CMMC Spring Drive 2009/B-Day

Last weekend we had our first drive of the season. It was very cool with a portion of the drive being three traffic circles in a row! That made it very fun. It was also the 4 year mark of my MINI's build date. Check out my photos below and everyone else's photos on the CMMC page. Great weather and great times!

Google RSS Ads

Just about everywhere on the internet, there is at lease one kind of advertisement that competes for our attention. dcMINI is no exception but I have tried to minimize there impact (no pun intended) and make the content of those ads be relevant. Now they have started to trickle in my RSS reader too. Not a huge deal but when I start to see wrinkle creme ads on Motoringfile, it starts to give me the wrong idea. And to make things worse, there is no division from what is the add to the content of the article (see image). There's gotta be a better way.

30,000th mile

I hit the 30k mark over the weekend! And my fourth year of ownership is just around the corner too. If you click on the image you can even see exactly where it happened with the embedded geotagging info displayed to the right.

The MINI is still running strong, although I hate to think I am feeling an itch for a new one. We'll see. That Clubman is looking better and better every time I look at it. We even stopped by the dealer to ask some questions and wet our lips. FYI, the 2.9% financing MINI is offering only applies to those who take delivery now. Who knows when that offer will end so even if we were to order one, by the time it were to get here, it might not be offered.

WGN Courtesy Desk

Not terribly MINI related but funny none the less. I sent in a comment a while back to the WGN morning news and I came across this viral video response from last summer. Enjoy!


direct link

Counterfeit MINI Spotted

I came across this fake MINI while driving around Woodfield this past weekend. This has to be a real "fake" from the MINI advertising campaign from a while back. I just couldn't stop laughing! It even had a tacked on MINI spoiler that was just hilarious.

2009 Chicago Auto Show

Last weekend I headed out to the 2009 Chicago Auto Show. I had gone a few years ago also so it was interesting to compare the two. This year was certainly less over the top than previous shows. Gone was the huge monster trucks and gas guzzlers, replaced with more efficient hybrid concepts and production vehicles. I was sure to check out the new Prius, Insight and Volt. Those three certainly had the most traffic. I think the Volt is going to be a great seller once it gets in the hands of the public.

As for the MINI, they too seemed to cut back. Last time I was there, they had a second floor section for MINI owners with free food and beverages, very nice. This time, it was simple. The new convertible was there but it was nothing new in my view. I still like the Clubman and still scratching my head over the ill designed center stack.

This year I didn't quite make it for the CMMC drive since it was also Valentine's Day, but we did get our hands on some free tickets. We headed down there a bit after the CMMC crowd. Check out my picts below of what I found interesting at the show.

First Oil Change

Well, not exactly. The MINI has gone through three oil changes from the dealer under the service warranty. But those times have come and gone so it was time to get it done on my own. So Last weekend I got my hands on some ramps, oil, a filter from the dealer, a "how to" and some free time. I had just about all the bases covered except some decent tools. I attempted to loosen the oil plug but that thing was on there tight! I busted my socket just trying to get that thing to budge. (mental note: get better tools)

So I chickened out and took it to a local mechanic by my office. Nice guy, knowledgeable and competent in BMWs and now MINIs. I slipped him a twenty and he took care of the rest. Well worth it if you ask me for some peace of mind and no oil under my finger nails. ;-) I'm almost at 30k miles and the MINI is feeling great. I have been driving it all week since we have been unseasonable warm.

The Lowest Range

Oh man! That was close. Yesterday morning I noticed that I was a bit low on gas. No problem, I thought, I'll just stop at the gas station on the way home. Well, something came up and before I knew it, I was on the highway with about 3 miles left on the OBD and about 5 miles left to the nearest station. Yikes! So I kept an eye on this for the rest of the ride. As soon as I hopped off the highway, the number jumped to 4 and by the time I rolled in the gas station it read 5 miles. I guess with the reduced speed, I actually made some gas appear from nowhere. Whew, I sweated there a little. Now, the MINI has a nice full tank and all is well.

The Office's Mindy Kaling Drives a MCSa

We can another celebrity to the list of MINI owners. From what I can tell, its an R53 ('05 or '06) CR/W MCSa with nav, sunroof and anthracite dash. Very nice combo. Check out this NAM Thread for other notable celebrities with MINIs like Harry Potter's Rupert Grint, and Jimmy Fallon.

2010 Prius vs 2010 Insight

Toyota finally premiered the 2010 3rd gen Prius. Overall it looks somewhat different, especially the interior. An improvement from 46 mpg to 50 mpg is a key mental jump but certainly not anything near the 100 mpg that had been rumored a while ago. The exterior is definitely Prius although there is a slight improvement in the lines. It's not so odd looking. The car appears smaller even though they tout more rear legroom than before. The optional solar panel roof is nice but is it really that useful? It is simple to ventilate the cabin on those hot days while parked. I also have a feeling that they are doing away with the display monitor as standard. All that info has moved to the instrument panel above. Although there will be the option for gps of course.

I am really not as excited about the new Prius as I thought I would be. The overall improvement just isn't there yet. I think I like the new Honda Insight a lot more now. It now has a back seat though it trails the Prius in mpg ratings at about 41. I also like the fact that the motor does not turn off while you drive. And the price is more to my liking. Under 20k for this make it very appealing to more people. This might be a great choice for my next daily driver. My current one has seen better days.

