man oh man...

1) love the indicator. i know some people have a beef with the volume, but there ARE people out there who are oblivious to the fact that its still on. plus the slight touch either blink 1 or 3 times (depending on config).
2) when the windows are down, the low growl you hear when youre going faster. but don't keep windows down too long...must preserve new car smell.
3) the point where you were at 50 and now a few seconds later youre at 80.....
4) the cargo nets are VERY useful.
5) love the visual heartbeat effect of the alarm.
6) car handles like a effin champ. the cornering...the acceleration...
7) the mileage...now i'm going by the computer, but it says i've been getting around 35+ mpg (mixed driving).
8) the seats are very comfy
9) the xenons should be illegal because its so crisp bright white.
10) i'm digging the keyless stuff. i'm so lazy now...haha.
11) so nice to have a sunroof. and its more awesome than the ones i've had used before.
12) i've put 3 adults (including myself) and a teenager in the car already. still comfy with a bit of leg room left.
13) the bluetooth connectivity is pretty cool. calls were clear and worked like a charm.

tiny little tiffs right now:
1) the armrest should be a lil longer, because during driving its almost useless. but when i'm chilling out in the car with the seat pushed back, its all good & dandy. i don't really know what the hell to put in the sliding compartment (since i doubt they'll ever make cradles for blackberrys, which is dumb because RIM is making waves with the the current 'pearl/curves' and the soon to come 'bold').
2) no british guy (like john cleese) to yell at me: "you're going to fast, you nitwit."
3) i can't pull up to the line like i used to and be able to easily see the light above.
4) parking away from cars to protect the mini from idiots.
5) bugs (the insect, not the car...)

 

Mine is in and will be picked up on Tuesday afternoon(dang service department taking Monday off). Here is hoping everything goes smooth.

 

Great list s79! Can't wait to make mine!

eron... Am hoping for Tuesday too. Was bummed about not getting my Mini for the long weekend.

 

Indeed!

Got my first "ding" today. Parked between two luxury cars, thought I might be safe. Came out, a dime-sized dent in the passenger door! Oh well, I suppose it's good to get it over with. But within 24 hours?!!

On a positive note, when I came out, another Mini was parked nose to nose. A remarkable coincidence in this neck of the woods, as there aren't THAT many Minis around as yet.

Thanks for keeping everything updated, steaming79!

 

I'm not sure if he's week 15 or 16, but number 4 was on the Turandot and is now at MINI of Mountain View awaiting their prep. I was hoping we'd be able to pick him up on Friday, but it looks like Tuesday given the holiday weekend.

 

like it or not...you now belong to us. resistance is futile. welcome to the fold, btwyx. you better report back to us with your pick-up.

danhen.....read about your first ding. ouch. at least its small. maybe paintless dent repair is an option? wanna know what i did today to avoid that situation? i parked a 3-4 minute walk away from a restaurant for lunch today in. the trade off was i wouldn't be able to see the car from where i was. sigh........the things i do.... pissed of the gf a bit though because of the preferred parking distance. haha. so that was funny.





EAST coasters Group A // INTEGRITY // DEPARTED 04/19/08 // ARRIVED 04/27/08:
-cutters68
-filet0fish
-jkling17
-majorbill11
-MBX5
-peter314
-rockhouse
-ShaggyMike
-subdude

EAST coasters Group B // ELEKTRA // DEPARTED 04/23/08 // ARRIVED 05/02/08:
-fenwayscout (Honorary 16'er)
-sottili

EAST coasters Group C // WESTERN HIGHWAY // DEPARTED 04/21/08 // ARRIVED 05/01/08:
-JLL319

MIDWESTERN & SOUTH CENTRAL coasters // INDEPENDENCE II // DEPARTED 04/26/08 // ARRIVED 05/11/08:
-badzboy11
-chaoticx6
-danhen
-Doogs
-kevnallen
-lenhart05
-MiniBella

WEST coasters Group A // ABOARD TURANDOT // DEPARTED 04/28/08 // ARRIVED 05/19/08:
-Altruego
-bd_stance
-Btwyx
-dlaw255
-eron
-hcubed (Honorary 16'er)
-Magpie
-paradigm_crash
-Satsloader
-SeattleMini
-sfomini
-steaming79
-SteveJ
-wendybryn

WEST coasters Group B // ABOARD FALSTAFF // DEPARTED 05/09/08 // ETA 05/28/08:
-booyun

 

Sorry to hear about that, danhen. I expect mine any day: I spend a lot of time in SF and when you park on the street there anything can happen. I once saw an intoxicated (probably homeless) man throw a beer can at a car - I was a block away returning to my car - it turns out, it was MY car he hit! Nice little dent in the hood. (Toyota's don't have bonnets.) And another time when I got back out to my car, which was parked on the street, I found a huge dent in the front driver's side quarter panel. It looked like someone backed into me and then took off without leaving a note, of course. It's a jungle out there.

