Happened to put on Speed Channel last night at the start of a show called Tuner Transformation. Typical format, they select a willing donor, and upgrade his ride. What was interesting, they put on a JCW kit and a LSD on an 02 MCS. I'm going the JCW route next month so it was interesting to me. The show will be on again at 10am ET on 6/25.

Tom
04 MCS

 

That was a re-run. That particular show was on a while back. They didn't improve much on the power department with the JWC over the mods. the car had prior. The only is the car is covered under warranty again. That was quite a dissapointing episode because they didn't really know much about the MINI to make it a great car for the budget.

 

What impressed me was the amount of labor required to put the kit on.

Tom

 

Heh... sorry, just had to use that pic...

 

Search through the forums and you will see a lengthy discussion of this from a couple of months ago when this first aired. The owner is a regular here on NAM. Basically, they gave him back a car that had less performance than when he gave it to them, except for the LSD. Since then I believe he sold the wheels for something lighter and he was contemplating taking the goofy graphics off. You could tell by his reaction that he was less than pleased with what they did. I don't even watch that show anymore because of how stupid they were. The head mechanic couldn't even find the supercharger if I recall correctly.

 

Did you get the job?

 

I would have taken a blow dryer to those graphics as soon as I got home. Yes, the guy was not pleased at all until they told him about the LSD.

Tom

 

Not sure why he wasn't pleased. The announcer, said that now he has a supercharger. If only my MCS had a supercharger as well.

 

Yes, I was also disappointed by that show. Those guys have NO Mini knowledge whatsoever, but they have the attitude, especially the graphics guy, that since they are on TV that they are the world authority on all things performance.

The producers of that show could put together a MUCH more interesting show by having one knowledgable car enthusiast as a host and then use people who are very knowledgable regarding the particular brand and model of the week. The second most important improvement would be consulting the owner before any "Taste" based work is done, such as the graphics on that car.

Graphics, and most anything cosmetic for that matter are very personal and EVERYONE has different tastes. That graphics guy thinks that because he is an artist of sorts that everyone will like what he does. I'm afraid that art just doesn't work that way.

The guy that owned that car was a software techie. Techies (I'm one myself) typically go for the mechanical, technological kind of mods, not do nothing graphics work. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with graphics, but to most techie people they serve no function.

I expect that this show will be a one season wonder.

My $0.02,

 

I'm an Oracle DBA. :smile:

Tom

 

IIRC they didn't even give him the quaife--it was the phantom grip. They spent something like $10k and essentially squandered every penny of it!

Jeff

 

I remeber the original thread and didn't see the show. I watched it last night. The show stunk. The guys basically didn't like the mini, called it just pure marketing. One guy was really impressed with its handling.


The best part of the show? Watching the JCW kit go on. I will never complain about the install price. WOW!!

The guy wasn't interested in warranty, He allready made the decision to mod himself. Can you Imagine if they listened to him a pissed 10K on over the top mods.

Lets take this thread in another direction. You are give 10K to mod a MCS...GO!!!



Paul

 

An update:

The Featured MINI belongs to Paulmon president of the Southern Ontario MINI Club.

Paul's car no longer has the graphics or the heavy JCW wheels.

Cheers,
Jack

 

Okay, I'm game. How much does the JCW kit cost so I know how much of the $10K is left, then I'll propose the $10K worth of mods.

 

Don't have to use the JCW Kit. But if you do the price is on MiniUSA.Com Have to add install though.

Paul

 

I could never give my car to someone to mod. That guy is lucky that the only damage they did was that nasty stick on web graphic. I suppose you could do some cool stuff with the spider web theme, but that artwork was just BAD :('

 

The spider web stunk. He should have known better than to tell someone who was going to do his car that he was into spiders. At least they did not do a spiderman comic book theme. I could picture wrapping paper like graphics with pics of spiderman or peter parker in each cell.

 

Not all the guys on the show are clueless. The suspension guy, whom I believe is the producer or something, is very performance oriented. I always look forward to what he has to say with each project because I know the car will be well-off performance wise. Even though that particular show was horrible, It's still one of my two favorite shows on Speed. The other is Sports Car Revolution.

 

Paul has been happy with LSD. He has since had the ECU reprogrammed with UNICHIP, there is a thread out here somewhere about it his experience with it so far. I'm now having a tough time keeping up with him out of the corners at the track since he got the LSD The graphics lasted on his car for a couple weeks then he couldn't take it anymore, thank god they were vinyl. Paul's a really cool guy who really knows MINIs, his reaction on the show was genuine and showed his credibility. hey, at least he got his warranty back with an LSD

Amit

 

Who did that LSD for him and how much would it cost to do?

 

ninjamini,

Watch the show! It was a Phantom LSD from Mini Mania and was installed by the Mini dealership. It would be quite expensive to have put in. Somewhere in the $1,000 range.

I think I read somewhere that Paul was disappointed with the Unichip. Poor Paul, he keeps getting bad luck.

The people on the show were clueless about the Mini and were only putting on the stuff that BMW gave them. Which really goes against the show. The show says TUNER transformation, but it is more like Marketing transformation. What ever products they could find that the manufacturer will give them, they put on. I think they were shocked and didn't know what to do, when they found out that the car wasn't a japanese 4-cylinder, turbo.

 

The one good thing about all of the work was it was done by a good local MINI dealer and not the bozos on the show - MINI Canada was the sponsor for this episode of the show and we heard that they were a little unhappy.

 

BTW, did anyone notice the spring compressor that the dealer tech was using? It was chucked in a vise horizontally and used an impact wrench for power.

Does anyone know what brand that is, where it can be bought and its cost?

Thanks.

 

Hey guys. Ya that's my car. djafactor thanks for the kind words and keep trying to keep up.

The LSD is a phantom grip and I'm quite happy with it. Sure Quaife would have been nice but the phantom grip does help on the track.

The spider web graphics did look pretty cool in person but just not my style. If I was 22 and not 32 I might think otherwise and have kept them. I'd say I've had more people disapointed that I took them off than people who didn't like them. I didn't tell them I was into spiders. They saw my Whalen shift machine with it's spider web engraving and took it from there.

Sold the JCW Wheels and got the Unichip and have enough cash left over for some camber plates and rear control arms. The Unichip performance has more to do with how I dynoed it. I will be going back to the dyno when I get a chance.

Search the forums you'll see my $0.02 about the show. All in all it was a great experience and I would do it again. Think of it this way, I could sell my JCW '02 MCS right now for what I paid for the MCS in september of '02 and use the delta to buy an '05 and have the bolt on mods swapped over and then simply get a pulley installed. Once I know more details on the '05 LSD I might just do that.

Cheers,

Paul

 

Why was MINI Canada unhappy? Was it a certain aspect of the show or overall?