2005 to 2009

Five years ago today I walked into an Atlanta Mini dealer and ordered Mr. Q.

Wow. Has it really been that long? Mr. Q has aged well. During our time in Charlotte he had his hood replaced twice, windshield and side windows replaced, and new tires all around. (I wore those to within an inch of their life… literally). I relocated to Southern California, and rather than ship Mr. Q, we drove. The NavSystem went a little haywire, fading in and out of service the entire trip.

This was not the first time I’d driven cross country by myself, so you would think I would have learned to take a map. I figured I’d just use the map book that was in Mr. Q’s document folder. Know what? Every state isn’t in the map book. WHO DOES THAT?

California has treated Mr. Q much kinder than Charlotte did. Here he’s been in no accidents, and the only alteration to his self is I had to get a front plate holder mounted on his bumper. At the time I was working in downtown L.A., a few blocks from skid row. Like the police had nothing better to do than to pull me over and give me a warning? It went like this.

Officer: Is there a reason you don’t have a front plate?
Me: (Looking confused, I’d not had coffee yet.)
Officer: It’s why I pulled you over.
Me: Oh I wondered why y’all did that.
Officer: front plate?
Me: The car didn’t come with one. I just moved here from out of state.

They let me go with a warning. It was a $90 part. Fortunately BMW installed it for free.

A few days later I was pulled over again. At least it wasn’t for the damn plate. It was for speeding. I was 2 miles from home and had just come off the freeway. I was let go with a warning again. The officer took pity on the new resident.

What really saved me? Mr. Q’s still has his Atlanta license plate frame (course the front plate says Anaheim Angels). The back window still has the SmokyMountainMini.Org decal, and yeah I still have the NC inspection sticker on the front window. Fortunately my driver’s license was only a few months old. Never mind that I grew up here. I’m from out of state. Actually I'm pretty sure that if I didn't know how to drive hugging curves (as all Mini drivers do), and if I had drifted out of my lane I would have been ticketed in a heartbeat.

Mini’s are a dime a dozen here in CA. Even still, I’ve yet to see another IB/W (Indy Blue / White Roof), with an American flag on the roof. So even in this sea of automobiles, Mr. Q is still unique!

The Nav issues sorted themselves out, and I’m happy to say that Mr. Q is still a solid little car.

But now it’s time for this Blog to steer way from the Car, and move on to other things. (I’m too lazy to start a new blog). Mr. Q is now at about 87,000 miles. His adventures will still appear within this blog, but quite frankly in L.A. he spends a good deal of time sitting in traffic. Mr. Q has a manual transmission. It’s been fun, let me tell you!

Inspection I

My how time flies. Before Thanksgiving I had to decide whether to have Mr. Q serviced in Atlanta, where I’d be spending my holiday or in Charlotte. I opted to wait till I got home, and take him into Hendrick Mini.

Inspection I is a biggie, usually due up at around 30,000 miles. I had a few other things to take care of. I tend to store up the little things rather than make a lot of trips to the dealer. I REALLY hate going to dealers, and if not for the car still being under warranty, I’d chose an independent garage in a heartbeat.

The only thing they didn’t do that is part of inspection I is check my tire pressure. As previously mentioned, my tires are filled with nitrogen. The dealer doesn’t have a nitro tank so they left them alone. Other things I had done: my dome light was burned out. I didn’t want to attempt prying it off and breaking it. : ) My vanity mirror cover popped off. I thought I just wasn’t pressing it in hard enough, but turns out it was “missing an important piece.” Don’t know where the piece went. I’ve opened the vanity mirror about 3 times since I’ve owned Mr. Q. Wiper blades were replaced; the rear wiper motor and assembly were replaced. My driver’s window was readjusted; it hasn’t been closing properly since they replaced the motor.

I also picked up my touchup paint that had been on backorder for 3 months. I have a nasty door ding I got when I moved to Charlotte that I want to take care of. I also have a bad case of road rash on one tire from a pothole in Atlanta, and figured I’d try the roof white on the wheels.

The window seems to be fixed. It wasn’t raining when I left the dealer, so I forgot to try out the rear wiper to see if it is still making noise. The dome light is working fine. I have to go back next week for the vanity mirror since they had to order the part.

Next up for Mr. Q is a full detail. We’re in a Christmas parade on Friday and I want him looking nice n purdy.

While my car was in the shop I had a loaner car. A Cooper Convertible CVT. I only accidentally stepped on the brake once out of habit of putting in the clutch. : ) I got a little lost getting to work from the dealer. I sure wish the loaners had the SatNav in them. Since it was raining I had to keep the top up … dang those ragtops have some wicked blind spots.

