That was another thing that the Knights Edition had was the Pro Exhaust. It sounded good in regular mode (got to hear it when they were moving cars around). But the best part of the Pro exhaust is that it has the JCW logo on the tips.

Hey, does anyone else not have a JCW logo on the boot of their JCW? I don't have one. Not sure I want one, but the Knights Edition had one and I forgot to ask the dealer about it.... Hmmmmm????

 

Like this?

 

Interesting thread. 1 month with my ,International Orange JCW. Third MINI. I love the car. Haven’t driven in eco or normal. Why would I? Car came with Pro Exhaust. Love it. I found the BT clicker to be problematic. Disconnected it (in the boot). Flap open all the time now. Downside of the exhaust-I have had to start wearing Depends. Because it takes 1-2 minutes before you hear the pops my neighbors only complain when I am coming back home.
Having driven only manuals for over 50 years, actually closer to 60 years, I find I keep my hand on the shifter more than I think I ever had. I got use to the auto rev, took some practice to keep my foot of the gas pedal. Old habits die hard.
Apple Car Play was a PIA at first. Still confused when sometimes it comes up automatically when I start the car, other times I have to manually either tap the screen or move the selector to get to it. Any one else notice this?
keep posting.

 

Yup, that be the JCW badge I seem to be missing. I guess with the base JCW model I got, they leave off the badge to save money. They also no longer put “COOPER” on the back. Another cost savings??? Like a lot of things that BMW does.... “Death by a thousand cuts” in order to boost MINI’s profit margin. Gone the way of the LSD.

Actually, I am liking the “clean” look the back of the JCW has without the badge and other bling. That will go well with blacking out the trim.

I have tried “Green” mode, just to try it. As I said, I believe it is dangerous. In addition to the car not responding to throttle inputs, it also encourages the driver to watch that silly gage in front of him/her to get the best mileage. Come 0n - EYES ON THE ROAD.

I do most of my driving in “Mid” mode. I live in town with a lot of stop signs and stop lights, and slow driving, I find the hair trigger throttle and the pop and burble is a little much. In those conditions I will even skip-shift. Then there is cruising on the highway, I see no point to the Sports mode. So that leaves the back country roads where the “Sports” come into its own.

You are not alone with the Apple Play. I couldn’t get it to pair (dealer did that for me). Now, every once in a while it will just start playing a song that is no longer on my phone. Or it will just pop up with an info screen change at random times, which at night is really bad for me...

Enjoy the manual that you have as that may be the last one you will be able to drive. MINI is dropping the manual on some models in favor of the DCT. The GP 3 will be a paddle shifter automatic...

It is a beautiful day today and Smokey will be coming out of the garage to get a brake change and alignment check in preparation for an up coming track day. Albert will be quiet today while that happens. It looks like I may target late August for Albert’s first foray onto the track...

Enjoy the day and motor on...

 

“Magic always comes with a price” is a quote from a TV show I very much enjoyed watching. The same is true about the magic that is Albert. Not everyone is enamored with the Gen III JCW. Others, though fined it carries its own brand of magic and, once you learn to meld with it, the JCW is wonderful magic. Part of that magic is brakes that are monstrous and powerful, but that means there is a need for wheels that fit them. And you must take care when wielding magic, even if it is just carrying it around with you, or driving through toll booths.... Slowly and carefully, my wife would say. I had the “Slowly” down pat...


Curb rash 101, be more careful....

Can’t say that “careful” was in the mix that other day...

So I will pay for not being careful while wielding the magic that is Albert...

PS: Yup, that is well into the metal of that nice alloy wheel... And they are special wheels; special to be able to fit over that part of magic that is Albert’s brakes.

 

Sometimes intuition is the best thing going for a person. My last track day with Smokey went very well, butttttttt,,,, (there is alway a “but” when a discussion starts out like this) my intuition said to get an alignment done. There was no specific reason for this thought; it just seemed like something that I needed to do before my next track day. So, today Smokey went in for his checkup. Thinking that everything was fine, I was surprised to learn that the rear toe on one side was out. It took a bit for the mechanic to loosen stuff up to put it back to where it belonged (darn rust belt... ) but it got there. Then I found out that it had more camber on the right side than it should. Ugh!!!! The last time that happened it meant that the front shocks had gone bad. I had an “autocross” event on an old go kart track, that wasn’t in the best shape, and bottomed the suspension out hard on one of the less than pristine parts. Could that have been it? Well, with the track day less than 2 weeks away, I will take a mighty careful look at everything. Buying and replacing shocks isn’t likely to happen between now and then. And then there is a decision as to what to get... The short list is a replacement set of Bilstein B8s or jump up to a set of Bilstien adjustable coilovers (B16 PSS 10s) and camber plates. Well the camber plates are a given no matter which I do, but which ones. If I do find something wrong, I may be pulling an all-nighter...

