Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I'd like to know. Stuff that's not neccessarily from a mechanic because let's face it... most of us are not mechanics.

So you didn't ever get those books? How did you know what YOU were doing when you decided to get a Classic? They really are good books. Really. And even better, they show the different models over the years and so it really gets a person thinking about what year/model they'd really like. Gets ya all dreammmy about them.

 

I just looked up alot of stuff on the internet for over a year and read alot of the threads here in the Classic Mini section. I also bought two Mini manuals to read to get to know how the car works and I also have a book that teaches you how to restore the car...

 

I believe we have a sci-fi fan in our midst. You have been assimilated. We are MINI's..eerr BORG.

 

<shakes head, wipes tear from her eye and slowly, very slowly backs away from the double entendres and other bawdy talk>

 

End of thread?

Exit! Stage Left.

drtoon_snagglepuss.jpg&usg=AFQjCNEwbaB83cBOiXyhvZ01zsa10SucnA

 

This thread will never end! LOL

 

Yes, dear,, there is a little book!! One ball for the most part, is enough. I usually do a few standard moves with one and I am good to go. The other really helpful "tool" is the theracane,,, that thing really rocks,,maybe you would have better luck with the T Cane?

If I can find one, I would be more than happy to mail it to you,,the book that is!

 

LOL,,,,,LO,,,,LMAO,,,,,,LOL,,,,,,, you are too too much!!

 

Nnnoooooo,, never ever will this die out,, it might sputter once in a while then it will take off again!!

Hey, I have had my precious Sloopy now for 5 months,,, OMG what a love affair!! I followed a "vert" home today,,, but I still am happy in my Clubbie,,, she makes me work day just alittle brighter...sigh**

 

So Cab- did you cancel your class in Sarasota?

 

I just looked up Theracane and two Miracle ***** seem much less scary than that! At first I thought of "The CLUB"... you know the thing you put on the steering wheel to keep someone from stealing the car? Looks like it would work well on a road trip and would come in handy as a weapon if needed!



Ok... ... no more bawdy ***** comedy.

 

Ok... just dared to Google the Miracle ***** and came up with this: (Is this what you're talking about?)

The Miracle Ball Method
This system created by Elaine Petrone consists of two small ***** and a book filled with breathing and ball exercises.

How Does It Work
You start by learning simple breathing exercises that you will use while on the *****, then you place the ***** under specific areas of your body and just lay there and breathe! (WOW! Sounds pretty simple! ) After you're done with each exercise which lasts about 5-7 minutes (10-20 minutes as you become more comfortable with them) you perform a full body move that compliments that ball exercise.
The Miracle Ball Method:

Step 1: Hold your hand a few inches in front of your mouth. Open your mouth and exhale for as long as you can, making a hushed "haaa" sound, as if you were trying to fog up a cold window. Feel the weight of your jaw as you exhale. Just like any other area of your body, your jaw has weight. Try to become aware of that weight when you open your mouth, but don't force it.

Step 2: At the end of the exhalation, slowly bring your lips together (without clenching your teeth) and notice if there is any change in your breathing.

Step 3: Repeat this breath work for 5-7 minutes. Do you feel your breath filling the back and sides of your rib cage, abdominal area, chest or shoulders? If you felt relief fromt this it's due to your muscles receiving the oxygen they need to remain flexible and unstressed. Combined with the simple ball exercises and full body moves your body will begin to function the way it's supposed to, without pain or tension.

 

Oh, 'OLA...are you ASKING for the bawdy talk??? Hee hee hee...

 

Yes,, I did cancel it,, for now that is. I really wasn't happy with them moving it to a Holiday weekend. I still plan on taking the course and hoepfully it will still be in Fla. time will tell

 

ROFLMAO! Isn't quite that simple Ola... You'll slip up and my bad mind will go to very wrongest of conclusions...

Ya know... old habits and the like...

<giggle>

 

Guys... I'm TRYing to behave.

Hey Cab- too bad you're not heading down... I was thinking that we'd be hanging out. Probably a good thing though... I think my pool's about to have a slight algae bloom due to all the rain. BTW... are you ok? You seem different... like something's wrong. Hope whatever it is... it all works out.


