I am here as a former Mazda devotee. My dealership was trying desperately to get me to trade in my '07 Mazda 3, but their hounding and my lack of love for the newer 3 style led me to check out MINI, and before I knew it, I had a production number for a Laguna Green S Coupe.

The wait is already making me twitch. I'm driving my husband nuts -- he doesn't drive so he totally doesn't get it.

Interestingly, how I stumbled over here was because I had hard-wired my radar detector in my Mazda and was already looking for ideas of how I'd do that in the MINI -- very awesome to see so many how-tos and interesting mods and such. I'm looking forward to ripping the car apart and not ruining it in the process.

 

Congrats on your decision and wisdom greatly beyond your years. Where in MN do you live?

 

Congrats and welcome!!

 

I'm in downtown Minneapolis. (With a garage.)

I work in the suburbs, so I'm looking forward to hating my commute a bit less.

 

My girlfriend used to live in Rosemount. Sending you whatever patience I can spare!

 

Laguna Green!!! I love that color and wanted it for my MINI but sadly it wasn't an option. Can't wait to see pic's!

 

It was actually the Laguna Green that tipped the scales getting me to finally check out MINI. I had a 2004 Starlight Green Mazda 3 and loved the color to death, so when I saw something similar while playing around on the configurator, I got weak in the knees. Otherwise I was planning on holding out another year to see how the Paceman concept turned out, but researching regular MINI snow handling + OMG MINTY was clearly too much for my patience to hold out any longer.

 

Hope you have a good experience with Motorwerks. That's where I go for all of my dealer business and have had universally good experiences for five+ years. Who's your MA?

Will keep an eye out for you when I'm motoring thru The Cities.

 

Welcome gloomchen, have you seen there is a Coupe forum in 2nd Generation MINIs?

 

Greetings from the south metro! I'm just a week into my new '11 MCS Ragtop.

We have a regional forum here on NAM.com

and

A site for the local club.

 

Indeed I have. My post in the Roll Call thread is stuck in Moderation-land

 

Chris. He was very helpful in allowing me to "fully" test drive the car... unlike most small cars, I couldn't even tell I was going 85. Love that.

Also noticed your sig mentions Eastern Iowa MINIs... I'm originally from Dubuque and looking forward to my first US52 drive in my MINI, especially around Guttenburg and the stretch from Rickardsville to DBQ. Here's hoping for light traffic.

 

Yep, that's a nice stretch of road. Another great alternative through there is CR-C9Y through Balltown and Sherrill. We motor thru there at least once every year.

Chris was my MA too.

 

So you're in Decorah -- that's usually where I gas up, at the Kwik Star or whatever it's called across from McDonalds. Is there a place in town with better quality gas that I should seek out, or are they fine?

 

I'm kind of a "fuel snob" when it comes to gas and I prefer to use non-oxygenated premium (the Kwik Star high test is an ethanol blend). The only place here in town that has "pure" premium is the Clark-Bob's Standard right next to the College Drive bridge over the Upper Iowa River.

More often than not, I'm up your way when I fuel up. My favorite place is the Sinclair in Inver Grove Heights (corner of Cahill Ave E and 65th St E) since they have non-oxy premium and it's not far out of my way to/from the airport. There's also a good BP south of Rochester, just south of I-90 along US-52 in Marion.