Ha, you're just like my wife, always with the last word....................
Touche, yes I guess I took my anger out on you secondarily as I was miffed at the (put your own word here)LOKI and a few others , who had to interject his snide remarks,,,,,,,,then I reread your original post and got miffed at you, so yes, I am guilty as charged after looking in the mirror!

So you ask why am I miffed at you? Well this is the GP forum part of NAM and I came back (as an owner of a MINI since March of'03 and just recently an owner of GP0180) after a one year hiatus away to seek info on the GP from other owners.

As an owner it was intended to be a place to discuss the GP and share with other GP owners, (In my mind at least), and in review I found that almost every thread under GP there are naysayers and no gooders who just have to put their negative unconstructive two bits in,,,,,,and they don't even have a horse in the race.

And that's why I asked if you were a GP owner or would be, and that led me down to why would anyone who wasn't would be curious about what Insurance classifications were and how HOV lanes were treated?? And I ask myself of what relevance does this have to a NON GP owner??
So yep Guilty as charged I lumped you in with the others(Trolls ), and so I will not apologize again since that was done in my last last post


And why did I go into the woods a year ago, becuase there was nothing worthwhile here for me IE there are too many people on NAM who all have opinions, but nothing constructive, and seem to like to contemplate their navels.............so back to your regularly scheduled programming...............

Back into the woods,,,,,and no I cant hear you back here, so no need to respond to this....................oh yeah and there are no HOV's back eher either...........peace, man

 

I wasn't just trying to get the last word for the sake of it, I was being put down and was defending myself while also not understanding the apparent paradox of complaining about trolls/flames while effectively doing it.

Anyway, still not trying to get the last word in, just wanted to say, whether you see it or not, that at least I now understand where you were coming from even if I don't agree that the forums are limited to owners and exclude questions or contributions from others (ie I've endeavored to help people in the Cabrio forum if I can, and other types of forums I'm involved in regularly have questions and contributions from non-owners).

Anyway, I hope that whereever you are you are avoiding being so 'miffed'

 

So the question was; is the GP insurance higher than a "regular S?" ?

Actually the insurance of my GP is a bit less than my MCSC as the replacement of it (based on the sticker price) is lower.
The GP - as much as we MINIacs think is special, for insurance purporses it is just another MCS.

When I called my insurance company Liberty Mutual , to add GyPsy, the agent asked about the number of doors no the number of seats.
So my insurance bill for the year for all three MINIs is pretty decent, considering I am in the DC Metro area.

 

oh I forgot to add.. about the commuter lanes... I have no idea as here in MD HOV is 2 people but mostly because I travel alone as I can listen my music as loud as I want to, and go as fast as I can

 

So I guess having the value set as a regular MCS is okay with you, which is cool if you are happy with that. I'm sure that is what most people are doing then since the GP is not a distinct model in the sytem (which kind of surprises me).

I'm not sure what I'd do, if I had kept my M Coupe I would have changed my policy to reflect the real value as a limited/collector car vs going by the baseline standard they use. It would have cost money to pay for a set value, but on the other hand I would have been so mad at myself if the car was totalled and I was given an amount that was nowhere near what it would have cost to buy one or what I could have gotten selling it. And when cars are limited and parts hard to get I figure they are more prone to total it. Its a tough call though, perhaps usage and mileage dictates whether it is worth it.

 

The reality is that I cannot change the sticker price, emotional value is not one of the coverage offered by the insurance company. The sticker price is what it is. If the car needs to be replaced but no GPs are available what do I do? Do yo think an additional insurance coverage will ensure the GP replacement? Having a unique item (car in this case) has its pros and cons and the replacement value is one of the cons

 

Well, what I talked to my agent about was insuring for a higher value a la a collector car - they said I could, I'd pay more of course. I was going to insure it for what I thought was market value (what I knew I could buy/sell one for) vs the insurance value if totalled, which was considerably lower.

It's a similar situation, there were only about 600 S54 M Coupes in this market as I recall.

 

Perhaps the insurance companies view the GP as an option package on the 'S', much like the JCW package.

Any GP owners willing to share the fifth digit of their VIN? If it's an "E", then it's probably going to show up in the insurance company's computer as simply an MCS.

Scott

 

yes the 5th digit is E but the 5th digit of my MCS is H and F for the MC .. plus as I said before the vin of the GP is a little different from the MINIs coming from UK.

 

'H' is correct for an MCS Cabrio, and 'F' would be correct for an MC Cabrio. 'E' is the designation for an MCS hardtop, so if the insurance company is just looking at the 5th digit to get the model, that's what it would come up as.

Here's the full list, from Steve Bakers "Decoding your Mini's VIN page:

http://www.sjbaker.org/telamom/vin.html
'A' for a MINI One 'B' for a MINI One/D,
'C' for a MINI Cooper 'D' for a MINI One Convertible,
'E' for a MINI Cooper'S 'F' for a MINI Cooper Convertible
'H' for a MINI Cooper'S Convertible.
Scott

 

Hmm using that information, I would guess that the VIN on GPs would start with ZMW? The Z denoting Italy, whereas all other MINIs have a W denoting Germany.

Just a guess... but since the MINI is actually manufactured in England, I would have thought all of our (non-GP) VINs would be SMW (S = England). Strange.