Archive for July 2004
Jul 31st, 2004
As more and more MINI owners are taking their cars to the track they're finding that there are a couple weak points of the MINI (and any street car for that matter) when it comes to track use. And the one that seems to pop-up more and more is brake fade. Well Promini has a great explanation of what causes brake fade on the track and how you can go about reducing it. Here's an excerpt:
Once you understand the cause of a fading brake pedal you will see how easy it is to avoid it in the future. Brake pedal fade can occur for two primary reasons. The most common is the over heating of the brake fluid to a point where the fluid actually boils and turns to gas. The other common scenario is the over heating of the brake pad friction material to a point where it simply disintegrate from the pad backing plate.
You can read the entire article here.
Jul 30th, 2004
In these photos we finally see the anthracite headliner, Purple Haze, new grab handles, and the new side sun-shade (among other things).
[Purple Haze/Anthracite Headliner Gallery]
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Jul 30th, 2004
For those wanting to see more “real world photos”, here's a good comparison of the 2004 Cooper versus the 2005 Cooper. Both cars are identically equipped except for xenons in the '04.
[photo 1] [photo 2]
Jul 30th, 2004
There's a great thread at North American Motoring going on right now about dislikes and likes of the 2005 changes. I thought it would be an interesting topic to hear other people's opinions on. And with the first deliveries going on this weekend I thought it would be a good as time as ever to discuss this topic.
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Jul 29th, 2004
The day is upon us. The first 2005 MINI hardtops delivered to customers on the East Coast should happen sometime today or tomorrow. Congrats to all those whose cars about to be delivered. MotoringFile would love to hear any first impressions of the '05 changes so feel free to send them in via the contact link above.
You can check out an extensive gallery of the US spec 2005 MINIs that were just delivered to MINI of Peabody over at Ian Culls MINI weblog (also where the picture above came from): [LINK]
Update: Pre-spec Convertible demos will be here around the end of August. Each dealer should get four demos. The first batch of customer order convertibles is just about to start production, so we should see those in early September.
Jul 28th, 2004
It would appear that the US spec head-unit will be the same as the 2004 with the exception of a much larger volume knob. Okay enough with the knob jokes! Larger photo here
First one who gets an MP3 cd in there and actually tests one in action gets a hearty round of applause.
Update: This comes from Aleks at Hassel MINI:
Just burned a cd with one mp3 on it to test and it came up no problem. The units we have look just like the 2004 with the exception of a grippier volume knob which will make it easier to twist in a hurry.
When you first put the disk in is brings up a message saying that it is checking the cd and then it brings up the first track.
Thanks Ian for the photo!
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Jul 28th, 2004
Get ready for more bling bling on the MINI. here are some of the first official photos of the chrome hinges that are optional on the convertible. In the US they are available only with the chrome mirror caps on the Cooper and Cooper S ($120). You can see a larger photo here.
Jul 28th, 2004
This comes from frequent contributor Foolsdragon:
Well, I didn't want to believe it, but it's true; the hold up was because the VPC didn't have the 2005 stickers ready! We just got an e-mail from our regional rep saying that the ship blocks have been removed and they're going to start releasing cars from the VPC to the dealers.
I don't know if the stickers were delayed because of not enough information or anything like that. For all I know, they just didn't have any with a new design ready to print on.
Update: Well that was fast! We now have confirmation from two dealers that they have recieved their first '05s. Aparently the first batch went out unnoticed a few days ago.
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Jul 28th, 2004
Thanks everyone for writing in to this segment of Ask an MA. If you didn't get your questions in to us in time no need to worry - we'll have another “Ask an MA” next month with our first MA contributor “Foolsdragon”. So without further delay here are the answers from Aleks…
Hi All,
Let me start by saying thanks to Gabe for allowing me participate with the Ask an MA Column on Motoringfile.com. I consider myself to be a regular on the site, and even though I don't post often, I am on it every day checking things out and seeing what's new. I consider this one of the best sites for up to date info and I am constantly amazed at how accurate and timely that info is.
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Jul 27th, 2004
It would seem that the first batch of 2005 MINIs (including convertibles) is sitting in New Jersey at the vehicle distribution center with no immediate time table on being shipped (as of this weekend). We were going to report on this last week but it seems so hard to get confirmation on it all that we run the risk of just creating more rumors. In fact there has been discussion on this topic for days now on the MINI2 forums.
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Jul 27th, 2004
Over the past year and a half we've gotten dozens of emails about our header images; how they work and where we got them. So I thought it best to take some time and explain them a bit.
The idea of creating different headers and having them rotate on a daily basis came from simply not being able to choose which one to use. We've gone from 12 the first week to having a cap of 50 in the rotation. Many of those were updated during recent redesign of the site.
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Jul 26th, 2004
In celebration of Lance Armstrong's triumphant sixth Tour de France victory we present you the Classic MINI Cooper Cyclists Jersey:
[LINK] www.performancebike.com
Jul 26th, 2004
Looks like the iPod MINI adapter will be a hot item when it's released this September for the MINI. Word has it that there are more than 800 BMW/iPod units currently back-orded. So even if it does work in MINIs (as the post below indicates) you might not have the chance to actually get one before the MINI version launches in September.
[Link] www.ernietheattorney.net
Jul 26th, 2004
Here's an interesting email we recently recieved:
Just heard from an inside source at the Palo Alto Tech center in CA that the BMW I-pod unit (released 2 weeks ago) will work with Mini's. The Ipod will still show BMW in the Display vs. Mini when introduced.
While we haven't been able to confirm this yet it would seem natural. The head-units of the BMWs supported are technically identical to the MINIs. Of course if you wanted to play it safe you could just wait for September and the official roll out of the MINI version.
Has anyone had any first hand experience trying to it a BMW adapter into a MINI? We'd love to get confirmation on this one.
Jul 25th, 2004
Los Angeles artist Young Lee will launch MAXYART.COM which showcases his paintings of the wonderful MINI (classic and new). A limited number of paintings will be on display at the launch event which takes place on August 19th in Beverly Hills CA. Here are the details:
MAXYART.COM is where collectors of art and fans of the MINI from all over the world can view and order artwork as well as get information on various openings and events, new series and editions, and other cool MINI things. Besides the main portraits and profiles paintings offered on the website, collectors can also commission Mr. Lee for custom works.
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