It snowed its a** off today so I got the pleasure of driving in it all day.

 

Some of my most enjoyable drives have been in extreme conditions like that. Grab the snow tires, enough survival gear to be sure you won't need it, AND GO PLAY!

Mini club winter driving "school" (playground?) scheduled Feb 10 near Pittsburgh...

Just threw my snow tires on this morning.

 

Installed the splitter

 

I pulled off the factory bonnet stripes. Getting ready to do clay/wax and have some new graphics ordered from England.

It was actually a little sad pulling the bonnet stripes, I've fallen in love with its factory options and change is a little hard.

I ordered this stripe with "13". Mine being a 2013.

http://www.mini-graphics.co.uk/mini-...-viper-stripes

 

Put a 'sticky-pad' on the dash for iPhones and change.

 

Added some LED license plate bulbs. Looks great at night!!!!

 

The summer tires that came on my convertible Su..k in the snow/ice. Im glad I ordered stud-less snow tires a few days ago!

 

Oh same here... I love doing doughnuts and grabbing the E brake on a turn so the rear end flies out haha. This is the first snow we've had this year and I was seeing how well the tires that came on the car (Non run flat...some kind of Fuzion tires, cant remember the name off hand) did in the stuff. They suck! So if we get more snow then I may just opt to get some dedicated snow tires.

Bad thing was last night on my way home I was a long stretch of road with no street lights and we had strong snow drifts, to the point where you couldnt see a thing in front of you. I was going slow (15/20mph) but the wind must of been so strong that I wasnt even aware that I was being blown into a curb ending up in a ditch (which was really just a area of grass). But I did hit the curb pretty hard as it scared the hell out of me. Car felt fine afterwards. No TPMS sensors going off. Alignment seemed off though. And now I have a humming noise coming from the side I hit on. Not a constant hum.. but like something is hitting in the same spot each time the wheel turns (if that makes any sense whatsoever). Its really only at higher speeds...can really notice it at 45mph or above. What I'm curious about is what I should on to see if anything got damaged?

 

Just installed my strut tower defenders tonight super easy. Wanted to install my springs but I need an impact gun so they will have to wait.

 

You might have bent a rim. That could explain the humming sound ie an out of round wheel's resonance from rotating in a strange pattern.

 

LOVE your Countryman

 

Yeah I was thinking that too... but I've put a good amount of miles on it since then and no TPMS sensor warning or anything. So I ruled that out. I guess it could still be bent and just not bent enough to let air out. I havent jacked the car up yet to see cause its 17 degrees out and dont really feel like freezing hahaha. Thanks for the reply.

 

It was an emergency, so I turned my R53 into a temporary pickup truck.

 

Is that the torque converter laying on the ground that goes in the tranny housing?

 

Jack the car up, take the wheels front and back off on that side and look around. Make sure things are not rubbing, make sure your wheel well's are intact, that type of thing.

 

Picked up a set of PIAA Extreme White wedge bulbs to replace the front parking lamps. And a set of PIAA yellow plasma ion fogs. Man, once I get the MINI back from the body shop (after it gets a new hood with different stripe kit and JCW aero front bumper and side skirts) it's seriously going to be like having a completely different car.

 

Ripped off the third brake light to find out it doesn't work because there's no lights/LEDs in it. Not sure yet how I'm going to get the rest of it out so I can replace it... Problem for another day.

Not going to tackle the other issues yet. It's too cold out to play bob the builder.

 

Thanks Rob!!!

 

I performed an ecu reset, added a container of sea foam to my tank, washed my mini up and went on a 150 mile joy ride along the coast!

 

I would love to go for a long drive like that! Too busy lately.

As for today I double checked the torque on my M7 strut tower brace. Then returned the torque wrench I had borrowed. Roads are too wet out to hit any curves too hard.

 

Yep. I work at a dealership, so when boss tells me to drop everything and go pick a transmission asap, well, you do it... even if you're driving your own car and not the company's F-250.

It was for a 350z... $250 for a complete transmission... not bad.

 

roof rack!!

 

^ at first glance your car looked like a Countryman at first hahaha. Looks huge in the pic. Saw your signature and did a double take.

 

Haha I didn't even think about that until I looked at it again, you're right! Def. not a countryman

edit: your sig says a lot of plasti dip, i never used the stuff but i actually want to do it on this roof rack, plastidip it black because the silver aluminum is killing my theme.. is it easy to use?

 

^ Yeah its pretty easy to use. If you can spray paint then you can use Plasti Dip. Ive learned that its much much much easier to use if you remove the parts and spray them that way as opposed to trying to tape off and spraying the parts still attached. You dont need to sand the parts or anything. Just wipe them off with a rag and start spraying. Do 3/4 coats or until you feel comfortable. If you want a glossy finish they make a glossifier product to which is like a clear coat kinda. But in my dealings with it... it just makes it really grainy. I preferred just the dull/flat finish of the plasti dip by itself.