JJ - you make us Hyper Blue owners proud! great pics. I've been trying to get a great pic of Grover but haven't "gotten" it yet. the weather here has been off and on rainy a lot. but it will be hard to beat one with the Rockies in the background! I'm pretty sure you have a clear bra on Merlin, but did you worry at all about driving on the dirt road? i would have been too obsessed with getting rock chips to drive it I think! yes, the boot gets dirty quick and so do those web spoke wheels, which are tricky to clean. I keep thinking i've gotten every inch of grime off them, only to come out the next day and see a few spots i missed. happy motoring!

 

Beautiful car, JJ. And nice photos. The great scenery helps.

Glad you're enjoying Merlin!

 

Hi all!

Thanks for the good thoughts. I've actually had zero pain for several days now, which is great, but makes me worried - I don't think there's any way I could have passed the stone so fast, so I don't know where it went!

I got the MCAW working with my garage-door opener! Randy, at www.mcaw.info, was great giving online support and offered to take back the unit and modify it for my opener. Luckily, I remembered that my daughter had a generic opener that ran off 9 volts, which works with the MCAW. I swapped openers with her and now it's all working! It's very cool and much cheaper than the Mini factory option.

Now I need this: http://outmotoring.com/remote_contro...up_module.html so I can close the windows from the remote. Anyone have this? Easy to install?

Another question, related to this: the remote buttons on my key (unlock, hold to open windows) are a pain to use. Sometimes I have to press it many times and/or press it really hard. My old-style '03 key wasn't at all like this - it always responded with no problem. Are all the new-style keys like this, or did I get a dud?

Later,

David

 

My key is the same, really have to press a lot and be close-close to the car, even with the "chin" trick. I was going to switch to the second key and see how it does, but with your experience it might not matter.

 

I'm having a tough time too, trying every silly trick to get my windows to roll down as I'm locking the car. I think the second key is a good idea - who knows? Also, my car still smells like burnt plastic, which my MA said is normal. How is that normal?

 

Yeah, I'm at 28, at 355 miles. I bike in the city, so it's pretty much been all freeway driving, give or take 10 miles. I need more days off to get past the break in period! At this rate it will be months.

JJ, those pictures are really great! Really warm background against the blue of your car; looks wonderful.

 

It's normal. My wife's MINI did it when hers was new, and mine is like that now. I'm attributing it to the various coatings/treatments/protectants that are all over the car - on the engine, on the exhaust system, etcetera. They'll burn off after a few thousand miles, I'm sure. My wife's car has about 6800 miles on it, and the burnt smell is almost completely gone.

Scott

 

Ditto. I had a 100mile drive home from the dealer and almost turned around and took it back, I was so worried about the smell ("This CAN'T be normal," I thought). But I haven't noticed it after the first few hundred miles...

 

Maybe my nose is broken, I have no burning smell, just a nice clean, new car smell.

 

My BMW does the same thing. I have to be within 5 feet of it or it won't work.

 

[quote=eenieMini;1212818]The XM was so simple took less than 10mins...The XM attenna was easy... put it right behind the radio antenna (has magentic bottom)...[quote]

I think you might really find this trick interesting for XM attenna placement. One of the guys here in the Atlanta MINIs auto club has done this and really likes it. I checked it out and it is slick. The best part is that it's relatively hidden from theives. Something to think about...

 

Just wondering if any of you have gone past break-in yet? I am almost there and should get there by the weekend! I was wondering how many of you plan to get an oil-change after break in (or how many of you already have), and what your thoughts are on whether it is actually needed this early.

I am also seriously thinking about throwing on the 15% pulley I just bought as soon as I get past break-in. I wanted to wait, just in case I had any warranty issues I needed the dealer to take care of, but 3 years is a long time! And I also talked to LB Mini, and my MA said getting a 15% pulley would only void part of my warranty, and that they would take care of everything else so long as it wasn't a problem that was caused by the pulley. I'm so conflicted....should I wait, or should I go for it? I've only had my car for a month and haven't run into any issues so far, so thats a good sign at least. Right now I'm leaning towards just getting it installed, but I hope it won't come round to bite me in the end.

 

do it usc! btw... you should come to the 'super secret orange county mini club' meet this sunday... would be fun to meet and have a beer or somethin

 

Sounds like fun. I'll try and make it if I can, but this weekend I'm super busy. Though it would be cool to meet some NAMers in person, and the beer is always a plus!

