MINI Countryman
While I was in Arlington, VA the other day, I saw my first Countryman in the wild. I really wanted to hate this car. MINI launched 10 years ago in this country with the slogan “The SUV backlash officially starts now”. I guess that was “now”, then. In the new now, MINI is making SUVs. This one is an all-wheel drive Cooper S. Although I do hate those wheels, it’s not nearly as ugly in person as it appears in the photos. It retains enough MINI-ness to let you know it’s a MINI. In case you can’t figure that out, there’s a super-sized MINI emblem front and rear. Having lived with a MINI for 140K+ miles and seven years, I can understand the draw of a larger MINI. I’m just not sure this one isn’t a swing and a miss….
The headlights and hood don’t work for me. I think they should have tried to keep more of the common design cues from the current R56 MINI. The scoop above the bumper just seems an afterthought. Go to MINIUSA and check out the Cooper Countryman. It has a much better hood/grille treatment.
“Does this angle make my butt look big?…” The wing on the back of this car is also too small. The roof could benefit from side rails for a luggage rack. Maybe I’m trying to make it seem more like our Subaru Forrester. I wouldn’t say I particularly like the Countryman, but I don’t hate it either. If the all-wheel drive system makes it into the regular MINI, then going big isn’t such a bad thing after-all. I’m excited to see that MINI is getting back into rallying this year.
You have an Unstable Attitude
Saturday marked the end of the motorsports year for GeorgeCo. We spent the day on the skidpad at Summit Point, honing our over-steer skills in preparation for winter. There’s nothing like a couple of hours on a skidpad to build your confidence. We also worked on trying to navigate a course around (and sometimes through) the cones while maintaining an unstable attitude. Now it’s time to park the GeorgeCo BMW powered by Beano in the GeorgeCo Garagemahol, look for worn-out parts, and start making preparations for next season.
More Control
I’ve been taking advantage of the unusually mild November weather to catch up on some maintenance issues on my cars. It started when I noticed a nasty screech sound from the MINI clutch on the way home from work one day. It had been a while since the MINI (now with over 135K miles/over 5K on the track) had been thoroughly checked out. Sure enough the clutch is slipping.
Once you know you have to drop the engine to replace the clutch, you start to think of all of the other things you might as well do while it’s all apart. I noticed steering wasn’t as precise as before (2nd set of control arm bushing shot); and I haven’t yet replaced the belt tensioner (3rd belt due to be replaced.) I started to source parts, and then realized I’d have to drive the Stealth to work while the MINI is in the shop. I ended up getting a Spec Stage II clutch and lightened aluminum flywheel along with some Powerflex bushings.
The Stealth E30 burned through a front wheel bearing on my last track day and also showed signs of control arm ball joint failure (I hate when that happens.) New bearings, new wheel studs, new control arms, new control arm bushings, and an alignment later, the Stealth is back on the road. I was able to do the control arm replacement and bushings, but the rest I had to take to York Auto.
I’m trying something a bit different with this set of control arm bushings. I used offset bushings from an E36 M3. The offset location ads a bit more track, camber and caster to the geometry. With the current setup of Bavauto springs and Bilstein shocks, I’m getting 2.5 degrees negative camber in the front (without adjustable camber plates) and 2.6 negative degrees in the back.
New Exhaust for the MINI
After crossing the 135,000 miles mark at the track last month, I noticed it might be time to catch up on a few maintenance items. First up is a new exhaust. My previous exhaust was an Alta Sportone that I installed in September 2006, which was about 75,000 miles ago. The Alta exhaust is a work of art; has nice tone; and is very easy to install. I had an early version and had to do some fiddling to get it to line up correctly, but it was mostly worry free. I did have to replace the resonator a couple of years ago and the replacement proved to be just too loud. No one wanted to ride with me after that. I’ve been thinking of getting a replacement for a while, but the drone finally got to me so I went shopping for a new one last summer.
The MINI exhaust system is pretty simple, at least the after-market versions. You need about 12 feet of piping, a resonator, a muffler, and some decent tips. How expensive can that be? Well it turns out that the Alta at $600 is generally $200 less than most on the market. I liked the Alta, but didn’t want to spend that much, so enter Ireland Engineering.
Ireland Engineering offers a MINI exhaust with a similar design and specifications for $360. To me, that seems more reasonable. I ordered one from the website at the end of September and it arrived at the end of October. I put it on this past weekend.
My first impression was that it appeared to be of a higher quality stainless steel and of higher quality workmanship than what I was expecting. I noticed that it did not come with an exhaust gasket. I also noticed that the tips were a bit utilitarian.