 

Eddie, two of my four original wheels got curbed in Gloucester. Parallel parking... Now they are wearing the Blizzaks, and I won't see them until November.

I've managed to keep the new ones pristine however.

I reckon you will eventually wind up in a similar posture.

I almost wept on the first incident though... I was so pissed at myself!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

I am reminded of a story my dad told me when I was young. A man spent time with an auto dealer sales person to special order a car. When it finally arrived the sales person, very proud of this new car, showed the new owner the car, talked about how great it was and hoped he was happy with it. The new owner said he was happy with it and acknowledged that it was a wonderful and beautiful car. He walked around the car, admiring it, and then stopped. While looking at the side of the car, he pulls out a small hammer and hits the side of the car with it. The sales person yells - what did you do that for???? To which, the man responded - Now I don’t have to worry about someone hitting my new car.

Now I don’t have to worry about hitting the curb with these wheels.

And it didn’t surprise me when I did it. Of course I was a bit frustrated with myself for doing it - I wondered how did I just do this when I can drive an autocross course and just miss all of the cones at 40-50 mph but I can’t miss a curb when barely moving. I knew when I saw these wheels, with the amount of metal that hangs out beyond the sidewall of the tire, that it was not “if” it happens, it was “when” it happens.

 

Hey - a question to all of you F56 owners

Do your car vents blow warm air even when the heat is all the way off? I am talking warmer than the air outside the car, like it is being heated by the heater? Now Albert has just the basics. Manual transmission, manual fan control, manual vent control, manual AC on/off and manual heat control. Albert is also a BLACK car. I am wondering if this could be just a result of the air, which is heated by the bonnet, going through the system. I had this happen with a black Jeep Cherokee that I had. I also don’t know how much of this is heat-soak from the engine compartment heat, which I have also seen happen; happens on Smokey. Oh, the AC in Albert works great, I just don’t use it all of the time; it is nice to have the windows down and have a breeze blowing through the little bit of hair that I have left. I have tried running the AC for a bit to get rid of any heat-soak, but the warm air from the vents seems to come back.

As Albert is new, I do know I can have the dealer check it out, but I thought I would see what anyone else’s experiences were. I’ll also do a search and maybe re-post this as a separate thread.

thanks...

 

Well, so much for the manual transmission fluid being lifetime. At 37k miles it has degenerated per this post:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4484957

This is the first that I have seen it tested. I’ll need to remember this for Albert.
Probably good for 40k miles, but not much more.

 

I agree. I like the throttle response on the Mid Mode better too.

I got an ECU tune on my older 2008 Cooper S and my first drive down my neighborhood street I put it in sport mod. Within the first 1/4 mile, I thought "I can't drive it this way...I live in a nice neighborhood, for pete's sake, sounds like I'm at a gun range". Luckily, mid-mode on that car was perfect.

 

So MINI sent me an Email with a link to a survey as to whether I would recommend MINI to a friend or family. I gave it a 7 out 10 (10 being “Absolutely”) and they wanted why. Well, they may now be having second thoughts about letting me speak my mind. Anyone who has been following the adventures of Albert know that I have a real Love and mild dislike for this latest version of the MINI Cooper. The JCW part of it helps a lot in loving the car. But the frustration comes in with some of the fundamental design features in the F56 version of the MINI (tach, arm rest, not having an adjustable lumbar support, etc. that I have written about) that are just wrong. These poorly conceived features detract from what could have been a fantastic car.

BTW - My wife says she would have given a 10 to that question; she loves riding in Albert. And quite frankly I love taking her for rides in him. That is what it is all about. To this, all of my quips about this, that and another thing about Albert all pale in comparison.

 

Do you have the temp **** set full cold? If you don't it will let in warm air.

