Like so many things with this car, you never really know what’s wrong until you get out the grinder. After I finished painting the roof, I found a bubble in the paint on the hood. At some point in it’s tortured existence, something very heavy landed on the hood of this BMW. The hood is mostly straight, but it sits about a quarter inch lower than it should at the hinge mounting point. It sat so low, it rubbed against the top of the throttle control link which wore a hole through the hood liner. I took the liner off, but there was no rust from the underside of the hood. I took the grinder to the bubble and found nothing but bondo. Evidently the bondo wasn’t bonding to the metal so well and had created a bubble in the paint. Sort of odd, but fixable with better prep work and more bondo. I tried to blend the patch, but trying to blend flat paint doesn’t work so well and I ended up respraying the whole hood.

But that wasn’t the big news of the day: I finally paid off the MINI today. If you know my history with cars, you’ll appreciate the magnitude of this day. For the first time since March 1988, I don’t have a car note of some kind. Now I just have to resist all of the deep discounts, once-in-a-lifetime-sales-events, zero percent financing, and cash-for-clunkers offers. That convertible we have, which probably wouldn’t sell for $1500, is worth $3500 if traded against a passenger car that gets 22 MPG or better. And Volvo currently has a $2250 discount on new 2009 V50s. The BMW 335d qualifies for a $4500 tax credit. I’m just saying….