If anyone in the Andrews Air Force Base area knows anything about brakes, or R53 brakes in particular, my wife has something that has apparently come loose (she thinks the parking brake) on her '04 MCS. I'm not there and can't help much which is why I'm calling out to the MINI community to see if they can help. She's heading towards FL/GA tonight, so if anyone along the way knows something, maybe she can meet you? Whatever it loose is apparently hitting the wheel weight on each rotation and if she's got well over 500 miles to cover it would be nice to have a little peace of mind with the car.

 

87 people have read this REQUEST FOR HELP and nobody has anything to say or suggest? WTF? Some community here.

My wife has crossed the NC line enroute to Atlanta, and the current diagnosis is a broken shock mount.

 

maybe wheel weight undone and clipping caliper???
there is just not enough details to give suggestion and I am in CA.
Maybe have her stop by Way Motor Works there in Atlanta.

 

That's the current plan. She's got Way's number...but is still a few hours out. Thanks for the tip! I got a cell phone pic e-mailed to me here in Germany...but it's an older phone so the quality is so/so.

 

Orangecrush or Mark is from around the NC area. He owns a couple of body shops and does a lot of work on Minis. Not sure how far your wife is from him. PM him and ask for him if he can help or knows people around that area that can.

 

One more thought. Does she have AAA?

 

We dropped AAA after they screwed us over on a $200 tow we had to pay for ourselves. I've got free towing from my insurance company now. She's still making decent time.

 

WOW, 87 people have read this and surely they are all right next to where she is located? I am up in Mass, sorry, I can't help. That being said, if she feels the car isn't safe to drive she needs to find a mechanic to take the car to right away and get off the road. Driving it all the way to a MINI specialist could cause more damage or worse, cause her to have an accident. There are plenty of competent mechanics that can work on MINIs, they are not "that" special. Once repaired, if she doesn't trust what was done, she could swing by Way to have it checked out.

As for your sig on Alta... Being military myself you need to understand that a company has to package the product up, fill out a customs form and haul it to the post office to get it to you. Why don't you use an APO/FPO service to do your business? There are numerous companies that don't ship APO/FPO so I used to use this company when I was in Germany...

http://www.shipitapo.com/home.php

Plastering on the forum that they "discriminate" because they can't or won't ship to APO is silly. Especially when the logistics to get this done could be cumbersome on the company and not something that they want or can afford to do. Last time I checked you were serving the country to sustain their right to choose this. There are, however, ways for you to get the product but YOU have to pay a little extra.

 

I am glad. Hope she continues to be running well. Keep us informed.

 

I think that there is a time and a place to criticize his sig and when his wife is in trouble and he needs help, we should be willing to try and address his issue and help first.

 

Dude this is a forum, not a mechanics shop... If his wife needs help she needs to pull over and get it. There is not much we can do for her here. As for the post on his sig, he put it out there. If he doesn't want to be criticized on it then he needs to remove it. I offered my .02 on what she should do before I moved on to the sig.

My wife thinks she is having problems with the brakes, what do I do?

Tell her to pull over and get it looked at.

Not hard to do. I'm not trying to be harsh just realistic. Trying to diagnose a problem while is on the go is not the way to do it and she could be unnecessarily putting herself in danger. Just pull over and get it fixed.... If I was local I would be more than happy to go help her if my time allowed for it.

 

You just sounded so callous. A little understanding goes a long way.

Dude, this is a forum. Following your good logic, he could put whatever he wants in his sig.

 

Sorry if I offended you... His post earlier was callous towards all the other members. I responded in kind....

Yep, and I am free to respond about his sig. Isn't the internet great?

Bottom line. If the car has issues, she should pull over and find a mechanic to look at it. At a minimum he can tell her if she is safe to continue driving it.

 

No issues. You are right about the op's e-mail as well. I chauked that up to a little spur of the moment stress. Just a little understanding goes a long way.

I hope she manages to find help and gets on her way w/o any more incidents.

