Prius: Returned

Today was a sad day.  We returned our trusty Toyota Prius, our second which was a 2012.  As I’ve always said, I will always recommend pretty much any Toyota.  They truly are great cars and last.  We had absolutely no issues with the car.

Why get rid of it?  End of lease, and we wanted something a bit zippier and, admittedly more fun.

What about upgrading to the new 2016 Prius that’s more efficient?  I didn’t want a longer and wider car.  I actually prefer smaller cars, and we both wanted manual.

Whoever gets the car, I hope will treat it well.

I think I had four complaints about this car

  • The lighting seemed dim even on dark roads.
  • The sound system in Toyotas is horrible relative to other cars, very front loaded, with no sound in the back.  Friends sitting in the back often had problems hearing people in the front.
  • The infotainment system seemed quite slow and was slow to connect to bluetooth devices.
  • The voice recognition system was horrible was not great.

But it was also 2012 technology.  So you can’t blame it that much.

Note that none of my complaints had anything to do with how the car handled and drove. Although, after driving the MINI over the past few days, the Prius really did not make tight turns.  That, is comparing apples to oranges though, in the car world.

MINI: Cruise Day 2

“After a leisurely drive around the Lido deck, we started a big party.  Man those honkin’ Bimmers sure know how to party with their steins of good Bavarian bier!  Us MINIs, could definitely keep up with our tasty British Stout.”

And there you have the latest Pixar Film – “Imported Cars”.  Could you imagine what that would be like? LOL!

The car is in the Celtic Sea.  Well, not in the actual water, but on the MV Torrens as it makes it’s way through the Celtic Sea and then through the Atlantic.  Below was the placement of the ship about 3 hours ago.  I have no idea what kind of updates we’ll see as it makes it’s trek across the Atlantic, I suspect we’ll get very few.

If you were to zoom out on the map at Marinetraffic.com, you don’t see a lot of updates until ships are near the Azores, and again near Newfoundland & Labrador, and Nova Scotia.

According to Wallenius & Wilhelmsen Logistics, the ship is now arriving on November 2nd.  It is what it is, and these things take time.

I did notice that last night the ship had turned back to England briefly and was going at 3 knots and then all of a sudden it turned to continue it’s course across the Atlantic.  That’s the little green blip just before the ship started going south.

Torrens3

MINI: Cruise Day

Today is our transatlantic cruise day from Southampton to Halifax… Well not for Scott and I, but for our MINI.

CarUpdate

Some interesting factoids:Torrens1

  • Our MINI was the 33rd to be placed on the ship at 12:55pm – I’m not sure if they’re using UTC or British time (BST/GMT)
  • They started loading at 12:17pm, the last MINI to be loaded was 2:40pm
  • There are 180 MINIs that were supposed to be part of the shipment with a bunch flagged as “Return to Shipper” at 5:07pm, ours is not one of them.  Doh!  I hope nothing is up with the cars and that has to suck for the owners!

According to the Port of Southampton Vessel Traffic Services, the Torrens is set to sail at 10pm tonight from dock 44, which is in the Ocean Dock area.

Torrens2

 

MINI: Cars Live

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Cars Live is a really cool broadcast from the BBC that documents the life of a car at… Plant Oxford, the primary home of the MINI Cooper.

The broadcast was done over two nights in the UK on October 20th and October 21st.

Our car was completed production on October 21 and was on the same production line as the show was filming – live!  Though it is doubtful it got any camera time, there were a few VINs shown during the show that I was able to confirm on BIMMER.WORK and yes, our car was in fact finished production at the same time based on the VINs I checked out.

Some interesting things I learned from the broadcast

  • No wonder the car comes with about 30km on it – Each car goes on a test drive to confirm it’s okay over several types of pavement
  • MINI/BMW have their own train sets that send cars to Southampton for shipping overseas
  • Each train set can carry 300 cars over half a kilometre long
  • It takes 3 hours to get to Southampton
  • There are 2 trains every day
  • The cars leave within 24 hours of completion
  • There are at least 5 to 10 people who drive you car before you do
    • Tester
    • Transport from MINI
    • Transport off of the train in Southampton
    • Transport on to the ship in Southampton
    • Transport off the ship in Halifax
    • Transport on to the train in Halifax
    • Transport off the train in Halifax
    • On to a truck
    • Off the truck
    • Two or three people at the dealer

This could mean, our car, barring any issues is actually in Southhampton awaiting loading on a ship.

This is exciting!

