I was out shopping someplace (I forget where), but they were playing music in the background. Then Fireflies by Owl City started to play, and I immediately cringe. It was like a subconscious, involuntary reflex, that I couldn’t NOT do. All because of a one week trip to Washington DC in the summer of 2009. We stayed with Haile’s cousin, Mark, and every time we got in his car to go anywhere, he’d play this damn song first. Every. Single. Time. By the end of our first day there, we were SOOO over that song. And he’d play songs from other bands that sounded like it, like Nickasaur and Swimming with Dolphins. But that damn Owl City song…..to this day, 4 years later, I still hate with a passion. Thanks, Mark.

I have never been more excited/anxious/relieved to see these 2 parts finally come in, after waiting nearly a month for them to arrive.

They are a relatively new part and is manufactured in England (the old one, across the Atlantic), so I knew it might a while to come in. I had ordered it from a guy in the one of the mini forums. He’s based in SoCal and apparently had the hooks for these, and has been the supplier for several of the forum members. These members had nothing but nice things to say about this guy, so I trusted their collective opinion and ordered through him. Well, 3 weeks after the initial order & payment, I hadn’t received jack, and had to open a Paypal dispute for him to actually answer my attempts of contact. I tried email, his website contact page, and forum private messages, but dude would not respond until Paypal put a hold on payment. He blamed the delay on the fact that he was currently out of the country and not really set up to process orders efficiently. He basically said I had to wait another week before he could actually find out if he could place the order. I called fucking bullshit and demanded by money back, which he willingly obliged. Lucky for me, a major mini parts website started to carry the same mounts, at about the same price, and more importantly, IN HAND IN STOCK. And I received them a week later.

So here’s the old upper & lower mounts off the mini. The upper was leaking and no longer providing engine damping, causing additional stress on the lower mount. The lower mount actually looked fine (I’ve seen pictures on the forums where the lower mount is completely torn up), but I still replaced it anyways since I was already all up in there anyways, and for the peace of mind. With the new mount, I know that won’t be failing anytime soon.

And here’s the new mount installed. Pretty sexy, yah?

compared to this BS:

I could’ve driven on the leaky mount, but it could’ve cause damage to the transmission & axles. So I can finally drive the mini again without having to worry. The NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) is a little high right now, but that’s to be expected. They say it takes a hundred miles or two for the new mount to settle & break in. It’s only a little interior vibration at idle, so it’s no biggie, and it’ll eventually die down. The only downside is that when I was putting the front passenger-side tire back on, I left the wheel lock key on the wheel lock (AGAIN!!!! DOH!!!) and drove off, so it’s lost forever and I have to order a new one. I feel like a giant idiot for doing that again.