Just in time for the first (and second!) Minnesota snow storms in October, I purchased new tires for the MINI. The car now has almost 75,000 miles on it and the tires on the front were actually still the originals. I bought two new ones a few years ago and rotated the old rear tires to the front. This time, I picked four new Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grids (size 195/55R-16). Discount Tire in Apple Valley installed them for me quickly and smoothly for around $500.

Saturday also turned out to be new phone day. Colleen decided she was done paying T-mobile $50 a month for her pink Razr and wanted to upgrade. We went to the Mall of America and visited both the Apple Store and the AT&T corporate store, the latter of which was able to convert my account to a family plan. Colleen switched to a white 16GB iPhone 3GS, while I upgraded from a first generation iPhone to a black 32GB iPhone 3GS.

So now kid one has an iPod Touch, kid two gets my old iPhone (sans phone service) and we both have current iPhones. Everybody’s happy!

Even though most of my car friends hate it, I sort of like the new 2010 Porsche Panamera 4-door. Granted, I don’t like the looks as much as, say, an Aston Martin Rapide, but I think this would be a great Minnesota family car. The turbo version is four-wheel-drive with 500HP, a zero-60 time of 4.0 seconds flat and a top speed of 188MPH. But best of all, it comes in purple.

Now where did I leave that $135K laying around?

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the rear brake pads on my 2005 MINI Cooper needed replacement after only a year. Before replacing the caliper, I decided to order a new set of rear pads (EBC Red Stuff) and see if I could get the caliper to snap back to life.

As you can see from the picture above, the inside right rear pad had almost completely disintegrated. That’s what was causing the metal-on-metal sounds I heard last week that made me decide not to drive it anymore until the new pads arrived. Based on safety advice from Mr. Chuck Goolsbee, I borrowed some real car stands from a neighbor this time and proceeded with the repair.

That caliper was a total pain in the ass to retract (and I’m not the only one with this issue, as this thread shows). I tried opening the bleeding nipple a bit, but that didn’t help and I ended up breaking the special tool I had ordered last time.

In the end, I finally got it compressed by removing the rubber cover and placing a little brake fluid on the exposed piston. I then used a needle nosed pliers to finally get the thing spinning. Lastly, a c-clamp combined with the pliers got it back in place after a long, painful ballet of clamping, spinning and un-clamping. My hands still hurt from that ordeal.

This set of brake pads came with some black adhesive from 3M that is supposed to help prevent brake squeal. I had use some red gunk last time, so this was much nicer (if it works). I had ordered a new brake sensor cable and got that hooked up (although the damn light is still on, just like last time). The other rear wheel took literally like 10 minutes from start to finish.

Chuck helped me through this job via iChat, photo uploads and web searches (thanks again!). He said I really needed to bleed the brakes, but I didn’t have any of the stuff I needed at home for that. I hadn’t done that the previous time I did pads, but I also didn’t open the bleeder valve then either.

I pumped the brakes back to life and carefully took the car for a spin around the block. As I pulled back in the garage, I could hear that it sounded like the right rear caliper was still not releasing. Because of this I decided to take it in to the local mechanic down the block.

Car Care Advanced Auto on Cliff Road bled the brake lines for me and did an inspection on all four wheels for $79. They said both rear calipers weren’t really releasing, even when they opened the bleeders. They also said the rotors were in pretty bad shape, with the raised outer rim (that I already knew about) and several other imperfections. They wanted about $850 to replace both rear calipers and rotors. I decided to wait on that until I could research all my options.

At this point, I seriously thought about just trading it in for a new car, but Colleen and I decided that we should continue on for now. I’ve got a call in to the mechanic at the dealer that did my last big repair to get his opinion (and quote). I’d consider doing the caliper replacement myself, but I’m not sure I want to try the rotors.

More to come, I’m sure…

7MM MINI Photo Gallery

Just when I thought I had seen the last of the car issues for a while, the brake light in the MINI came on again. I did the front brake pads myself in November 2007, followed by the rear pads last April.

By the looks of it, the rear passenger side caliper is stuck. The replacement part costs about $180 and I’d need to order two new rear pads also, which cost $85. A MINI-owning friend of mine says I could do the installation myself, but it would require bleeding the brakes, which I’m not sure I want to do myself.

The rear pad is worn down to about 2-3mms, so I’ll need to get it fixed soon (the other three pads are all still fine). Too bad I don’t live close enough to my job to walk or drive – cars are really starting to get on my nerves…

The past month has not been kind to our garage or our pocketbook. Our two cars are getting older (both are 2005 model years), but I wasn’t expecting events to unfold like they did.

First, my wife gets a flat tire on her Accord sedan. I helped her get the temporary spare on and she drove it to the local Honda dealer. They tried to tell her that all her tires were so threadbare that it was illegal to drive it and then tried to sell her $1100 worth of new tires. We shopped around and talked to some friends before deciding to order four new Pirelli’s from Discount Tire Direct for $404, including shipping. An extra $100 at the local Discount Tire center for installation and I thought I was golden. Didn’t turn out that way, unfortunately…

The online site had me qualify her car for the correct tire size and I placed the order. It took about five days for UPS to deliver them and I set up an appointment for installation. Once there, the installer comes out and tells me the tires are too big for the car. So much for the online qualification. I had to buy a second set of new tires that they had in stock (which thankfully I had already researched and liked) and arrange to send the others back. Discount Tire Direct did refund the full $404, but I had to pay UPS another $75 to ship them back to Ohio. So the total cost for the new tires was lower than the $1100, but still a royal hassle.

On the day I took the Accord in for the new tires, my wife drove my MINI Cooper. She calls and tells me the car is out of wiper fluid. I told her to pop the hood and look for the blue cap on the left side of the engine bay. She calls back a few minutes later and says it’s still not working. I get home and take a look – she put the wiper fluid in the coolant compartment by mistake. I make arrangements with the local MINI dealer for a fluid flush and they say it’s OK to drive it in that day. We make it over there, get checked in and I’m more than happy to pay the $100 to have it fixed.

A few hours later, I get a call from the mechanic at Motorwerks, Tucker Masui. Tucker says there is a transmission fluid leak and it appears to be along the input shaft seal. Since they have to drop the transmission to reach that, it would cost $1600. He also found a loose tie rod and two torn arm bushings (which apparently wear out after 60,000 miles). The total would be about $2500. Shock sets in.

I consulted with a several other MINI owners and did some research online. Everyone thought that, yes, the price sucks, but yes, it likely needs to be done. One additional piece of advice I decided to take was to have the clutch replaced at the same time, since they would have to drop the transmission for that too. I asked Tucker to keep the whole repair as close to $2500 as possible, but it still turned into a $2800 bill. Since my tax refund hadn’t arrived yet, I had to dive into the line of credit at the credit union to cover it.

Tucker says it will drive like a new car and should be able to go 3-4 years without any other major repairs. He was right about the clutch – I’m amazed at how precise it is now. I can also feel the tie rod and bushings difference in the steering. Tucker had actually asked if the car had been in a front end accident, as the rods were slightly bent. He also said that could be caused by running into curbs on a regular basis. Guess I need to be more careful with speed bumps.

Kid one and kid two made a cake and sang happy birthday to the MINI Cooper today, which I took delivery on four years ago today. Mileage is now around 55,000 miles, but it’s been running great (knock on wood). Only one more year of payments, too.

Oh, and by the way, the answer to my most asked question: I average about 29 MPG, but could get closer to the rated 37 if I didn’t drive it so hard (but what fun is that?)…

Let’s Motor!