Check out the videos from cnettv.com of the Insight and the Prius. The insight is said to be availible as soon as April of this year while the Prius is coming sometime ing the Spring.

Better Milage than a MINI? Surprised?

I don't think so. Seriously, there's a bunch of things that are misleading with this commercial. First off, they are comparing the hybrid model Escalade to a non hybrid MINI. If a hybrid model MINI existed it would certainly blow them out of the water.

Then they are comparing it to a MCSa convertible, which of all the models has the worst gas milage rating. MINI often advertises their best rating which is 37hwy/28city, almost double what they are advertising. I understand they are trying to make a point by juxtaposing their hybrid with the MINI and not necessarily saying by this Escalade instead. I couldn't imagine someone being in the market for these two polar opposites.

What's really funny is that GM/Cadallac then proceeds to tell you the price of the non hybrid model instead of what they just showed in the same commercial. I have seen this done in numerous advertisements from GM where they show you one model and tell you the price of something different. I wish they would be proud enough to just say the price of what they are showing instead of pulling a bait and switch. This all seems to be a desperate plea from a company that still has not done enough to adjust to the changing market. They need to get their act together pronto!

The New dcMINI

As the new year approaches, I thought I would play a bit with old blog and bring it up to date. I went ahead and sifted through the old blog links and got rid of the dead ones and found a blog template that I liked. Let me know what you think.

Just to get you familiar with what I have done, to the left is a list of MINI related sites that I stay up to date on. The cool thing is that the order of the list is based on which one has the most recent post. The same thing goes for the MINI Blog list to the right. If you want to be added to the blog list just let me know. On the left I also added a slideshow of recent picts from my online photos.

Happy New Year!

Fluid Leak/Air Bag Light

I had a couple issues pop up recently that warranted a quick trip to the service department. The first was a reoccurring issue with the air bag light going on when I had a passenger in the car. The second and more troubling was a fluid leak. I noticed spot on my garage floor earlier last week so I did a little investigating but I could not tell where the leak was coming from. I snapped a couple of picts of the leak under the car

So I dropped off the car on Thursday night and let them take a peek. They found the leak was due to a faulty gasket at the temperature sensor of the coolant. Turns out that the thick fluid that I initially thought was oil was actually coolant. They quickly replaced the entire sensor with the gasket. As for the airbag light, they ended up replacing the seat sensor which essentially requires to replace the entire bottom of the seat including the cushion.

So now my MINI is back in my garage and running great. I am glad I was still under warranty for these items.

Mini, Ooh Yeah!

A few months ago, Moby held a contest to direct the video to the song Ooh Yeah. The video features a naughty classic Mini carwash, circa 1972. Good stuff. Watch to see if they clean behind the wipers! Ooh Yeah! Don't worry, it's not real porn. Just don't let anyone see you watch it at work. ;-)
Official music video for "Ooh Yeah" from Moby's new album Last Night (out now on Mute). Directed by Matteo Bernardini © Mute Records 2008. YouTube

MINI E

I have always been intrigued by logo designs, especially ones with a good concept. The MINI E badge is no exception as it not only clever but very well executed. The most recent one I was impressed with was Obama's Logo but I think MINI has a great one at bay. Kudos to MINI for putting the thought into this branding. I love the play with negitive space and the resulting plug that appears.

It's great to see how MINI is taking on the energy crisis head on. Hopefully this will be a successful endeavor and will result in these being available to the general public. I would certainly buy into this concept if it weren't for a few minor drawbacks. One being that not everyone has a garage to plug in the car every night.

Only lockable garages or similar buildings will qualify as homebases and power stations for the MINI E

If there were numerous methods to "fill up" and if it were at the very minimum just as fast and convenient as conventional gas, then I think this would catch on instantly. Read more about the MINI E on Motoringfile.

MC in Nobel Son

Professor Snipe returns! Here's a new movie that features an R50 as a full size remote control MINI Cooper that runs a muck in a shopping mall. Looks like it might be funny but it's no Italian Job. Check out the trailers at apple or at the official movie site. It should be out by December 5th so look for it then.

B&W Stamp

Just having a little fun with photoshop. This one is a little like an ink blot. what do you see?

Here are some more images I messed around with.

Good to be in Chicago

You can feel the air is thick with excitement. I hope we make history today.

dcmini Web Stats

It is interesting to see where dcmini visitors are coming from. Here are a few maps that describe this rather clearly. To read the maps, keep in mind that the darker the green area is the higher number of visitors came from there. The maps are from google's analytics service that is tied into the blogger services that they provide. All for free and quite the resource.

World Visitors


From that you could see that the US is still very strong among world visitors.  But it is nice to see that there are some people stopping by from Europe, Asia and Austrailia.  Even some from Africa and South America.

United States Visitors


That was surprising. Apparently most of you are from the great state of California (Beautiful state I might add). I wonder if this is proportional to the number of MINI dealers in each state. I notice no hits from Montana or Maine. Where as California has the most hits with its four major MINI markets.

CA and IL Visitors

Starved Rock 2008

From Starved Rock Run 2008

Once again I joined the CMMC crew for a wild drive down to Starved Rock. Wind was fierce on Sunday, causing us to be a bit more cautious while taking the back roads.

From Starved Rock Run 2008

It was a bit like an obstacle course in parts so it was fun. As usual check out everyone else's picts at the CMMC post and my picts below. Thanks to Arnie and Lena for taking a picture of us during the drive shown above. My picts can be found here. Happy Motoring!