Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

Every October, the Monadnock Area Mini Association holds its “Come to MAMA” event, featuring fun drives through areas of southwestern New Hampshire. This past Saturday we drove through the towns of Rindge, Jaffrey, Peterborough, Greenfield, Francetown, Bennington, and Hancock. Unfortunately mother nature did not have any extreme weather for us like last year, and there was only one infamous U-Turn. There were over 50 MINIs in attendance and we all had a great time. I took the opportunity to shoot a number of photos, so click here for the gallery. You can also look through my galleries from 2005 and 2004.

Aquapel – This week I finally applied a new coat of Aquapel to my windshield. I had not applied it since the application from my Aquapel vs. Rain-X test back in February! Before doing so, though, I misted the clean car so you could see the evidence:

After over eight months, the difference is still night and day! Aquapel is still working on the driver’s side where it was applied, and the wiper did not remove it. I do think its effectiveness was slightly reduced over time, perhaps requiring an extra 10mph for it to really work, but I bet you could get away with an entire year with one eight-dollar application. That is amazing. The big reason I needed to re-apply aside from the dropping temperatures is the passenger side never had any, and I often received complaints when they couldn’t see out the window in the rain. 🙂 It’s depressing now seeing the thousands of chip marks in the soft mini windshield glass, compared to the day I first applied aquapel when it was brand new.

Forever Black – It took a few extra weeks before I had the time to apply it to all my trim after Forever Black won my final trim test, but I am so much happier. My trim now looks like it did a few years ago. I have no idea if it will last “forever” but here is the first test patch I made before conducting the comparison tests, this photo taken two months after application. As long as it lasts this long, that is what I was looking for. Of course if you want it to look even better there’s no reason why you can’t add a regular temporary trim dressing over it.

06 MINI Cooper – I’ve had a good chance to “review” the base mini as I get to drive my girlfriend’s cooper once in a while. Not only around town, but a trip to New Hampshire and the autocross course at the recent MOP event. We’ve all heard it before, but it’s nice to experience the fact that the base mini still has all the go-cart fun factor of a Works S twice its price. Of course without the “go” but it makes you appreciate mini’s wonderful handling. In fact, it feels like it handles even better, no doubt from the lower weight as steering feels easier. The one thing I can’t stand, though, is the transmission. I know they changed it to a Getrag in ’05, but it feels just like a Honda transmission to me: Like a wooden stick in a bucket of rocks. And the horribly loud reverse synchros as well, that you must come to a complete stop to so much as move the stick into reverse. The Space Blue is such a great color, I’ve found times where walking around I could see it change from navy blue to green to purple and almost black in darker light; yet in the sun it is a bright sparkly deep blue.

Unlike other cars, few MINIs are bought from dealer stock; most are ordered specifically for the customer. Not only does this process allow you to get your specific choice of thousands of options, but MINI also allows you to track your MINI’s progress through the order process. You can do so with a generalized 5-step status on MINI’s Owner’s Lounge site, but thanks to the internet you can find much much more information to help with the excruciatingly suspenseful wait for your MINI! I went through this with my MINI before this blog existed (see my car log page for some of the history), but I had the opportunity to go through it all again with my girlfriend’s mini.

When you place an order for a MINI, your Service Advisor (SA) will find a slot in the dealership’s monthly allocation and then give you a production number. Once the computer systems are updated with your order, you can enter that production number into the owner’s lounge and verify the order. You can then ask your SA or call 1-866-ASK-MINI to find out the estimated Production Week. This is the week number (the first week of the calendar year is Week 1) that your MINI should be made barring any major delays at the factory. While you are waiting for time to pass to get to that week, log on to the First Gear forum on NAM or the Delivery, Shipping & Order Tracking forum on MINI2 where you can converse with many others in your same production week or month. Waiting is much easier with company!

When your production week rolls around, you can check the owner’s lounge for an updated status, but you may also want to call ASK MINI and speak to a human. Their information is a day or two more up to date on the web site, and also more specific. They can even tell you what stage of production your car is in as it moves through the factory! It’s always fun to find someone in the forum who is in the paint shop at the same time as you, for example.