 

Callous? Fine, I just tire of seeing videos of people that stand by while someone gets robbed, raped or injured and would rather watch or keep going and not be inconvenienced. Seeing that over 80 people read a thread where someone is asking for help, and knowing what the subject is about before opening it was probably not interested in helping in the first place, but anyways, yes, it sucks to be overseas and not be able to fix what I think is something simple, but is not to my wife.

Having looked at newer pictures in daylight I have confirmed a suspicion of mine. There lower rear shock cover on the driver's side is missing and the passenger side one came un-clipped and rotated 180 degrees, rubbing on the wheel and wheel weight. It's just a piece of rubber and of little concern. The other one must have come off during the February blizzard in D.C. that I had to drive across town in. You can see the part here:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1103/...ec93a72f75.jpg

As for my signature, you are not fully informed. My signature is TRUE. I went back and forth for several days and at least a half dozen e-mails about this. their final response was that they refuse to ship to soldiers and sailors with APO and FPO addresses because ONE package turned up missing and they were negligent to not have insured the package. They lost ONE package and we all are blacklisted from Alta because of it. That's fine with me because M7, who I have never bad things about their parts said that they will ship APO/FPO with NO problem. So they got my $1000-plus order, Alta's loss.

No, this isn't a mechanics shop. If it was I would have expected diagrams, pricing and parts lists. I was asking for input from those that have worked with these cars and know a lot about them. When I posted, everything else was closed. I thought that getting help from forum members was one of the reasons for having a forum. I sure didn't expect someone to flake out on me

 

So you assume that everyone is like this? 80 people that may not have a clue as to the problem with the car read your thread and you toss everyone under the bus. Frankly, I am tired of people taking things high and right.

Still not sure why your wife just didn't pull over and have it looked at by a mechanic. There is little that anyone on here could have done.

Here you are very wrong, I am aware of the situation with Alta as I have dealt with them while living in Heidelberg and Grafenwoehr. They have a legitimate reason for not doing business with APO/FPO. I have had more than one box lost by the military postal service and if that would have happened to you with Alta it is likely you would be with a sig that said...

I don't do business with Alta because my box was lost and they wouldn't refund my money!

As I said, you can go with an APO/FPO service if you really wanted to. It is THEIR choice to ship APO or not and they choose not to. This is not discrimination but rather a choice in how they do business. They are allowed to do this and I am certain that they ship to soldiers CONUS all the time. You live overseas, get used to it.

I was more than willing to try and help (I have numerous contacts all over) until I saw your attitude. Was I curt with you? Yep, but you deserved it don't you think considering you lumped everyone in the same category with an "I want it now" attitude. I understand you are stressed but you didn't give anyone time to really respond and most people are busy with their own lives. If you wife was worried she should have gotten help. You simply posted there were brake issue or something rubbing. You seem mechanically inclined so you know that this could be a number of things and many of them DANGEROUS! If my wife would have called me and told me this I would have instructed her to get off the road ASAP and get to a mechanic. No problems here as I won't flake out on you any longer.

FYI, you didn't ask for input, you asked for someone to go meet with her. That might be the reason why 80 people that were not in that area decided not to respond.

 

I'd like to thank the forum members that offered suggestions for resolving this issue, and not criticism. All is well and my wife is motoring on happily. No peanut gallery comments needed.

 

You're welcome! I hope that she gets it to a mechanic safely and gets it repaired whatever the problem is.

 

AGAIN, the problem is resolved...there was no problem and no need for a mechanic.

daflake, GO AWAY, YOU ARE NO HELP.

Alex, please delete this thread as the only issues here belong to the poster above.

 

In a simple request for help, I continue to find it unnerving that threads devolve into personal attacks and petty arguments. This thread is done. To the OP, I'm glad things are okay.

However, to all involved who chose to take a playground attitude in this, please tone it down in the future. This place would be a lot better without that kind of behavior.

Thread locked. Conversation over.