The black rugs pickup debris like mad! I guess I've never had a car with such a black interior, I need to go out and buy a portable vacuum cleaner asap!

Just had my first fill up: 12.211 gallons for 328 miles. 26.8 mpg. Not as good as I hoped, but maybe I need to take it easy a little bit .

 

sfomini said "Just had my first fill up: 12.211 gallons for 328 miles. 26.8 mpg. Not as good as I hoped, but maybe I need to take it easy a little bit".

Sounds like your breaking her in just fine.. Let's see, you've had the car what, a wee bit over two days, and driven 328 miles? What's the matter, you don't like the car?

BTWYX, i saw your little bundle of joy while I was gawking at mine, sorry I didn't think to snap some pic's of it. There were quite a few "waiting to be processed" Mini's like ours on the roof. It's like being a kid in Candyland up there..

Bill in P.G.

 

DON'T GET A SHARK!!! damn things was spitting sparks on both units we had in the garage. and the last time i used one, it set my shirt on fire. i don't even know if they still makes those anymore... but a shopvac or a normal household vacuum will do.

ever since my old car got broken into in SF a block away from the great american, i now park in garages religiously. so far nothing bad has happened yet...

 

I haven't been to the city in awhile, my fellow field service rep's tell me the meters are now a quarter for 3 minutes. I'd hate to think what the garages are charging..

Bill in P.G.

 

garages vary from $5 (which is what i usually pay 90% of the time) for 2-3 hours up to $10. i was in sf the other weekend for the oyster festival over at fort mason. i parked in the garage and walked 5 minutes to the meadows (where the shindig was at) and along the way i saw 2 different cars parked along the street that were broken into. radio and possibly GPSs were yanked.

 

Finally was able to get a little driving done last night since I've been at the office last night....I love this car. Still hasn't struck me that it's mine, but I love it just the same.

My little list:

For me, the center arm rest is perfectly placed. I was initially worried about access to the hand brake, but, after a couple of stops, I don't even notice.

Getting the seat belt on can be a bit of a chore since it gets hung up between the door and the seat. Scuffed the door the first time, but now I'm being careful about it. Easy enough if I leave the door open until I put it on.

Xenons....oh my, oh yes. Left the office around 11:00 PM last night and did a few hours of night driving. Amazingly beautiful how clear everything can be. Even non-MINIs look beautiful with Xenons.

Cruise control seems to drive at 1 MPH higher than it says it will.

I'm in complete agreement on the bugs. Felt like I had just committed genocide when I got back home and looked at my bonnet and windshield.

It's almost unfair that other cars get to look at my MINI when I'm driving, but then I remember I get to drive it.

I kick *** in the turns.

Probably about a million other things I could list, but I'll leave that for some other time. Still need some pictures (and now a wash).

Sorry to hear about the ding danhen, but I'd probably feel a tiny bit relieved as well. We all know it's coming, just not when.

 

14) Sport mode. I'm nearing the end of my break in period (~1150 miles), so I hit the sport mode for the first time tonight. Wow. It was fun, but only lasted about 15 seconds before I caught up to the car in front of me. I then gave it another go later on and found out how easy it can be to drive too "spirited." The great part is when you hit the sport button, the center display on the tach changes to "SPORT" for a couple seconds. It was like the car was cheering.

6) Whenever I get home, I just want to go back out and drive somewhere.

 

Pics of my new MC are now in my gallery. I need to catch up on the last couple of days posts. This care is SO much fun to drive! It is the cruelest of ironies that just as I get this awesome car, the it costs $50 for a tank of gas. Filled up this evening. 400+ miles over the past three days. Getting about 30mpg with some fairly aggressive driving. One of these days, I'll have to drive it carefully to see whether I can get 40mpg. On second thought, what would be the point of that!

 

This'll be our 4th time picking up a MINI and I'm just as impatient.

 

Well, I finally picked up my Clubman on Memorial Day at 10am. What a blast! I took my kids with me and they were playing with the car as I went over things with my MA and the finance person. My oldest had his iPod connected and ready to go way before we drove off the lot. At home, the kids have been using the Clubman as their new iPod speakers!

