"All you gotta give to me... is all your loo-ove. I'm gonna give to you... all my loo-oove..." Was definitely serenading my mini on the first drive, as well. How funny that we all chose Led; classic car classic music I guess. You guys, I am STILL at 900 miles! :( Am driving home to San Diego for Thanks so this should get me past the break in.

Question: When I'm turning at slow speeds, i.e. in a parking lot, I keep hearing this noise that sounds like a fly getting grilled on an electric fly swatter. Kind of a vibrating electrical noise. Anyone else ever hear this?

 

I cannot think of one darn thing. Of course I changed the specs around a dozen times before Polly went into production.

 

I wouldn't change anything either. I love my car just the way it is!

 

Answer: No. I keep the radio volume turned up.

And seriously, I think we're up to three or four that listened to Zep on the 1st ride home. Across the world, I wonder what the average really is. Interesting.

 

OK. So I want/need a parcel tray. Is it easy to install yourself? Did you get it through the dealer?

 

I installed mine myself in about 5 minutes flat, and I am hardly what I would call handy. There are two tricky parts - one is getting the knee bolster out (which involved just a really hard swift yank - I was afraid I was going to break something but all I ended up breaking was a fingernail), and the other is getting the screws to line up with the little clips. A little masking/paint tape to hold the clips in place and it's a piece of cake! If I can do it, anyone can. I got mine from Moss but I think they're sold out now. In fact, most places are sold out now and those that have them are charging twice as much as they were when I got mine. Craziness.

And I didn't listen to Led - I chose AC/DC.

 

So while we're on LedZep... I have a number of albums, but just recently got the "How the West was Won" remastered live CD set.

Oh. My. God. It's hard for me to listen to ANYTHING else lately (in the car, at home, in my sculpture studio) with that on my iPod and iMac and Nuvi...

To hear these guys when they were arguably at their apex - 1972 - I wish I had been old enough too see and appreciate them live back then...

Really - it makes 95+% of the content that has passed for "music" in the last three decades seem like tripe. And I even LIKE a LOT of new stuff.

If you don't have it, get it.

 

Great.

I hate NAM.

If I'm not getting ideas on car parts I "need" to buy, I'm heading to Amazon to buy still more Zeppelin albums.

You do have the recently remastered Live at Leeds, right? OMG. And I recently reloaded a lot of my Clash stuff. Holy Toledo, I could listen to that all day long, too.

Yeah, I do hearby announce that I will coordinate the W3606 Semiannual Motoring Music Swap. First swap will be 01 April. PM me for details.

PS -- you do know the trick for ripping the CD as one single track, instead of each song individually, right? It's the only way to hear the concerts, I think....

 

Live at Leeds is going on my Christmas list - have a good smattering of Who - but not that - and must have it.

The nice thing about great BritRock CDs is that they're some of the few MINI accessories you can enjoy when not in or near your car...

I know about the "one track" thing - but gaps don't bug me - I just do the Hiro thing and skip over those few seconds...

(cross threaded TV reference)

Had the good fortune to see The Who live many moons ago with Entwistle. Most excellent.

 

So, I had to run up the autobahn today, to drop someone off at the airport.

Autobahn... Mmmmm......

Before I got my car, I was expecting the "keep it under 4000 rpm" speech. When I got it, though, it was the "keep it under 170 KM/h, or, when you go faster than that, try not to for too long." Whoa -- worlds of differences.

So, I hit the road today and dragged along a camera. Wanna see what 4000 rpm in 6th gear looks like on the autobahn? Or what 170 KM/h looks like?

Here it is! :impatient

 

As Eric Idle would say,

"You lucky bastard!"

And ballsy too, driving 170KPH in the rain holding a camera - geesh...
Hope you live long enough for the tunes swap.

 

Oh, please. I've been driving here for over 10 years. Old hand at it. And the roads are sooooooo suited for it -- puts American roads to shame. How did the US end up with such ****-poor roads when this style was an option? Driving in America, I always feel cheated!

But yes, probably not ideal, zipping along at 108 mph, shifting lanes, and filming.

But it does make Mini-appreciation to its fullest, as I see it.

(PS -- wait until I'm past 1200 miles!)

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do on the autobahn after breakin... really curious what you can REALLY do in a stock MCS on the highway...

 

Hey, who's got the part # for the **** shelf, er, I mean, parcel shelf for the 06? My very nice but very confused BMW guy found it in his system, but not for 2006. It shows "51 16 1 186 417" as that older part number -- help!

And has anyone gone for the JCW brakes? I stopped in for the pricing on the aero kit, but also got a quote for the JCW brakes. Now I'm debating -- aesthetics, or, I dunno, safety. Brakes, for these speeds, might make more sense.

Of course, there's always that third mortgage....

