, "Why the fuck not?" and dove back into it. Admittedly guilty of "doing my own research," I watched a few informative videos on YouTube, and finally decided on a pair of bulbs that looked like they'd be the best match for my car.

Unfortunately, the Cooper used in the video where these particular bulbs were installed was not the same year as mine, and the interior of the headlamp assembly was a different configuration. The bulbs I ordered and received would not fit. They were sent back.

Now undaunted, I found out what configuration was needed, and Amazon came to the rescue. It literally was plug-and-play but the post installation coding of the computer kept throwing me for a loop. No matter which voltage monitoring I turned off, the car was still throwing the headlight warning light.

I finally realized this morning that I'd missed toggling one high beam setting, and once that was done and coded, voila! no more errors.

And how do they look?

Lovely. Absolutely lovely. Just what I wanted.

 

I've wanted the LED Union Jack tail lights since I first saw them. Obviously these aren't OEM (since MINI doesn't make them for my model year), but they're still damn good and they fit well. The driver side went in easily; the passenger side not so much. The hardest part was getting the old units out because of the layout of the retaining screws. I may need to redo the passenger side once I have the proper tools to loosen and tighten the nearly-inaccessible screws that hold them in place.

Also, the backup lights are confusing. The passenger side is white; the driver side is red. At first I suspected that something was wrong, but going back to this—and similar—sellers' pages for the most part they're all showing this same configuration. (I think it's designed to be used as a reverse fog light, even though the car had no rear fogs.) Still, after everything was back together I wrote the seller to verify this was indeed the case and that I didn't get an incorrectly wired unit.

Adding to the ease of installation, the lights needed no re-coding of the onboard computer, something I had been worrying about. They really were plug and play.

 

Oil change yesterday.

4 new tires next weekend. $1000 poorer. Fucking run-flats.

This color is now available on the hardtop models! {swoon!}

We're planning a road trip next month. I supposedly had another thousand miles or so to go before I was scheduled for an oil change, but I took Rabbit into MINI Tempe a couple days ago anyway. I also wanted a tire rotation and the various air filters changed.  While I could have changed the air and cabin filters myself, I just didn't want to deal with it. At this point in my life, it was worth the added expense to just have them do it. I learned (but not too surprisingly, BTW) that the car was also due for a tuneup and a fuel system flush.

Considering that in all likelihood Rabbit will be my last car*, and I've been driving it exclusively in Sport Mode (which may or may not cause more engine wear; I can't seem to get a definitive answer from anyone) I want to do everything I can to keep it in top condition, so I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it all. Totally worth it.

*I'm planning my retirement date to coincide with the last payment on the auto loan.

Aggressive!

I'm not sure I'd buy one, but I'd at least be open (no pun intended) to the idea. However, we'll never get the opportunity because the concept was killed due of safety concerns.  But honestly, how is this any less safe that a Jeep without doors?

These new side markers arrived today. I'm a happy camper.

Last weekend after running Rabbit through the car wash, I noticed that the driver's side marker was hanging loose. At first I thought it had been ripped out by the car wash, but as it turned out it was plain old plastic fatigue. One of the clips that held it in place had simply given out.

I'd been wanting to replace the OEM markers with LEDs for quite a while, so I took it as a sign that it was time. A quick perusal of Amazon, and voila! $40 later and Rabbit has a bit of new bling!