In all, the service seems to have gone OK. Now I guess I wait for the dreaded strive for 5 call. I really hate those survey calls.

The boys at GA Tire Deopt

Mr. Q gets new tires from my friends at Georgia Tire Depot. I have been going to Dennis & Rodney for 8 years. I trust them implicitly with my car tire needs.

Q has runflats. I like them. I am in the Mini Motoring Minority. Most people hate their runflats. It’s a bit of a rough ride. Given that my other car is a 1978 corvette, don’t talk to me about a rough ride, k?

Rodney tells me to get runflats is going to cost me a small fortune. Okay, so I am not THAT attached to them. He recommends Toyo T1R’s and a couple cans of fix-aflat in the boot. Mr. Q doesn’t have a spare tire.

I go ahead and have him put these on. He asks me to drive around the block and let him know how I like them. Oh My God! All it took was driving off the lot and I could feel the handling difference. I just love these guys.

Now that my tires are new, I can tell the noise I’ve been hearing is from the driver’s window not being adjusted correctly. This I’ll wait on until I am up for Service 1 in about a month.

more squeaks, rattles n leaks

Mr. Q is back at the dealer today. Not only do I have the excessive road noise in the car now, I have a wide assortment of annoying squeaks and rattles. A glass on metal squeak has developed by my ear. Also, rain comes in the passenger’s window A very bad thing.

The Service Advisor, who by the way is not the guy who helped me my first trip into town, has tried to tell me it’s my tires. BS, try again. This guy is really pissing me off today. After several conversations I tell him if he says it’s my tires then fine, go ahead and put your own damn pair of tires on the car.

The next call I receive is they had some guy that used to work on airplanes drive Mr. Q and he hears the squeak, but he describes it as hail on glass. WHATEVER dude, told you it was making noise. Just fix the damn thing.

"you are not on a digitized road"

That’s what the navigation lady tells me as I’m trying to find my new office and get there on time for my first day.

It is now, in Charlotte that I realize I really need to fork over the $200 for an updated Navigation DVD. Still, old NavLady has been doing ok. I really don’t know how all the other folks from TN are finding their way around town. Suddenly I can’t remember what it was like to be in a new town and have to use map quest and map books and suck. Only now have I begun to think that the $1600 addition of the OEM navigation system was a wise investment.

I’ll prolly still continue to curse the NavLady. She has issues. Keeps guiding me to the east portion of a street instead of the west.

wind whistle

Charlotte to Atlanta

It’s Tax-Free weekend in Atlanta, and Bubba and I are gonna do some shopping. On my drive down I have noticed the windows aren’t quite right. It seems to be very loud inside the car. I can feel air coming through one window. Damn it. Back to the dealer I’ll have to go. 4 hours with your window whistling is just flat out annoying. No other words for it. I’ve noticed that anytime I’ve taken Mr. Q in for service, it’s never been taken care of in one trip. Is this a BMW thing or an English car thing? I have to wonder. Course the Corvette has been in the shop now for 2 months (I told them to take their time).

Window Service

Hendrick Mini

My MSA (Mini Service Advisor) seems like quite a nice guy. In the short time it took to set my car up for an appointment I learned he was a local, and could pretty much tell me how to get to anywhere I needed to in town. I just couldn’t break it to him that I had the navigation lady; he just seemed so nice (bless his heart).

The service was as expected. It took exactly the amount of time they said it would, and they gave Mr. Q a bath. Though they missed a big spot by the badge on the boot. Anyway, both windows go up n down now, and neither of them squeals. Yay. Time for a trip Uptown to look at the last 3 places on my list.’

Apartments are scare in Uptown. They rent quickly. Parking is also at a premium. Most of the places I looked at in Charlotte either had a carport or (GASP) on street parking. Oh that so would not do. Not only for Mr. Q, but eventually my Corvette will be joining me here. Although it looks like a piece o crap right now (flat gray paint for stealth mode), it still the car of my dreams. Q and the Vette definitely need covered parking. Because I am one person with 2 cars, I find it limits my housing choices in Uptown.

Weary, and about to head down to Atlanta for some tax-free shopping, I reluctantly go to the absolute last place on my list. And … that’s where I now live. I wanted two bedrooms in a townhouse configuration so Q would have a garage. I ended up with a huge loft overlooking South End. Mr. Q is happily parked in the underground parking garage each night.