My husband has wondered if I would really enjoy driving one, since he got one as a loaner car when he took my MINI to the dealership in May. He got his answer today. This afternoon, I took a test drive of a Countryman S All 4 and all I can say is “Holy Jesus, I want that car.”

The handling was better than I expected for a vehicle of this size. I expected it to really lean in the curves, like my husband’s SUV, but I was pleasantly surprised by how little it leaned. It is heavier than the base model Cooper that is my current daily driver, but it really seems to compensate for that elegantly. The steering is nice and crisp, the wheel turned exactly as I thought a MINI should.

When I got my MINI originally, I didn’t even bother test driving an S. I really felt at the time that I didn’t “need” the extra zip, but it was so nice to put my foot on the gas going uphill on a 20 degree incline and have the car just go.… [Read More]

I Test Drove a Countryman (and I Liked It!)

Those of you that are regular readers of this blog, or are personal friends, may remember that I had a really horrible service experience with my MINI dealer this past July during which they left me stranded in a motel 6 next door to a greasy spoon for 24 hours after promising me a loaner car on 3 separate occasions. You will also remember that prior to this service experience, all I did was talk about my car and how much I loved it. I’m sure you’ve noticed how much quieter I have been about my MINI lately.

It’s because I was depressed. I cannot think about Viola without thinking of that jerk at the service department now. Especially because he refused to do my warranty service inspection and told me that my car would be fine until March because “You don’t drive it that much.” which is.. a complete load of crap.… [Read More]

MINI Almost Killed My Enthusiasm.

Given that it is a five and a half hour drive from my house to my car dealership, I’m sure you can imagine that it takes a bit of planning to get there. While in the planning stages, I made a phone call and scheduled an appointment with the service department. In this first phone call, I asked for the sunroof TSB to be applied to my car, I explained that my power windows rolled themselves down in the middle of a blizzard and that I wanted them to do an oil change and warranty service inspection. This was about a month before I intended to actually go to the dealership. I needed to get a date and time on my calendar because, with a new puppy coming home soon and two teenagers, stuff tends to fill up quickly. At this time, I told the gal on the phone to make sure that it was noted that I would need a loaner car.… [Read More]

Road Trip Hell

One of the most popular topics I run into on car forums is the discussion of how to “upgrade” a car with aftermarket High Intensity Discharge lamps, or Xenon headlights. I find the discussion amusing, because the posters readily admit that they could have ordered their cars with the Xenon headlights in place before they took delivery, and opted not to do so in order to save a few bucks. They often find out later that not only are those aftermarket conversion kits not legal, and not DOT approved, but properly installing Xenon headlights after a car has been purchased is prohibitively expensive.

Aftermarket HID kits are often labeled as being DOT approved, but the NHTSA does not approve motor vehicle equipment for sale. Several manufacturers of these kits have written to the NHTSA asking for approval of their kits, only to be told that they are not compliant with current US law regulating headlamps and that the NHTSA does not offer approval for motor vehicle equipment.… [Read More]

The Truth About Aftermarket HID Conversion Kits.

Viola came with Goodyear Excellence run on flat tires. These tires are great for summer driving, and I liked the traction they got in the rain. I felt pretty confident driving on them until the colder temps hit, and then I felt like I was skating on dry pavement so hubby and I agreed that Viola needed dedicated snow tires.

He called several shops, only two places here locally had the equipment to remove runflats. Only one routinely did so on MINIs, and knew what the push button start was.

You can guess which one we decided to go with.

So my son and I took Viola in to get her new shoes, and the salesman could tell that this car was my baby. He spent a good ten minutes reassuring me that even though my husband had reserved the tires over the phone, they were a good choice, and I was happy with them.… [Read More]

Viola’s New Shoes

I’m not sure how much stock to put into this article, that comes to you via /. But I will say this much, if this is true, then Toyota are a bunch of A-holes that are not worthy of the admiration of those thousands of folks who put up wallpapers of their Toyotas/Scions/Lexi.

I often have to wonder about the state of the world anymore, where people are constantly being forced to question weather they actually own a thing when they pay money for it, or weather they just own a license to use it. I would have a hard time spending the amount of money that it costs to buy a car, if I couldn’t take pictures of the thing and I couldn’t refer to it by its product name when telling others what I really think about it, and was only allowed to use it for as long as the company felt it was appropriate for me to use it.… [Read More]

Toyota Abusing DMCA?

I’m reposting this here from a post that I put up on North American Motoring this morning. It was in response to a thread where a guy was having issues explaining his love for his MINI to his girlfriend, who just could not wrap her head around it. You can find the thread here.

I’m not a huge fan of Subarus, but my mother is in love with her Subaru Legacy. My father bought her a brand new one for Valentine’s day in 2007 and while it wasn’t exactly what she wanted, (my dad added more options than she would have, etc), she quickly fell in love with this car. My mother called me squealing about how beautiful this car was when my dad brought it home for her, and how wonderful it was that he’d bought her a car for Valentine’s day.

Flash forward. 2 months later. My dad borrows my mother’s brand new baby for the first time to drive it to work because his car was in for its annual dent removal.… [Read More]

Motoring Love and Love Love.

I used to love Japanese cars because they had all of these neat gizmos attached to them, and they ran for years and years without complaint, but I have since come to realize that I sacrificed so much to have the technology and the reliability. I sacrificed control, I sacrificed self-confidence and freedom, but worst of all, I’ve now proven to myself that James May was right. To paraphrase, he said that Japanese cars, while extremely technically advanced are completely soulless. I never understood that phrase until now. You see, I’ve never before owned a car with a soul.

I love this car because she has a soul. There is a life to Viola that makes her unique from every other MINI, and now that I’ve driven more than one MINI, I can safely tell you that there is no other car that is quite like her. The other MINI I drove was the same model, same year, everything was the same about the car, except the color and the leatherette seats… and I emphatically hated driving that car.… [Read More]

Learning to Drive.

It has officially been a month since I bought my MINI Cooper. Viola is an evil little car. I have broken no laws behind the wheel of this vehicle, but boy does she tempt me toward the dark side. There are several twisty, windy back roads in the area that I have always wanted to find some official means to have cleared and make it legal for me to do 90 mph on them for even just ten minutes, but I never had a car that was capable of taking those turns at 90… before I met Viola that is. I haven’t tried it, so I’m not 100% sure, but every bone in my body tells me that this little car could take those turns at 90 without having the passengers leaning to one side of the vehicle, but this is just one of the many evils that she tempts me with.… [Read More]

Life Behind the Wheel of an Evil Genius.

I picked her up yesterday. She’s incredible and this is the first time in my life that I have ever been in love… with a car. Now I understand my Dad’s obsession with that mustang when I was a kid.

… [Read More]

Introducing, Viola.