 

That was the one thing I wanted to make sure that I said, then forgot...
Yup, all the way to full cold

Since my previous previous post, I have made some “controlled” observations. Albert was relegated to the garage while I got Smokey ready for our upcoming track event. While switching cars around to get Albert back out, I let Albert sit in the garage and warm up. The air coming out of the vents was cool; about the same as the air temp in the garage. The air coming out of the vents stayed about the same as the ambient temp while driving to the store I was going to a few miles away. When I got done shopping, maybe a half hour later, and started the car the air coming out of the vents was quite warm; much warmer than ambient. It also didn’t cool off as I drove. The AC works great in this car and turning it on brought vent air temp to cold. I let that run for a while and then turned it off. As I drove, the air coming out of the vent warmed back up to, maybe, a little warmer than ambient but not as warm as it had been.

Right now I am leaning to heat soak. When the car is cold, the controls seem to be working correctly... But could whatever is controlling the air flow to be either through the heater core or around it (so it is passing ambient air to the vents) be sticking if everything is hot? That I don’t know as I can’t tell from what I have observed. I’ll have to think on how to check that out further... More to come...

 

We are headed into what I have come call “spider season”. It starts in early August, spiders of all sorts come out to spin their webs. Webs between everything. On a morning with heavy dew, I have even seen them between the power line wires high up on telephone poles. I am alway intrigued by their web designs and structures. With a heavy dew and an early morning sun, they are artistic and stunning to behold. A wonder to behold.

I have an E-Z Up canopy over Albert (4 cars and a 2 car garage) and yesterday this is what I found, strung between the bonnet of Albert, the windshield and the structure of the E-Z Up:


Look closely! The spider is in the center and the web is all around her.

The picture is taken looking down onto Albert’s bonnet. If you look closely you will see the shadow of the spider on Albert’s bonnet. The spider itself was suspended about a foot above the bonnet on its web.

The white strip is the white stripe part of the black and white bonnet stripe on Albert’s bonnet. The tan tinge to Albert’s normally black bonnet is the reflection of the light coming through the E-Z Up canopy cover. You have to look closely to see the web. It was a small spiral, only about 6” - 10” around, but its support threads stretched from the E-Z Up, which is about 4 feet above.

My big surprise was a few days ago when I went to get into Smokey. It was quite a surprise to see that a spider had gotten into him and built a web between the headliner, the steering wheel and the seat. It was like she was going for a drive... I heard the web threads snap as I opened the door and she came swing out on a broken thread and escaped. Not sure what she was going to catch, as the car was closed up, but that thought didn’t detour her from her night’s task...

 

But not yet for Albert. Albert has to live vicariously through Smokey for that interest. And Smokey did the MINI world proud these last couple of days at Watkins Glen International. This is just a sampling of what was attracted to this event:


There is something timeless about the lines that were penned to create the original Mustang.

BimmerWorld brought their two Blancpain GT series race cars to this event. Monsterously fast, both of them.

TC class (240i based):

Someone say “race car”... This is just a track day...

AM class car (I think it is a GT4 BMW)

And a faster race car...

The go-fast bits. Very elegant...

Race car go-fast parts

Brakes befitting any worthy race car:

And its go-slow parts. Yes, they are as big as an 8 cut pizza... and won’t fit a MINI, no matter how much I wish they did..

So, I don’t know what this is, but it must be fast (or will be if the ECU ever gets figure out what is wrong with it).

This looked fast just sitting there, which it did most of the time as the owner tried to work the bugs out of the ECU...

We are going to miss the big bore Corvettes when they leave IMSA racing. I’ll need to find this car once and a while to get my “rumble fix”

7 liters of American muscle to power a “2 lbs” car and associated steamroller tires to get that power to the ground... Toyo did themselves proud with these tires.

Smokey, while not as quick as these, did get some complements for being being able to “book-it” around the track. Very good 2 days.

 

It turns out that I have been overly harsh with my criticism of the seats in Albert. There is a lot to like about the F56 JCW sports seats. I just finished driving in Smokey for 3+ hrs; the same trip I took in Albert a few weeks back. While I do like the seats Smokey better than the JCW seats for long distance riding, the difference is smaller than I originally was thinking. And, I was feeling some of the same pain in Smokey’s seats as I did in Albert’s. So I have developed a plan for Albert’s seats:

I posted the above in another thread (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4487191). So it seems that I am not the only one to struggle with the MINI seats. But I am also not going to blame the MINI seats in total (I wish they had more lumber support, though). It has been a rarity that I have found a car seat I can sit in for any length of time. So, I will take on a good part of the blame for this one.

 

Albert’s life has been quiet lately, but I have ordered a sheep skin fleece for the seat bottom. I found:


Motorcycle seat sheep skin

While a little be large, the price was right and it is intended to be cut to fit. I am hoping that it will resolve or at least help with some bottom side pressure points that I seem to have.