It was only after I started to put it together that I realized what you get for your extra $260 when you buy the Alta. I managed to scrounge an exhaust gasket from elsewhere in the GeorgeCo Garagemahal. The bolts that shipped with the exhaust were too short (trip #1 to the parts store.) The clamp that secures the tips to the muffler was too small (trip #2 to the parts store). The center section after the resonator hangs on two rubber hangars supported by a brace. For some reason the IE exhaust has a U shaped support with wings instead of a T shaped support on the Alta. The result is that the wings are too short. I solved that by modifying the brace so the hangars were closer together. The next problem is that the U support rubs on the brace. Solution: cutoff wheel (trip #3 to the parts store.) With the U now a T and the hangars closer, the center section doesn’t rub, but is held in place by the hangars. Time to work on the tips.
There are a couple of problems with the tip design. The first is that the flange on the muffler is actually at an angle toward the front of the car rather than perpendicular to the muffler. That would be OK if the tips were built to compensate, but as is, they are actually at less than a right angle, which makes the alignment even worse. Even when fully seated, they are still too far to the Driver’s side in the gap. Solution: cutoff wheel again. (My new best friend.) I took about 10mm off of the end of the pipe going into the muffler flange, cut at a slight angle to bring the tips further to the rear of the car. The result is that the come out more or less in the center of the opening, but the still don’t come out straight.
They won’t ever look perfect because they aren’t parallel to each other. The outlet on the right is vestigial. It does open back into the pipe, but most of the exhaust gasses pass through the other tip since that’s the path of least resistance. Since the other tip is going to blacken over time, I painted both black with high temperature spray paint so it won’t look like I’m winking at the car behind.
The other interesting characteristic of this exhaust is that it grows when warm. The second image above shows the tips sticking out about 10mm more after the car warmed up. That’s not really a problem, but that also means that the muffler moves about the same distance when warm. That puts it against the black plastic of the bumper trim. Solution: (wait for it…) Cutoff wheel. Trim the plastic back to get a sufficient gap.
So what’s the bottom line? The tone is much improved. It’s not as quiet as stock, but doesn’t drone like the Alta did with the worn-out resonator. The butt dyno says the engine feels like it’s revving more freely, but that may just be because my ears don’t hurt so I can hear other things going. It costs much less than the Alta, even when you factor in my trips to the store for parts and tools. It took less than an hour to install, but the better part of two days to fix and adjust. That’s got to be worth something. I still have some more parts coming. I ordered a better fitting clamp for the muffler because I can see some exhaust leakage around the over-stretched clamp I used. I also ordered some chrome tips. They may allow me to better align the tips so they will at least look like they’re pointing in the same direction. If nothing else, they may offer some shin protection over the sharp edges of the stainless steel tips now in use.
Am I satisfied with what I got for my money? Yes. Would I recommend it to a friend? No. Buy the Alta if you have the extra cash.
Rental Car Review: 2010 Chevy Camaro
It’s been a while since we featured a rental car review, so we thought it appropriate to write one when presented with this choice at the Enterprise counter at midnight the other night: “We don’t have the compact car you reserved so would you like a Jeep Compass or a Dodge Minivan? Or you could have the Red Camaro in spot #4” The Camaro option changed the equation. The Compass is a dog. A Minivan is a Minivan.
I haven’t been in a Camaro since the mid-eighties so what the heck, why not? It turns out there are some decent reasons why not, like because you have luggage, or you have children with legs, or you enjoy looking to the right through the windshield to see oncoming traffic or pedestrians. But that’s jumping ahead.
First, the Good: Its red. It’s kind of sinister looking in an over-weight hit-man sort of way. The coolest feature has to be the flow-in-the-dark emergency release lever in the trunk. That Could come in hand for when you inevitably get car-jacked and are thrown in the trunk for the long drive out to the woods….
The Bad: Everything else. The sight lines are terrible. The hood bulbous. The interior door handles, mirror adjustments, and front setback release handle are impossible to find in the dark. The fit and finish are marginal. The interior plastics (and there is a lot of plastic) cheap and uninspired.
The gauges look straight out of the 1970’s. The steering wheel appears to be off center and it’s both huge in diameter and skinny in 
thickness. That’s a bad compilation and it’s made from the same cheap plastic as everything else. Seating was comfortable but not particularly supportive. The ride was smooth but not sporty; acceleration from the V6 was decent but there wasn’t much feedback to the driver from the throttle, brakes, or suspension. It was remarkably flat though for such a hefty vehicle. The trunk is quite large but unfortunately largely useless thanks to the small opening and high lift-over height. Visibility out the front is poor; the sides unsafe; and behind impaired. The roofline is so low that the rearview mirror almost totally obscures the driver’s view to the right. That’s counterbalanced by the ginormous A pillar to the driver’s left which blocks the view from that side leaving the driver free to only worry about what lay ahead. At least whatever lay ahead beyond the view obstructed by the hood. 
From the backseats — I’ve seen pictures of max security prison cells with larger windows and better views.
The Ugly: Have you seen the car from behind? Do you think my butt is fat, no honestly?…
In the end, I should have taken the Minivan. It would have been a better ride.
Final Grade: D-. It would have gotten an F if it weren’t for that panic release leaver in the trunk.