MINI: 11 Days

MINI Production

It’s now 11 days since we agreed to purchase our MINI and…

We have a production date according to Bimmer.work and it’s today!  That means that over at Plant Oxford, or MINI is being built which takes 6 to 10 days although some threads have said this date is the date the drivetrain and chassis are married.

So it could mean, a new car has official entered into the world, rather than individual parts!

After that it takes a trip on a train to Southampton, boards a car transport ship and makes it’s way to the Halifax Auto Port where it will board another train to somewhere outside Toronto.  If all goes will that takes 20 to 30 days.

That means we could actually have the MINI by December!  Early Christmas gift for Scott and me?

Surprising given we were originally going to be locked into a November production date.  It’s very nice to see us brought up early to October.

Now Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics has the following schedules from Southampton to Halifax.  If production happens as I think it will, then I am guessing the car will be on the November 2nd or 8th sailing on the Tombarra or Toledo.  October 25th would be too aggressive, but if production does mean that it’s coming off the production line as of today or tomorrow (22nd or 23rd), then it could mean we are on the Torrens!

You can enter your VIN in the Cargo ID field and it will confirm the ship, port of entry, etc…

MINI: Got our VIN

Yesterday my dealer told me that we have a VIN and passed it over to me.

The VIN is quite a powerful number right now because this allows me to track the creation of our new car.  Sadly, BMW Canada nor MINI have a site I can login to to track this, like BMW in the US does.

That does’t mean having the VIN is for naught, for I can go to bimmer.work, enter the last 7 digits of my VIN and find all out kinds of stuff about my car, such as:

  • It is indeed a left hand drive
  • 5 doors
  • It’ll have a B36M engine in it
  • Manual transmission as ordered
  • It is in Electric Blue (B86)
  • We don’t know the Production Plant or Production Date yet, but I am pretty sure it will be Plant Oxford.

The site also confirms all of the standard equipment and options that we selected with the vehicle.

 

MINI: LED Adaptive Headlights

So, MINI doesn’t always do a good job of explaining options and one is the Adaptive Headlight Functionality. An example is here, although using Xenon rather than LED:

The lights follow the curve of the road based on your steering which is cool.

Here is what you’ll find on BMWs:

Theirs will actually re-angle the lights if there’s oncoming traffic, if you’re driving up behind someone. Very cool!

MINI’s are definitely more limited. Here is what they provide from the website:

Dark, winding roads have nothing on a MINI. Our optional LED headlamps feature an auto-levelling system that adjusts their angle based on your MINI’s speed and weight. And with the cornering lights upgrade, your MINI’s Adaptive Headlights react to your steering and “turn with you”, thereby illuminating what’s coming around the bend.

Fair enough. 🙂

MINI: Since we can’t go to the UK…

While Plant Oxford does tours of the assembly of MINI vehicles, you can’t take photos during the trip, and unfortunately I don’t have the time to head to the UK to do the tour of where our car is being assembled.

I can, however bring a bunch of videos to you from YouTube courtesy of various shows and MINI/BMW themselves:

Stamping:

Production 1 of 3:

Production 2 of 3:

Production 3 of 3:

Another production video:

Timelapse of the Assembly – Includes the train ride to the ship and loading onto the ship:

MINI: KUMAKART

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We ordered our vanity plates for the MINI today.  What we chose is kind of funny given the car is not Japanese but British/German

  • Kuma – Kanji: 熊, Hiragana: くま, Katakana: クマ – for Bear, perfectly representing Scott and me.
  • Kart – For, well, that go-kart feel you get with the MINI Cooper

Other contenders that made the list:

  • MINIBEAR – English
  • MINIBAER – German
  • KUMACART – Bear Cart
  • KUMAKART – Bear, Go Kart
  • MINIKUMA – Bears in a MINI
  • 3XTRM1N8 – Exterminate – Yes we got very Whovian
  • D4LEK – Dalek
  • ASIMIL8 – Assimilate
  • SL8Z – See you later in L337 speak
  • IBKUMASB – Our initials
  • IBKARTSB  – Our initials
  • P1NTS1Z3 – Pintsize
  • TUR580 – Turbo
  • TUR58O – Turbo
  • DIETSUV – Joking about size
  • FILLMEUP
  • H4LFP1NT – Half pint
  • H4LFPINT – Half pint

Sadly variants on TARDIS were all taken.

The dealer thought it took about 6 to 8 weeks to get our plates.  Hopefully they’ll arrive within the month.