I started my very first thread today. It's quite boring. I got a call from a MINI dealership wanting to buy my '05. My guess is that they were really hoping I'd trade up to the new '09 Cabrio but since I already have the '08... I don't need to trade anything... I just need to sell it. So the guy confirms all the details of the '05 and says he'll go talk to his manager and will call me right back. About 5 minutes goes by and he calls me with his "offer". He tells me what it is and it's about $4-5k lower than I thought it would be. According to Edmund's and NADA they're offering less than "ROUGH-TRADE IN". Now, if I was trading in I'd be pissed... but since they initiated the call to me with an offer to buy from me (because they supposedly need cars like mine)... well I just tried not to laugh. It wasn't a big deal. In my quiet pause he asked, "So does that sound like something that interests you?". I told him no and that I thought their offer was pretty low. He asked what price I was thinking and I told him I was expecting at least x$ (about $3-4k below dealer retail). He then explained that the reason the offer was so low was because the new Turbo engine basically just tanked the value of the "S" cars that were Supercharged. Ummm yeah, ok. I guess I missed THAT memo somewhere along the way. And I guess someone needs to tell the online sites like Edmund's and NADA that they need to freshen up their numbers for the real world! So if my "S" is so crappy... why would they want to put it on their lot? Wouldn't most people want to buy the new Turbo? My car would just sit there... all lonely. I wouldn't want to do that to her. Just thought it was funny.

 

The local dealer around here keeps trying to buy mine from me, too...mine's a turbo. But the thing is: you can't really mod the turbos like you can the superchargers! the HP you get is...well, the HP you get. No pulleys, no nothing... How else have you tried to sell it 'Ola? First off, what is it/what are the specs?

 

Dude is full of crap. Dealerships offer you the wholesale value of the vehicle, basically what they will get when they sell it to a third party seller to clear it off their lot. They never offer you the actual "value" of the car. It's almost never a good idea to trade in or sell a vehicle to a dealership. In my years of car buying, I've never done it. I got better deals via private sales and the knowledge that my car was going to a good home.

Also, the first gens are very popular with the enthusiast crowd and he could probably get more money for your supercharged S off his lot than he could for a similarly optioned 2nd gen, just because there are guys out there that don't like the changes that MINI made to the 2nd gen line up, many of them post on this forum.

What is with the MINI dealerships lately? I've heard them feeding lines of bull**** to people all over the place and all it takes is a little information, a little shopping around, to figure out that they're full of it... and they should know that since we live in the information age, information isn't that hard to come by.

 

Maybe they're operating on the off-chance of getting a prime sucker? THese days, with people getting a tad desperate, I wouldn't be surprised they get their suckers. I've actually had really naiive soldiers - with their immediate supervisors standing by "helping" them - blithely tell me they just bought a used car (a real beater by the way) for 19% interest! I just about choked to death on my coffee. A sucker is born everyday....

 

No,, nuthin really wrong here!! I write on the fly half of the time( rying to be more involved again) and my last post was really posted quickly as the phone was ringing and so on and so on. But the main constant in my life are these dammed headaches,,, I am lucky to have 2 full days a week without one and this week has been tough. I have decided that I need to stop drinking diet pop-- I drink waaay too much every day and I know that is probably part of my headache problem. I know how bad it is for me but OMG I just love love love love love diet pop!!
So, so far today I have only had unsweetened tea... sigh.

Hey! Don't malign my precious Theracane!! *grin* it really is a god send for my clients who suffer from trigger points around their upper back and shoulders. I mean, jeez, I can't be at their homes every day.......

I need to look at the Upledger website and see what else is offered for that course. I hate it because I just had to turn away antoher client with Lymphedema and I really hated that, there just aren't many in the area and there is a real need for this kind of therapy... and I would have loved to meet you (with my theracane)
I heard that FLa was getting pelted with rain,, that sucks, we are having a really nice week weather wise and I am sooo enjoying it.

As for your other post, I hate that the Mini Dealerships are starting to behave like all of the other dealerships have, I really think that there should be a way for everyone to walk away from a deal feeling good about it.
Ola, you should keep that little '05 and someday you will have your own little classic!!

 

You too?

I highly suspect that the dealer didn't really want to buy it to begin with. I think it was more like a warm-ish "cold call" because he told me that the car was out of warranty first and then started talking up the 2009 NEW AWESOME TURBO!

It was funny because every point he was using to try to "sell" me on the 2009 were the exact reasons that we decided to purchase one of the last 1st Gens in 2008. I'm sure I was a giant PITA for him.

He talked up the greatness of the TURBO being superior to the SUPERCHARGER (say it ain't so... I love my Supercharger ).

He said, "We got rid of those stationary roll bars!". I tell him "I LOVE my rollbars!! That's why we got the new '08 instead of waiting until '09!". Then he says, "Well it still has roll bars- they just pop up instead of staying up and blocking your rear view.". I tell him, "Yeah, I don't get that... I don't understand when people say they can't see. The only time I can't see as well is when the top is up... and since I have committed to driving with the top down the required 90% of the time- well, I don't have a problem.". And I truly love the rollbars. Not only do they frame everything beautifully in the rear view... I feel safer with them. I feel like I'm in a little MINI "nest" when I'm driving!

Then he talked about how MINI redesigned the whole interior and exterior. My reply, "I know... I'm so glad I got the 1st Gen... she's VERY curvacious with a great smile!".

And then of course... the beloved "BURBLE" is MIA on the '09! Oh the humanity!