ASK MINI and the Owner’s Lounge usefulness ends, however, when your MINI is “born” from the end of the production line. At this point you should have your car’s VIN number, not only enabling you to get the ball rolling with your insurance company, but allowing you to monitor its voyage across the Atlantic. Most (but not all) MINIs are shipped via Wallenius Wihelmsen (WW), and if so you can track your MINI on their tracking website. Select Auto Cargo and enter your VIN as the tracking number. It will show up if it has been pre-booked for a ship as shown on the bottom line in the picture below.

First it takes 1-3 days to be transported via train from the factory here in Oxford to the docks here in Southampton. The very top photo shows many MINIs waiting to be loaded on a ship at the Southampton port. From the cargo tracking WW page, click on the Voyage ID to see when the ship is planned to be in each port. Often you will find it is on its way from Germany or elsewhere to Southampton, and you can estimate when it will hit American shores. Anything in red means it has already completed that line.

If you really want detail you can sign up for a free account over at AISLive and track your ship in and around the port of Southampton. They show you all the boats in port but you have to be quick as they are near-live! I caught it when it was already sailing out.

For the long voyage across the atlantic, some captains choose to publicly transmit weather data, of use to other boats making the trek. If they choose to do so (and the WW ships usually do), you can plot the positions of their reports at SailWX. Over time, you will see the path your MINI takes across the pond!

This is a good time to find out more information about your MINI’s week at sea. Search the internet for your ships name, or look on WW’s fleet page for photos and technical stats on your boat. You can also copy the booking number from your cargo status page, and enter that into the booking number tracking; you will get a list of all the VINs of fellow MINIs on the cruise with yours. Ours had 174! If weather participates, you should be in port on the scheduled date. Sometimes there is a day or two delay as they wait for space to unload all the cars.

Once your MINI is on US soil, the final and toughest part of your wait occurs at the VDC. No one, including your MA and ASK MINI, has an update on any progress at that time. The Vehicle Distribution Center is where the cars are unloaded off the boats, inspected, repaired of any shipping damages (Yes it happens, and can cause an extra week delay!), and loading onto trucks to be sent to your dealer. Read this thread on NAM to get a behind-the-scenes peek at what happens at the California VDC.

If all goes well, after a few days your MINI will be on a covered truck and on the road to your dealership. Your MA should be aware of the truck on its way and should let you know your MINI will be there very soon! Have a look at my photo gallery from an event last year where a truck dropped off MINIs while we were at the dealership for an event…It felt like the driver was putting on a show for us! Your wait is almost over as your dealer does the final prep and performs any accessory installations, and waits for the final paperwork to go through. Before you know it you get that call you’ve waited weeks for!

Today my MINI got a new companion: My girlfriend Sam picked up her new Space Blue/Grey MINI Cooper!

She wanted to replace her aging Golf with something fun and practical, but there were no intentions of getting a MINI, nor was I encouraging it as something different would be more practical. Of course she loves minis and was always jealous of the fun I had driving in the many mini events she’s been a passenger on. We test drove a number of cars she liked including the Versa and the Mazda 3, and were really just planning to take a MINI drive for kicks. She didn’t know stick to drive mine so we stopped by MINI of Peabody to drive a Cooper with CVT. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you what happened next; within half a mile she was in love!

The MINI was several thousand above the price range of the other cars Sam was looking at, but thanks to its top residual value the lease rates were actually LESS than the other cars! So she placed an order at the end of August for a base SB/G MINI with no option but a MFSW. Through September we went out once a week to practice driving stick. Within a month, her mini was here!

She has a few days to get a lot more practice driving so she can participate in this Sunday’s MOP driving event and BBQ. Huge thanks go out to Joel, Vinny, and Elise at MINI of Peabody for making such a quick order and delivery, and for dealing with some nightmarish registration issues with the Mass RMV–even taking some of their own time after hours to get things straightened out! As usual, MOP went above and beyond.