Like I said before, I am moving away from the idea the JCW seats are my main problem; I am seeing this more as my problem and plan to work on it in that respect. Hence the fleece. It helped me in my Jeep.

And another part of my problem was a true Homer Simpson moment...

Dho!

Now how could I not remember that, not only does the steering wheel move up and down, it moves in and out. How novel is that? Dho! So I moved it back (out?) a bit and moved my seat back a couple of clicks... So, like Homer Simpson with a donut, Yyuuummmm... Much better now. Relief from a few of those pressure points. This has been a good start.

 

That looks like a modified M4 and the engine bay looks just like my friend's except removing the dumb plastic cover so simpletons would not be overwhelmed by all the mind dazzling parts we called engine. I despise those make-neat cosmetic covers that are all too common nowadays.

Upon more careful inspection I see the GT4 sticker on the side, so it must be a GT4 as you noted.






My friend normally drives a NB Miata, and last year he told me he dislike the M4 as it is too ponderous. However he changed his mind this year after some minimal track upgrades with tires and brakes, and may be suspension.

 

Nice car. Love the non traditional BMW color...

My cousin has a M2 that is a few years old. He too has done minimal stuff to it. Brake pads first (a Padgid endurance race pad), then tires (Michelin PS 2 I think) and now camber plates. It seems these are really track capable cars, just without the bits to make it a reasonable street car. This is my hope for Albert. He seems to include good track parts already in him and should just needs brake pads, tires and camberplates.

A thing I just noticed on the race car is a real oil dip stick. Wow, will wonders never cease. Apparently, the electronic oil measurement system BMW uses, which I have on my JCW and literally takes minutes to run, is not race worthy. And, also, did you notice that along with covering up the engine, BMW has also covered up the brake fluid reservoir? Yup, no access to brake fluid by the common man or woman.

 

That blue M4 GT4 sure have some crazy amount of front camber. And those brakes are something to behold.

You are right about the other covers that hide the brake fluid so out of sight out of mind. They also covered up the strut brace also but I suspect that make the the cabin quieter at speed.

My Porsche has the same pointless electronic dipstick. It is a major PITA when you change oil unless you are meticulous and able to accurately measure the oil that you put in, so not have to rely on the binary brains to give you the belated second guessed level. All these drivers' aids and mechanics' aids facilitate people not to use their heads. Most mechanics here in this continent are just part swapping clerks, and very good in making you pay for their needlessly swapped out parts. It seems the ones over in UK are much more professional. Thankfully I have never had anyone other than myself service my vehicles, except mounting and balancing wheels that is something I cannot do.

Since day one Desire has never returned to the dealer even for "free" scheduled maintenance.

 

And the GP3 is getting a different gage cluster:

This would be better than what I have....

 

Errant fingers strayed across the iPad while watching a YouTube video of a lap around VIR in the PFAFF Porsche prior to this year’s IMISA race and this video popped up:


This is how it looks today, which a lot of people already know:


I didn’t realize that it was as recent as 1999 that VIR was restored. This is a track that I would like to try out but it will take some planning as it is a long trip for me. This may be a trip for Albert to take

 

How many times in you life, as a motor head, would you ever get to see one of your most favorite and iconic race cars actually running on a race track. Well, the other day, I got to see on of mine - the Ford GT40. Well, not quite the original, but a duplicate. It was every bit as great as seeing one of the originals, which I doubt I would ever see on a race track...


By today’s standards, it is amazing that this thing survived in a race, well enough alone win at Le Mans. With its tiny 15” wheels, which restricted the brake size to something like 12” rotors, tall sidewall tires and 4 speed transmission it had to take a masterful driving skills to just make a lap in this car. Amazing!

 

Or call it cushy tushy... Whatever...

A few days ago Albert got his sheep skin fleece motorcycle seat cover. Darn, I thought I ordered black. Well, silver-gray will match what is left of my hair on top of my head....


Fleece for the seat...

I have only been out with this in the car a little bit, but so far, so good (Smokey has been occupying my time at the track the last few days). I am looking forward to having a longer trip in Albert to see if helps. If it does, I’ll trim it up a bit so it fits better. I had originally thought to trim it to fit just the seat bottom, but having tried it with it up and over the bolstering I may change my mind. I also have not tried the seat heaters. Supposedly, the fleece seat covers I have in the Wrangler do not have an ill affect on seat heaters. I would expect this to be the same. Then, again, I may not need the seat heater with this on there...