I park. I go inside, then outside with “the guy”, then inside where “the guy” tells me it will be 30 minutes or so. So I sit and whip out Angry Birds or Words with Friends or Instagram. But that’s not what’s important.

My MINI has a very distict sound when it starts and when it’s running. I’m sure it has something to do with the NASCAR style exhaust I installed on it when I was a kid. Point being, when it’s started, I hear it. And since I’m extra, weirdly protective, of my MINI, I go outside.

Everything is going well with the kid trying to move my MINI into the repair bay until he stalls it backing up. Ok, he’s a kid, I cut him some slack. His Japanese car has an automatic, so he doesn’t get a lot of practice. Finally backed out of the spot, he stalls when trying to move foward.

Twice.

Honestly, it’s all I can do to keep from pointing and laughing. He works at a tire shop. A shop that puts tires on cars. All kinds of cars, including those with manual transmissions. Even while I was having a hard time standing up from laughing so hard, I still felt a little embarrassed for this National Chain of Tire Stores that You Have Heard Me Talk About Before.

2 new Kumho Ecsta ASXs have been ordered for installation early next week and I will be ordering 2 more the week after. It will be nice to get some good rubber back on Roxy again.

A common problem with some of the early generation MINIs was that of spark plugs popping out of the cylinder. I say common, more like something that was heard of every now and again. Mostly with the R53s, the threads in the cylinder head where the plugs screw in become weak and aren’t able to hold the plug under pressure, forcing them to ‘pop’ out.

Which has now happened to me.

Fearing the worst, I got Roxy into the shop. Turns out, it’s not as bad as one would think. The repair that happened for me was the following.

• Spark plug socket tapped a little bit larger and rethreaded
• A replacement sleeve screwed into place
• Locktite holds things in place

There is another way that didn’t sound that hot to me using something called a heliacoil (sp?), which is essentially a spacer between the spark plug and the socket. That doesn’t sound that great, especially when the time comes to replace the spark plugs again. Total cost for this repair was about $100.

To be honest, I’m not super happy with either of these fixes. There is no way my car can ever be 100% with this fix in place, and the only way to make it 100% would be to replace the head, and that’s just not in the budget right now.

Next up, time for tires. Yipee!

Another day, another repair. This time more maintenance than anything else; front brakes. Been awhile since I had last done them and they were due. Pads were down to a thickness that was the same as maybe 5 sheets of paper? Rotors were still in pretty ok shape and I probably could have turned them to get another set of pads on them, but it’s not that much more expensive to replace than to turn.

As per my usual, EBC Greens went on. I also stuck with the Centric rotors since I’m not doing anything more punishing then commuting to work every day. I’m really impressed with the wear on the last set too, so I’m confident this set will perform just as well.

And, for the first time since I’m too embarrassed to admit, I had the fluid swapped. I forgot what a huge difference that makes. It’s also the reason why I had my brakes done instead of doing them myself. I don’t have the tools and equipment to do a fluid swap and it’s cheaper for me to have it done, and way less frustrating too.

And with that, the list of major repairs that Roxy needs is now complete! Moving on to the should have list which consists of some of the following.

• Oil pan gasket
• Valve cover gasket
• Power steering hoses
• Sunroof motor
• Passenger side door lock

So, now Roxy sits are about 98%. I’m more than pleased with that.

That’s Barrett Jackson. And for the first time in my life, I got to go. Not having a spare few hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I was there only has a spectator. Took my camera, walked around, had a coffee and a funnel cake. It was pretty awesome. But, not because of the funnel cake.

This is a very nice example of a 1960 Chevrolet Impala 2 Door Coupe. It was very clean and from what I could tell, very stock. I didn’t catch the sell price because I really couldn’t be bothered. But I did snap a pic to send to Dad, whose first car was a 1960 Chevrolet Impala 2 Door Coupe. A car I have heard about my whole life. A car that, at one point, couldn’t be beat on Whittier Blvd. A car that had more rear-ends and intake/carb combinations than I can remember. All of them great stories and helped to fuel my love for automobiles.

But it was more than this car. It was all of the cars. It was all of the other car guys that were there, walking around with their kids or grand kids, showing off their first car, or sharing memories generated by that ’67 Chevelle. I’ve never been to a place where I see so many smiles on people that were just walking around, myself included.

Sure that sounds pretty romantic for a silly car show, but that’s my take away. It’s why I’m still a car guy. Cars, much like music or the smell of a certain perfume, can trigger memories long ago forgotten. I can’t wait for next year either! Not because I hope to afford that really nice ’73 Classic Mini (because I’m sure I can’t). I’m hoping to find my first car. Now that one I might buy!

Now, here’s the thing. I’ve actually read the entire recall notice from BMW, 3 times and it says, specifically, that dealers are not to release any MINIs on the lot without performing the recall repair. They also are not to hold customer cars or perform repairs on customer cars UNTIL a service bulletin has been drafted and released.

I say this because I know you. I know you already called your dealer and came close to having kittens because they didn’t know anything about it. Or, there wasn’t anything they could do to help you right now and couldn’t tell you why.

You will be notified about the recall and your MINI will be fixed. Just keep in mind that this recall is affecting approximately 90,000 MINIs in the US, not just you. Now, if you aren’t the original owner of your MINI, you might not find out through normal channels. Stay tuned to Motoringfile or White Roof Radio because we will keep you updated with the latest information as it becomes available.

In the meantime, I would avoid parking your MINI in a garage or under any cover, just in case.

If your MINI Cooper S is older than 2007 (or 2009, I think, for your Cabrio owners), this does not affect you. This only affects MINIs with the turbo charged engine built between 2007 and 2011.

I didn’t get the chance to take any photos while I was there, just this bit of video. What a great looking MINI.

With the top down.

Anyone see this with the top up yet? In person? I wasn’t that impressed. Definitely a top-down kind of car.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this MINI, and I haven’t seen it in person, but there, in Cooper Trim (with small bits of tan on the interior), sure has a classic look to it. And, as an added bonus, comes in about $15k cheaper than the JCW model.

We’ve already had some crazy responses over on the WRR Facebook page. How did yours turn out?

From the entire dbmini.us team, Merry Christmas!

Stay subscribed and keep coming back! 2012 is shaping up to be a great year in the MINI Community, and I plan on doing as much as possible, posting most of that right back here, of course. 2012 might also be the year that Roxy turns 300k miles (it could happen) and you won’t want to miss the road to that. There will be more repairs, more DIY stuff and more of whatever you keep coming back to dbmini.us for.

Have a great [insert holiday of choice here] and a happy new year!

GoMotoring is temporarily not available as we are changing to our new content. It will be re-launched the week of December 12th. We’ll have LOTS of FREE goodies to give away in our first 60-90 days, so tell all your Mini & MINI friends to bookmark www.GoMotoring.com please. GoMotoring is part of the MC2 magazine family, so check us out at www.mc2magazine.com

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Many years ago, Mark Vogler came up with the idea to build a site that would bring in feeds from any and all MINI Blogs he could find. I always thought it was cool and a good resource for those that never really got the hang of using an RSS reader. I even helped a bit with the backend code on the latest version.

And now it’s gone. The did leave the year out, so here’s to hoping that it comes back in December of 2012. Meanwhile, if you are looking for something to replace GoMotoring.com, check out the Motoringfile News Room. All the MINI and automotive news you could want, all in 1 place.

I still can’t wait to drive one!