Hi,

I've had my 03 velvet red/white R50 for about two weeks now and I'm pretty happy. It has 54,000 miles, and everything seems pretty healthy... except for a one dying and one nearly dead xenon headlight.

The thing I use the car for is driving our two kids around, one 3 years old and the other 4 months. I get a lot of odd looks and funny comments when people see me loading the kids in the back of the car. I don't know what to tell them. Children are very small, right? What better place to put very small people but the back seat of a Mini?

Using my Bentley manual and various forums, I decided the xenon headlights were unsustainable to maintain. With at least one bad ballast (probably two) I would have ended up buying two complete headlight assemblies for $900 to $1000 and then still would have been paying a fortune for bulbs and igniters, until a ballast failed again and then I'd be replacing the whole shebang all over. I've never understood the need for lights that bright, and self-leveling lights on a car that can't carry hundreds of pounds seems pointless. And I'm happy to wash my own headlights by hand like regular folk.

I used the online parts catalog at Mini of South Atlanta to verify the exact differences between the halogen and xenon headlight parts, and to be certain that all option version use exactly the same wiring harness -- meaning the halogen lights will plug right in. I ordered a pair of halogen lights for $160 on Amazon, an sure enough, the popped right in. I used a little siphon pump I have to empty the washer reservoir, and pulled the fuse for the headlight washer pump.

I didn't have the tool to aim the headlights -- where do you buy that thing anyway? -- so I faced the garage door and opened and closed the hood 25 times until I'd got them adjusted to a decent angle.

Everything else is beautiful. Thinking about upgrading my brakes to ECB USR rotors and redstuff pads. Mostly want to avoid brake dust. Maybe upgrade my 16" wheels. There's a lot of tiny paint chips on the nose and the front of the roof; I'd like to have that fixed up without repainting the whole car.

I mostly do track days on my motorcycle, if I have time for a track day. Probably wouldn't take the car to the track. Too expensive. I also edit Wikipedia articles, mostly on motorcycling topics. And I do software quality assurance when I'm not taking care of the kids.

Cheers!