[ayde_bury]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ragamuffin

Picked out my number plates today Anybody else getting excited?

Excited - I'm back to the not getting much sleep because of the excitement of Mondays delivery.

Keep an eye open for a MCSc in PW in the area soon Ragamuffin, as I'm only a few miles South of you

[Ragamuffin]

Quote: Originally Posted by ayde_bury

Keep an eye open for a MCSc in PW in the area soon Ragamuffin, as I'm only a few miles South of you

I will definately be keeping my eyes peeled! Your car sounds lovely! Make sure you post lots of pictures of her once you've got her

[fjpatriot]

Wow - if I believe the 866AskMini status updates, they took all of 3 days to complete my car! With any luck I'll get on the Manon, but more likely the Elektra on Tuesday. That lands the 20th, so there would be an outside chance of getting my car in time for my Birthday on the 27th What a friggin birthday present that would be

Congrats to Nilo and Skatemom for getting on the Liberty - not too much longer now. Here's to a safe and happy voyage in 9 days

[Skatemom]

Yea! fjpatriot things are moving along. They'll go quickly now.

My baby has been loaded on the Liberty as of 12:50 (Southampton time). No getting off now

[nilo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skatemom

Yea! fjpatriot things are moving along. They'll go quickly now.

My baby has been loaded on the Liberty as of 12:50 (Southampton time). No getting off now

Congrats!

Mine still hasn't been loaded.... It's already 19:30 in Southampton.. Anyone know what time Liberty sails?

[nilo]

Nevermind... My mini was loaded at 19:56!! Last one into the ship. First one out!

[staceybassoon]

I'm finding excitement in trying to name my car. I'm after English names with relevance meanings of my car. I'm so obsessed.

[fjpatriot]

I didn't know they would tell you more details after production ends. Now I see why after production ends it takes a while to get loaded on the boat. My car sat there yesterday waiting to be released to a carrier to get it to Southhampton. Today its been released to the carrier, but is waiting to transport to Southhampton. Don't know if these carriers work on the weekends or not - if they get her to Southhampton today, she'd have a small shot at getting on the Manor tomorrow. If not, she'd hopefully get to port on Monday and get on the Elektra on Tuesday. From the video it looked like these were Rail carriers - if they were trucks, I'd be surprised that BMW didn't have their own trucks to get them to Southhampton.

Learned that I should look into getting the wind deflector for my convertible yesterday - everyone suggested its a must have. Another $425, $475 if I get the checkered one. As the thread suggests though the dealership in Ohio gives a 20% discount, or ebay might have em.

Anyone start tracking the Liberties sailing? Where is she now?

[Skatemom]

Quote: Originally Posted by fjpatriot

Anyone start tracking the Liberties sailing? Where is she now?

Been trying to get sailwx up but it's being flaky this morning. I've not been able to spot the Liberty since she went into open water.

Edit: found her now, hopefully this link will work for you: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shi...000&radius=500

[Skatemom]

Found her now. Hopefully this link will work for you:

http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shi...000&radius=500

[staceybassoon]

I'm in the body shop

[fjpatriot]

staceybassoon - it goes real quick now, your car will be production complete in 2 more days!

Skatemom - yes I can see Liberty on the map, very cool. She's traveling at 8 knots, but that was reported almost 12 hours ago.

[fjpatriot]

I've been looking at a site Skatemom pointed people to about what's happening at Southampton
http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/shipping_movments.asp

Very interesting. The Manon arrives tomorrow ( today for some of you ) at 7:30, and departs at 18:00 for Halifax ( at least that what it lists - did Liberty list that too )? Now I understand, I'm assuming that if your car isn't sitting there in Southampton in the morning, it has no chance of making it on the ship. I don't know anything about freight shipping, but being at port a total of 10.5 hrs seems not to leave much time for error, hence the cars I would think need to be ready to be loaded!

My car still is being reported as awaiting transportation to port of exit. I dug around a bit, and someone thought the trains run by EWS would be transporting it. They don't seem to provide any way of tracking what's on it, or any schedule info ( http://www.ews-railway.co.uk/ ). It did say they can carry 250 cars at one time and travel at 75 mph. Wonder how many cars the ships can carry?

Anyway, should find out soon whether I made the Manon, or will have to wait til Tuesday on the Elektra.

[Skatemom]

Saw a posting that these car carriers can load about 6000 cars! The Liberty has 299 VIN numbers under the booking # that I'm on. When I checked the WW site, it said my car had been booked back on Mar 23rd . That's the same week ASK MINI said my car was "In Production".

As for the Liberty, doesn't 8 knots seem slow? I think the wind is 8 knots out of 290 degrees (WNW) Don't know where to find the ship speed unless we extrapolate it.

Not that I'm impatient or anything....

[PrplPplEtr]

production # 70644xx, ASK MINI's down so i don't know the status, but if i read this thread right, it should be in the factory real soon? i didn't expect it for another week...

just ordered a few days ago.

are the numbers really sequential for american orders?

[MGB Boy]

Hello all. Another April Production Group person (April Groupie?). MCS, chili red/white roof, white s-lite rims, rear fog lamp, black w/gray leatherette, chrome line interior, chili red dash, cold weather pkg, premium pkg, sport pkg, JCW pkg. Ordered 3/21, in production, scheduled for completion 4/9. This car will be replacing my current 2002 MCS-JCW.

