November 25, 2007:

Take advantage of your dealership

Recently I received an invitation from MINI of Peabody (probably along with every other customer, including at least one who lives in California!) - get your MINI inspected in preparation for winter!

A good assortment of checks was offered, including the battery, wipers, belts, etc … seemed like a good idea, so I booked GPMINI in for the afternoon before thanksgiving, and also took my winter wheels to get them swapped over; when I got there, another GP was also being worked on - it’s always nice for MINIs to have friends

It turned out that it was particularly worth having GPMINI inspected - a small leak was discovered at the crankshaft gasket, which of course they were happy to fix for me. I had a bit of shopping to do, so managed to borrow a MINI and head down to the Honey Baked Ham store …

It was a nice Pepper White / Black roof convertible with hood stripes - I was impressed by the apparent space inside it, due I think to the increased head room of the cloth top; I also noticed that the auto a/c behaved sensibly, waiting for the engine to heat and not blowing cold air on me - a nice improvement since I owned an auto a/c MINI back in 2002! I had no real trouble with rear visibility, using the side mirrors instead, but I was very aware of how much outside traffic noise comes through that thin cloth top …

Anyway, be sure to take your MINI in for it’s winter prep - you might, like me, find that there’s something that needs fixing (and thanks to Chris, Gary, Joel, Paul and Scott for looking after me during my visit)