So UHOH- I haven't even tried to sell her yet. She's just sitting in my garage. I had a lady at the pharmacy that told me to call her when I was ready to sell (and she only saw my '08... not the '05). Apparently her daughter had one and she just loved it. So as she handed me my prescription and her phone number she kept saying, "I'm SERIOUS! I'm totally serious!".

 

That's what I thought... full of CRAP!

And funny that you mention the popularity of the 1st Gens. I have heard more mechanics talk about their love affair with the 1st Gen.

I was thinking about the whole price part when I was talking to him. Since I hadn't looked up anything recently and was just going from memory, my thoughts were that his offer would have been somewhere between trade-in and private party (probably closer to trade-in). The price that was in my mind was about $4k below what his retail would be and I thought, hey... it would be an easy way for him to make a few thousand since he wouldn't have to do any detailing or anything to get the car ready to sell. Guess I was being too greedy? Maybe the problem was that he asked if I "owned" it and I said "yes". Perhaps that would make it seem like I would take much less for it since I don't have a note on it? Oh well, it was a funny experience.

 

OMG!

 

Okay this has gotten strange. We're actually talking about cars.

I love my 08. One of the things that attracted me to the MINIs was the way they sound. The prince engine has a very unique sound to it. It throws my hubby a bit when I drive, but as for me, I love it. A key feature to me in a car, is knowing how it sounds. Once you get used to the way the car is supposed to sound when its running right, you can tell when it's not. You may not know what is wrong, but at least you know something is out of whack and can take it in to have someone that knows more about cars than you do take a look.

I can't handle some of the high end luxury cars that are out there that are all about the quiet. I *need* to hear the engine rumbling and purring, I need noise. Otherwise, I just have no confidence in my car.

The 08, lost none of that quality for me over the 04 that I test drove. The torque steer is annoying in the 2nd gens, but I can get past that when I realize that I have an automatic and the transmission won't need to be replaced in 60,000 miles as was common with the CVT in the first gens.

The only thing about my car that worries me is the stuttering at low speeds. When I'm going below 20 mph, the car feels wrong. I worry that it will stall out on me one of these days when I'm in construction traffic...

And in other news, Viola officially turns 1 year old on Sunday and we just crossed 10,000 miles on the odometer yesterday. I'm scheduling her for her first warranty inspection this week and am going to have them apply the TSB for the sunroof. I'll probably be motoring over to the dealership in July or August, presuming I can get a Saturday appointment and a loaner that quick.

 

Unsweetened tea???!!! Oh Cab! I'm sorry! So what's your favorite diet soda? I love A&W Root Beer and Fresca. Mmmmmm. I'm so sorry that you can't get rid of your headaches. I know where you are coming from... I have lived with them every day for as long as I can remember. And when they are bad, they are truly draining. BOO! I hate headaches.

And BTW- I wasn't maligning your treasured cane... but seriously, if you showed up at my door with it... I think the sht would be literally scared out of me! Especially since I made all those jokes about your *****! Ok, well... the truth is that I was trying to imagine using pressure with that thing and how much it would hurt to do that. The thought of jabbing a hard cane into my hurty spots seems like a bad idea! As you probably read, I did get the "*****" to Google "Miracle *****". Is that the same thing that you and TNMM have been talking about? They look bigger than tennis ***** and a little squishier too. Tennis ***** seemed too hard (so now maybe you understand my concern with a CANE! ). I don't see myself asking (or paying) anyone to jam their big hard stick all over me.

As for rain, I am actually very thankful. Fortunately I don't live on the East Coast over by Daytona... they've gotten LOTS more rain... somewhere between 1-2 FEET! We have had non-stop sunniness and perfect weather for a long time and so plants have paid the price... they are happy now. There have been lots of watering restrictions for awhile. OOOH! It's raining again! YAY!! Speaking of happy things... we have little brown bunnies around sometimes and I have named the one I have seen "Peter". Peter likes to hang out in my landscaping and I think he eats in my little garden too. So yesterday I saw "Peter". He ran across the road. Then I saw ANOTHER "Peter" hiding in my Gingers! Well, last night "Peter" and "Peter" were ummm... "wrestling" ... they were really frisky and running around. My suspicions are that there will be more "Peter"s running around soon.

As for keeping the '05... well, we had considered that last year. We were thinking that we'd keep the '05 and then get a Classic. But then after getting the Mini books, we decided to just get a new '08 like our '05 and then we'd sell the '05. We wanted to get another 1st Gen (before they were done being made) that would have a warranty. The '05 was built in '04 and was one in the first groups over here for '05. So the only reason for buying the '08 was for warranty reasons. Basically, the value had held up so well that we could pretty much trade cars and be in the same place except that we'd have a new car with a warranty. If I hadn't been able to find a Chili Red or Pepper White with my acceptable specs then that would have been our "sign" to get the Classic. Oh yeah... I also have a "Magic 8 Ball" that I consulted with!