 

Hmmm... I don't think there's a difference between year models for this. All the folks selling them don't differentiate and I've never heard of anyone having an issue with any year model... I suspect there are different ones for right-vs-left side drive, but I don't even know that for sure. Sorry I can't help with the part number...

 

I want to believe that a parcel shelf is a parcel shelf. Will probably drop the bucks and try it out -- if all else fails, there's eBay.

Having to go buy Torx drivers, to get into the console. Can't be just a flaming shifter **** -- has to be an illuminated flaming shifter ****.

 

abuzavi, you could probably make a living buying euro shelves there, if they are easy to find, and shipping them to NAM members. i don't think they are easy to get here now, and if they are, they are at a price premium.

loved seeing your pics and videos of your new MINI. Congrats!

 

Thanks. I think Tess and I had an unnaurally long courtship -- too long, indeed. The wait was killing me. And now that the car is here, it's all go, go, go.

Spent some time yesterday (yes, on Thanksgiving) trying to run down someone to flame the car. That's right, I'm looking into finding someone to paint some old-school flames on it. Harder to find than I'd have thought. I live not far from the Hockenheimring, so there are hot rodders in the area, but alas, finding a painter for flames is proving to be a challenge. I suspect that nothing will come of it -- if all else fails, I can wait for the eventual day when we move back to America and FIL and I can paint it in his booth.

Today I swung by a trusted BMW dealer, to see about pricing for installation of the aero kit. 2200 Euros, plus taxes. Yikes! The parts are about 1000 Euros, and then labor and paint on top of that. I've asked about pricing for the JCW brakes, as well as the navigation DVD for Europe, installation of the auxillary gauges, and buying (not installing) the parcel shelf (Ablegefach Fahrer in German). I also made a stab at torx drivers at a local store - wrong sizes. Neighbor, with good tools, should be around this weekend, so I'll raid his kit.

I also burned a CD of nothing but Joan Jett, in honor of the renaming of the car (gee, thanks kids ). It might last an hour before -- zing! -- it gets pitched out the window and set free. With my luck, some German kid would find it, fall in love with it, and lead a Joan Jett revival (old American bands don't die, they just go on tour in Germany!)

And yes, after I'm done with the break-in miles, there will be more videos. Need to mount a camera somewhere....

 

You can frisbee that Jett CD across the pond toward me when you're done with it...... I probably have a BlackHeart tattoo on some part of my body I can't see anymore...

 

Well, when Dieter down the street convinces her to come here on tour, maybe you can link up as a roadie or something.

Seriously, Kansas played here last year -- Kansas! What's next? Stevie Nicks? The Tubes? J. Geils?

 

Dude, I would go see J. Giels.

Shut up.

 

Wow, I have had a crazy couple of days.
Kissmys, the Koni's saved my Sassy. I almost traded cars with SO for my long commutes to work. After the Koni's I am one happy camper. I bought the FSD's, and I ordered online from an independent suspension shop. No sales tax, no shipping. About $625. I paid $200 for installation. They are the Koni FSD's. The absolute best mod for the money so far. Handn let me ride in his car after he had his. Had me sold.

As for thanksgiving, we did a little dinner wed night. We opted for ham since my SO was going to eat turkey at our friends house on thursday. We did the pot luck thing at work. It was good. However, on wed I consumed about 80% of a bottle of wine after I realized that some one HIT the back of my car while I was parked on the street at a meter. Someone hit my frickin car! How does one hit a car that doesn't even take all of their metered parking spot? They had 1/4 of the spot behind me along with their own spot and they hit my car? The entire rear bumper will need to be replaced along with the reflector and trim on the rear wheel well. No note.. just the white paint calling card they left on the bumper. I hope karma beats them in the bootie!

as for my arm, it's doing ok. Sometimes I get these strange pains that streak up and down my arm, then it goes away. I am back to work. I do strengthening exercises, but I am not back to climbing. It's certainly not back to 100%. We are going skiing next weekend. Yeah... wish it would snow. So folks, thats the update on my life.

 

I have the parcel shelf... very handy. Handn installed it at the autocross in october. Literally took him less than 10 minutes.

 

Climbergirl - sorry to hear about your bumper. That sucks. Know that we are sharing your pain.

 

Has anyone come across a "how to" for installing the iPod adapter (the BMW version)? I'm good on ripping apart the dash (I put in the aux jack today), and am even pretty good at putting it back together with not too many pieces and parts left over.

However, the iPod adapter did not come with instructions (not surprising -- the service guys would have official manuals on how to do it) and my Google powers are failing to turn up a guide. And it's not that intuitive -- lots of strange things on the desk end of the cabling.

Post a link, send me a PM -- something, anything. I'm drowning here, folks.

(Wait -- I might have found it -- here)