 

I passed break in a couple of weeks back (and gloated about it in this thread with a photo) - YeeHaw. Car comes to life at 5000 RPM.

Anyway, I DID change my oil at 1350 miles. There are MANY debates on NAM regarding whether it's "necessary". In general the armchair metallurgists, environmentalists, and synthetic oil evangelists say "not necessary - synthetic oil lasts a long, long time and modern engines doesn't wear that fast". The older-than-dirt crowd like me who have actually worn out engines due to oil issues, or who have made engines live for several hundred thousand miles, say "I'm planning on keeping the thing forever, and it's cheap insurance to get out anything that MIGHT be in there." So I changed mine. And I'll do it again at 6000. And I'll do it between every "recommended" dealer change.

My recommendation is do whatever feels good - at least as far as changing the oil goes. It's your vehicle. You know how long you expect to keep it. You know whether it only needs to live as long as the warranty, or for 2 years beyond that, or for the next 20 years. I'm planning on 20 years+

 

I'm hip with Compensating on the oil change thing. Right after breakin and at about 6,000 and between the recommendeds.
I plan on the 15% pulley and CAI right after breakin.
That's what's in store for Merlin anyway. Did I mention that I darn near hit a deer last Saturday? The brakes and steering preformed flawlessly. Darn deer didn't even give me a MINI wave.

 

Just out of curiosity, what did the oil change cost you? I know with synthetics they run higher...

 

[quote=Gr8Force;1217219][quote=eenieMini;1212818]The XM was so simple took less than 10mins...The XM attenna was easy... put it right behind the radio antenna (has magentic bottom)...Thanks I actually looked at that thread before I installed mine. I have a coupe though not a cabrio. I'm very satisfied with the placement of the antenna though I did consider taking apart the oem one.

 

Did it myself. $21 for oil and $9 for the filter. Not too hard - lots of detailed instructions elsewhere on NAM. I hear the dealers charge as much as $90.

But no way, no how am I going to let any pimply-faced-quickie-oil-change-center-psuedo-mechanic touch my MINI. With apologies to you thousands of pimply-faced MINI owners out there...

(They aren't likely to have the filters anyway - and they'd probably just stare at the oil filter canister and wonder how to get it off, and then overtorque the bejeesus out of it and the plug when they reinstalled. )

Actually, I'm not even particularly keen on letting the dealer change my oil after some of the horror stories I've heard about THEM overtorquing and cross-threading stuff...

I'm probably going to get one of those vacuum oil "suckers" from Griot's cause it will make it significantly easier to change... vs. jacks/ramps and removing the little cold air duct that's right under my oil plug...

But now I'm rambling.... damn geezer...

 

In the Denver area they run about $70.00, if you do it yourself it's about half that.

 

Pedantry: it's not really metallurgy, it's tribology And I'm not an armchair tribologist, I'm a professional one (with all those expensive papers on the wall).

In general, it's not something to lose sleep over, especially if you've been good to your car during the break-in period. And synthetics are way better than dino juice for this sort of thing. But it also doesn't hurt to change it, and anyone that gives you a hard time about it is just getting worked up over a minor issue. There's too many other things that can factor into engine life in most cases to state anything with certainty.

 

Rachael,

I'm off to BA on Sunday, didn't you spin records down there?

 

foomanchu... not rachael here, but can give you lots of recommendations on BA if you want... although it looks like you travel quite a bit, so perhaps you already have/know.

 

Did I SAY tribologist? Then I wasn't talkin' to YOU...
Just what we need in this discussion - a REAL expert - geesh...

But I absolutely agree - nothing for anybody to get worked up about either way - to each his/her own - but if I choose to be an automotive phlebotomy fetishist, I appreciate you respecting my right to waste my money on frequent transfusions of non-dino-based lubricants, whether Lil' Blue needs them or not...

And yep, if the MINI blows out its oil pressure sensor and drops all its oil through the hole and doesn't have a sensor left to tell me anything's wrong (like my last car did) then it really won't matter how often I changed it -

 

And all this time I thought a tribologist was one who studied tribles.
"If we don change the antimatterrr plasma activatorrr soon, she won hold togetherrr Cap'in!"
Live long and prosper.