Walt our MINI is stuck in Naperville with an injury, his rear control bushing is bad and they didn't have it in stock so we have a loaner for the week, which unfortunately for Lisa is a Manual since she can't(won't) drive a manual.


Anyways it will be nice to finally have the popping noise gone from Walt.

(The stick shift MINI is so much fun to drive too for me )

 

Rear control bushing did that go out on our drive? or just a known issue you had prior?

 

Aakkkk! Sorry to hear about Walt's impending surgery, but glad that the work will hopefully take care of a nagging issue.

Did they give you another R56 for a loaner? What color is it? Does it have a different suite of options?

Watch out, you're going to fall in love with that manual tranny!

 

The noise was an issue before the drive. We had it in the weekend before the drive for the noise and it still wasn't fixed. Now they found the issue and should hopefully have no more noise.


The loaner they gave me is a 2006 Cooper Manual with no options that I can tell of. Pretty nice but simple. I am getting addicted to the little extra power of the Manual but I'll be happy to get Walt back too so I don't have to drive Lisa to work at 6:00am.

 

And here i thought you were talking about the TV show LOST...(Walt is one of the characters)...

 

I do enjoy LOST but this alas is about our MINI named Walt

 

H.R., did the new rear control bushing solve your outstanding noise issues?

 

Sure did, no more rattle noise at all. Walt is at full health now

He awaits the install of his driving lights now, which will require his front bumper to be removed...which ought to be a bit scary! Lisa is quite worried but it's not like I've never modified a car before haha

 

[quote=R56MINICooper;1857117] which unfortunately for Lisa is a Manual since she can't(won't) drive a manual.

Sounds like this is a great time for Lisa to learn how to drive a manual, best part it's not your clutch. LOL Nice big parking lot or no mans land road and she'll nail it in no time.

 

[quote=AutoXCooper;1879640]I taught her before how to drive a stick, but then she had an incident where she kept stalling and a Bus was trying to turn into her lane and yeah it made her upset and she hasn't touched a manual since then :(

 

Well Poor Walt got his windshield replaced today. Darn pesky rocks and such... The new windshield is crystal clear and flawless

 

Who did the replacement for you?

A new windshield is almost inevitable in our area. I'll be it's nice not having to look through the star field simulation anymore.

 

Safelite autoglass did the replacement for us. came out to work and put it in in about 45minutes. Quick and easy.

 

I was going to have mine replaced as there was a rather large chip but the auto glass place said they could repair and did a great job so for now still OEM with star field vision option.

<but just waiting for the next rock on I380>

 

Oh my...so I just got a call from Lisa, who took Walt to Dubuque yesterday..

Apparently it rained and inch and a half there and Walt's windshield was not properly installed on Wednesday so it wasn't sealed and Walt now has an inch and half of water standing in the car on the floor.

It came in through the windshield and filled the dash and all with water..probably destroying all of the electronics up front..when you open the doors the radio turns on and the radio screen is all messed up...not good, not good at all...water sitting on the carpets means they'll need to be replaced I'm sure along with the whole dash and instruments.....sad sad day. So we probably wont make the Ice Cream thing with Walt next weekend as I am guessing this is going to take a little bit of repair work...hopefully it doesn't take that long and we can get Walt back into good health.. :( :( :( :(

Lisa has pictures from the interior I'll try and post them if I can.

Man does this just ruin my weekend..grrr. Thank goodness its all insured by the place that put in the windshield and we used one of our insurance companies vendors so they guaranteed to back it up also...If I had to pay for all the repairs I'm not sure who I'd strangle first...

 

wow that sucks

I hope you can still make it for ice cream MINI or no MINI...

I am sure Walt will be right as rain soon!

You may want to have a mold test ran on Walt as well that can be hard to see and even harder to get rid of

 

That's one of the saddest MINI stories I've heard! I don't think I can even imagine what it must be like. Leo has had a couple traumatic events, but nothing like Walt's sad situation.

 

Yeah, after seeing the pictures of Walt it's not quite as bad as what Lisa told me...its still soaked and very sad, but I don't know that they'll have to replace the carpets, unless there is mold in them like Brian mentioned..we'll see I guess. Walt gets picked up this morning to be towed to Naperville and dropped off at the dealership. We'll see what they think as far as damage to the electronics..I have the pictures and will post them soon.

 

Some photos...
How sad...

 

 

holy crap!

 

poor poor Walt!

 

Very sad

 

Talked the insurance today, The glass company apparently agreed to pay for everything and my adjuster there said it looked like the windshield was not installed right at all, so we'll see how it all goes..apparently lots of removal off stuff and mold prevention and all..

 

At least with the dealer doing the work you probably have a better chance of the techs getting it right. They're hopefully more in tune with the idiosyncrasies of the MINI than the guys at Safelite (who might have never worked on a MINI before). When I first heard of your replacement, I was a little worried about the potential for broken clips on your A-pillar covers--a common occurrence with windshield replacements--but as it turns out they screwed up the install even worse.

Hope you're back up to full operational capability soon.

(Starting to wonder if the record floods predicted for IA City on the weekend might prohibit the Ice Cream meet anyway...)