Edge

I'm ready to assist this year, Laura! :top:

Oh, you're definitely a talk woman!

That's just BEGGING for a group of MINIs to fill the circle and take a photo (with the sign still in the photo).

Don't mention DCMM to John. BEHE Performance (formerly Lucky Dog Garage) used to be a DCMM vendor many years ago, but we had an unfortunate situation occur (scheduling conflict with an event he had planned with us) that caused relations to sour with him. It was very regrettable, and it caused us to change our event scheduling policy to try to prevent conflicts and having events step on each other. I will say this - John is very talented and definitely knows what he's doing. :top: As for Jan / Revolution Motor Works, he too is very good at tuning MINIs, but as stated he is based in California. A couple times in the past we have managed to get enough people signed up for him to visit us for a few days and tune our MINIs in person, in partnership with Mach V Motorsports in Sterling, using their dyno. My MINI was one of the ones tuned... easily the best bang for the buck mod I have made, performance-wise. However, I strongly recommend making all of your planned engine-related performance mods first and doing the tune at the end, for maximum benefit (regardless of who does the tune - John, Jan or otherwise).

These are going to be hauled away by Home Depot when the new ones come in Thursday, unless somebody takes them.

Hey everyone - I'm in the midst of remodeling my kitchen, and I have decided to replace my last 2 older appliances while I'm at it. They still work fine... so before I junk them, I figured I'd offer them up in case anyone wants them. The only catch? You have to pick it/them up. They are both General Electric - here are the model numbers & photos: Refrigerator/Freezer: GE TBX18IAZKRAA Range: GE J BS03 0J2 AD

Done.

:top:

Oops - vacation brain. :embarassed:

Isn't Monday night usually Katie's spaghetti dinner?

I wholeheartedly approve of this post and regret I was not there to experience the Labranado!

Cambo... all new memberships right now are 2014 memberships. No need to wait.

I don't know anything about that, or what it does exactly. I'd be concerned about how it affects the security systems in the car... and does it make your car easier to steal? I'm not saying don't proceed. I'm just saying use caution.

All new MINIs have the same issue, because they are all chipped. In order for an aftermarket remote start system to work, there would have to be a sacrificial key always kept near the ignition so the car saw the chip and allowed the engine to start. Doing so of course would make your car much easier to steal, and having a running engine in an empty car is more tempting to thieves. Proper remote start systems won't let the car be driven until you bring the key, but that is of course defeated with the key fob chip always being there. To add to that, anyone with a 2nd Gen and the Comfort Access system would not be able to lock their car properly because the chip is always there to allow the car to be unlocked. So doing remote start in a MINI is quite a challenge, unfortunately one that I don't think will be overcome properly & easily until MINI designs it in as a factory option. How do I know about this stuff? I had my Mustang set up with remote start as part of a high-end fancy alarm system in the late 90s. I could even page my car, using a special pager module that was programmed to the same identifier as my pager (remember those days? hehe). As for driving your car when it's cold, I've heard a contrasting opinion to the "warm the car up before you drive" concept. Simply that running the engine may warm the engine, but it does not warm up the rest of the car (transmission, brakes, etc). The opposing thought process is to just get in your car and drive... but drive very calmly & gently until the engine is warmed up. By then, the whole car should be warmed up along with it. Just get in and go but take it very easy - no aggressive maneuvering/acceleration/braking until the warm up period is over. It makes sense to me!

You have to use a URL directly to the image itself (not to the page containing the image). Also, the site hosting the images has to allow external embedding (not all sites do).

Seriously dude? Come on man, one of the wonderful things about DCMM is that it's politics-free. Let's save it for Facebook.

...and there's one of my independent sources that I got the recommendation from. The others? Another body shop (yes, a competitor!) and parts technicians at a car dealership. All people that work in the car business, all independent folks who likely don't know each other and who don't have anything to gain directly from getting D&V more business.

D&V Autobody in Sterling - (703)661-8545. Talk to Kevin, and tell him that you're from DC Metro MINIs (you may have to explain that we're the local MINI Cooper club) and that Haemish sent you. (They are working on my MINI, and they come highly recommended from many sources, that's why I picked them. I don't get any kickbacks or anything, but I am ultimately hoping to convince them to become a club vendor!) Anything to save a MINI that can't be replaced or replicated! (1st Gens like ours can't any more)

Hey - I thought you already had a tire garage!

No RSVP, no guarantee they can sit with the group! :top:

ScooterWard - please post a price. Every marketplace post is supposed to have a set price (and not just "make an offer").

That was a blast. It was awesome to be calling in to WTOP every ten minutes, right before the traffic broadcast, and hear my own update read out over the radio for the whole trip. What fun! Even better than the article on their website... last night I heard the news story on WTOP and heard Craig's own voice! Fantastic! I hope they post the audio version of the story on the website for future posterity. :top: Great job everyone - I can't wait to see how much the final donation total comes to this year. :rock:

YES. :top: One bit of advice though... many people love the alcantara (suede) version better, because of its soft feel... but the all leather version is much more durable and will last longer, especially if the car is parked in the sun. I've seen a number of 1st Gen JCW alcantara steering wheels where it was just falling apart. My all-leather JCW wheel is still going strong though, after many years!

Actually, she's won 3 in a row now. A three-peat! :top:

That's probably because the JCW suspension includes its own springs, which are individually tailored to the options on your car. The MINI dealership actually uses your MINI's VIN to look up a spring table and match the springs to your specific car. There isn't just one set of JCW springs, there are actually a range of them.