Mini Inspection

I took the Mini in for inspection about two weeks ago. Everything was fine with it except the front right suspension where a rubber cone was badly worn. Instead of coil springs, my Mini has rubber cones. I think a lot of mini owners upgrade to springs, but the $770 Moss has it listed for certainly didn't seem worth it to me. I was in the middle of transmission problems with the Midget, so I told him to just replace the cone.

He didn't have the part available, so I said I would order it. I did and dropped it off at the garage. Later, I get another call. He got the old cone off, but since the new cone is much taller, he needed a special tool to compress it while installing it. Even before seeing the $130 price tag on this thing, I decided I didn't want to wait to order it from anywhere. I made some phone calls, and got a lead on a mechanic in Emmaus who has a few Minis. It turns out he had the tool but lost some parts to it. But he indicated it'd be easy to rig up the rest since the essential piece was there. He let me borrow it, and without being too technical or long-winded here, the garage was able to make it work. Since I just had the one side replaced, the right side of the car sits about 3/4" higher than the left. But it's hardly noticeable at all.

Today in the grocery store parking lot, a kid approached me as I was getting in my car (I think him and his bike-riding friends were actually waiting for me to exit the grocery). He said my car was "sick" and asked some questions about it. I'm not sure if he knew what it was or not. It's funny how some people have no idea what it is, some people know exactly what is (the other day a fellow correctly guessed its engine size by glancing at the dash), and some people don't know the difference between it and a BMW Mini.

Nonetheless, the kid didn't seem to mind that it leaned a bit to the left.