This car is like a little rocket on rails. It is very very smooth and I get up to speed a lot quicker than my '94 530i. The only downside right now was a little blemish on the frame where the club door and the lower frame meet. It looks like the paint wasn't as cured as it should have been when the two surfaces were mated. Oh well - that is an easy fix.

 

Its so exciting to see other Turnadots at home! I just heard from my MA, it looks like my mini is in the vdc (hopefully)...

"It looks like your MINI has landed in California but it still isn’t showing that it has arrived at the final processing center yet. I would expect that your MINI is actually at the final processing center and is just going through its processing there."

 

My MA said on Thursday mind would be "released" on the 28th, and it would take another 3-5 days after that. Although I assume "released" means loaded onto the truck, I can't be sure.

I'm just hoping they want to close out the sale by the end of the month for saturday delivery. More realistically, early next week.

 

Got my mini about 2 weeks ago and have just had too much fun taking it around. Even convinced someone else to get one this past week. They have an expected delivery of September!

Will roll over 1000 miles within the week.

 

Congrats to all the new MINI owners! Wow, you guys seem so happy its making me so excited to get mine!! My MINI is finally set to dock tomorrow from its long voyage! I am really hoping they try and push these out faster so that they could get these in before month end!! I can't wait!

Oh yeah... had a question for all the new owners. How are you guys 'breaking' in your MINIs? Are you going by the books and driving it under the recommended xx RPM and xx MPH (basically driving it pretty slow w/ steady acceleration) OR are you breaking it in by the other method of hard acceleration / higher RPMs (I read about this somewhere..)? Anyways, let me know what you guys are doing to break in your vehicles.

Thanks!

 

I'm wrapping mine around a baseball and then putting a rubber band around it.

 

Hi Wendybryn!
Nice to another Oregonian in the group. I decided to go through NW MINI in Tacoma, WA for my MINI. The soonest Rassmusen could get me one was November.
Wondering when you ordered yours?
I'm taking the train to Tacoma to pick up my new Clubbie this Saturday!

 

Finally got the delivery date set... tomorrow at 4 pm!!

Would also like to hear thoughts on breaking in the engine. Have always used "easy break-in" method before but if there is any truth in the other "drive it hard" method increasing the engines power I'd being interested in hearing about it. Also what about changing the oil shortly after receiving the car?

 

EAST coasters Group A // INTEGRITY // DEPARTED 04/19/08 // ARRIVED 04/27/08:
-cutters68
-filet0fish
-jkling17
-majorbill11
-MBX5
-peter314
-rockhouse
-ShaggyMike
-subdude

EAST coasters Group B // ELEKTRA // DEPARTED 04/23/08 // ARRIVED 05/02/08:
-fenwayscout (Honorary 16'er)
-sottili

EAST coasters Group C // WESTERN HIGHWAY // DEPARTED 04/21/08 // ARRIVED 05/01/08:
-JLL319

MIDWESTERN & SOUTH CENTRAL coasters // INDEPENDENCE II // DEPARTED 04/26/08 // ARRIVED 05/11/08:
-badzboy11
-chaoticx6
-danhen
-Doogs
-kevnallen
-lenhart05
-MiniBella

WEST coasters Group A // ABOARD TURANDOT // DEPARTED 04/28/08 // ARRIVED 05/19/08:
-Altruego
-bd_stance
-Btwyx
-dlaw255
-eron
-hcubed (Honorary 16'er)
-Magpie
-paradigm_crash
-Satsloader
-SeattleMini
-sfomini
-steaming79
-SteveJ
-wendybryn

WEST coasters Group B // ABOARD FALSTAFF // DEPARTED 05/09/08 // ETA 05/28/08:
-booyun

 

glad to hear both hcubed and majorbill11 picked up their MINIs. awesome!! maybe some pictures are in order?....

danhen...nice pictures of the new ride! very nice color.

hcubed....you're right. the MINIs indeed ride like a effin' rocket on rails!

minibella...we're glad to hear that you're picking up the MINI tomorrow. thats so cool! let us know how it goes.

booyun....i've been breaking mine in by doing half street and half freeway. obviously not going past 100.....or going past 4500 rpms. plus me stalling about 2 1/2 dozen times (always trying to get to first gear from a complete stop. too nervous when other cars are around. they keep on looking at the car!!!! haha!). but haven't stalled for the past couple days. and i encountered my first stop & go traffic on 280N for about 10 mins without any issue.