mdsbrain.com MINI Blog

I made an appt earlier this week to bring my baby in this afternoon to have a exhaust vibration looked at.

Well after a few minutes of my car being in the shop the tech Sam calls the SA. Tells me to come over to the car bay to see what he sees. He tells me the only thing he sees is that when he bangs on my CAT that you hear little bits moving around inside. So my CAT is bad and will be replaced under warranty. I’m like cool! He also told me he would install an aftermarket header if I brought it in. Thats cool if I can pull like $800-900 from somewhere haha. I told them to order the header and made an appt for a few weeks down the road since I am busy and its not major.

I also asked about my Insane Blinker. He said he couldn’t find a bad bulb so I was alright. Maybe I’ll see if one is bad if the car blinks weird again.

So I started to ask him some other random stuff. Like in regards to a noise in the rear of my car that I mentioned when the car was in for my new engine. Well after he pulls off the rear tires and unhooks my crooked sway bar (it was shifted to one side) and lubes it. He doesn’t know what is causing a weird creaking in the rear of my car. So he put the car back together. I drove it around the parking lot. Still there. Then I asked him to hop in and listen to it and see what he thinks. He hops in, I drive around he then says…”I wonder”. He hops out and comes back with some silicon lube and a brush. He then drops my rear seats down. Lubs the little latches that hold it to the catch. At this point I think he is nuts…………..Ok so I hop in and do the same drive in the parking lot..WTH! The sound is gone…!!!!!!

Now the 2 most shocking things I learned today. I was asking the guy some questions about my engine swap and such. Like what was the “wrong engine” that arrived. He told me it was a Brand NEW MCS (manual) engine.

THE REPLACEMENT ENGINE ISN’T NEW….MY SA MUST OF BEEN SO HIGH ON LIFE WHEN HE TOLD ME IT WAS. OK..I got that out of my system. Its a refurb. My tech told me BMW will not pay for a brand new engine under warranty, only a refurb. So the block and head are refurbed but all the moving parts are new. Isnteresting eh? I know one of my readers mentioned this before.

 

I came up on a turn really quick and had my right blinker on. I noticed when I stopped before I made the turn that my right blinker was blinking very fast. The noise that accompanies it was also very fast. After the turn I hit the left blinker to see if I just never had noticed the speed of the blinker. It was the normal speed. I switched to the right…still fast. So I drove a few seconds and tried again. Both now at the slower speed….

Weird or normal??

Ok, well last week my local tire shop scratched one of my R99s bad in 2 spots. I worked it out with them to fix my rim and do it for free due to their error. Well we went back in forth on the phone for a few days as to what to do for me since I don’t have a spare. I would have to leave my car with them and not have transportation.

 

Fast forward to Monday, I called Tirerack and asked for a steelie wheel. They only had 15s and 16s. I had a 17″ tire. Well I then asked for the cheapest 17″ wheel they had.

Here it is. Mounted with my bubble runflat while they have my R99 to fix it.

Its a $99 rim (very VW like) + $13 to ship from a DE warehouse.

So now I have a spare to get me around when I need it.

Bad pic from my phone:

Thank you Jeff Perrin of Alta correcting me on how to install the box top bracket.

It goes like this:

Now for something alot of people asked for. Will the M7 Strut tower bar work with this intake?!

Check out my pics:

Thanks to 04SDMINI I have a brand new Black M7 bar in place of my silver bar.

From up front looking at the gap between the bar and box.

Another shot. Enough clearance!

From the side. It looks super close and it is. Probaly a few millimeters clearance.

Thanks to Marina our monthy Breakfast of DCMM was extra special with the visit of the Redbull MINI. I have seen these in pictures tons of times but never in person so this was very cool to me!

The back of the car from the rear seats back has been made into a ice chest. Which was filled with of course REDBULL.