When I bought the 2002, I broke one of my own personal automotive rules, "never buy a first-year-of-production car". I really wanted the car, and it came with a decent warranty, so I ignored the rule. Haven't regretted it one bit, the car has been great fun, and it hasn't really cost me anything thanks to the warranty (parts replaced: Throw out bearing, clutch, flywheel, power steering fan and wiring harness, transmission linkage bowden cables, door bowden cables, door lock actuator, rear hatch latch, rear hatch gripstrip, rear window seal, third brake lamp assembly, front windshield, dashboard insulation, drivers seat, coolant expansion tank, crankcase breather line, throttle valve, supercharger bypass valve, steering column, control arms and bushings, and transmission mounts. Those are the bits I can remember off the top of my head, anyhow). Despite that lengthy list, the car has been far from a lemon, it has never failed to start, never stumbled, and never stranded me anywhere, it's been quite reliable. But these suckers can be pricey to fix, and I'm not keen on paying for all that. The car is now out of warranty by about 200 miles now, 100 miles before the warranty ended it had $5000 worth of transmission work done (again on MINI's dime, fortunately). That was the wake up call.

After hearing that number when my service advisor totaled it up just for laughs to see what it would have cost me were it post-warranty, as well as hearing the estimated repair bill for a friend whose 2002 MC's tranny kicked the bucket post-warranty, as well as bearing in mind my own "first year of production cars are a wildcard" rules, I decided to trade this bad boy in. My aforementioned "first year of production" rule is the reason why I'm going for a 2006 rather than waiting for a 2007. I've done the "guinea pig" thing once before, it's someone else's turn now. And I figure this is as good as the current version is gonna get, they've worked out as many of the issues as they can. Plus these things retain their value to a ridiculous degree, especially a well-cared-for JCW Cooper S (it amuses me to no end that my four year old MINI is worth more than a shiny brand new 2006 Scion tC or VW Beetle). When I did the research on what I'd get back on this thing (while the car was in the shop), that cemented the decision. So when I picked it up from the transmission work, I went straight from the service department to the sales department and ordered my new one. Pretty much the same spec as my 2002 (why mess with perfection? ), just added a couple things that weren't available on my 2002 (chrome line interior, red dash, etc.).

Been doing this MINI thing so long that it didn't even occur to me until now to look in the "Delivery, Shipping & Order Tracking" section, this area didn't exist when I got my first one. So far, this has been an IMMENSELY less stressful / painful / arduous wait than it was last time. It's only been about two and half weeks since I decided to buy a new one, and the thing is already in production and just about finished. Last time it was just over nine months from deposit to arrival, what with the waiting lists, shipping delays, and all that (they were re-paving the lots at Southampton so cars weren't being processed first-in first-out, and my car sat there for two weeks, getting bumped from ship after ship, while others cruised thru in a day, then it sat outside the VPC for another week). VERY painful. This time has been like a breeze, it's looking like it may work out at about five weeks from decision to delivery. Plus, unlike last time, this time I've been able to distract myself with the fact that I can spend my wait-time driving a MINI. Makes the wait easier to bear!

Interesting contrast; I ordered a new set of custom goalie gloves back on February 13th, they aren't done yet. But the custom car I ordered on March 21 is. Go figure. For the truly trivial minded, here's the gestation period of my first MCS;

10/31/01 - Deposit placed with Keeler Motor Cars.
03/16/02 - Order sheet filled out with options etc.
05/23/02 - 112 - Order scheduled for production.
05/23/02 - Owners Lounge (OL) status: On Order. Estimated production date: 06/21.
06/10/02 - 150 - Parts are pulled, getting ready for production.
06/11/02 - OL status: Scheduled For Production.
06/11/02 - VIN received.
06/20/02 - Status 151 - Body Shop.
06/21/02 - Status 152 - Paint Shop.
06/24/02 - Status 153 - Assembly started.
06/25/02 - Status 155 - Production completed.
06/26/02 - Status 160 - Cleared QC and released to distribution.
06/26/02 - Status 180 - Waiting for export dispatch.
06/26/02 - Status 182 - Released to carrier.
06/26/02 - Booked on WW Traviata.
06/27/02 - Status 190 - Dispatched.
06/27/02 - Received at Southampton.
06/27/02 - Status 193 - Arrived at port of exit.
06/27/02 - OL status: Awaiting Transport.
06/29/02 - Booking changed to WW Falstaff.
07/01/02 - Booking changed to WW Traviata.
07/08/02 - Booking changed to WW Jingu Maru.
07/12/02 - Booking changed to WW Takasago.
07/13/02 - Loaded on WW Takasago.
07/19/02 - OL status: En Route. Estimated delivery date: 7/30.
07/21/02 - Discharged from Takasago.
07/22/02 - Delivered from Takasago.
07/29/02 - Arrived at VPC.
07/30/02 - OL status: At Distribution Center.
07/30/02 - Released to carrier.
07/31/02 - Shipped via truck.
08/01/02 - OL delivery date changed to 8/1.
08/01/02 - Delivery to dealer (Latham NY).
08/05/02 - Picked up by me

-Ricardo

[MGB Boy]

Quote: Originally Posted by PrplPplEtr

production # 70644xx, ASK MINI's down so i don't know the status, but if i read this thread right, it should be in the factory real soon? i didn't expect it for another week...

just ordered a few days ago.

are the numbers really sequential for american orders?

Don't think so. My production number is 70705xx, ordered 3/21 and just coming out of production now. Someone else on here has has a later number than me (70804xx) and they ordered their car three weeks before me and it's already on a boat....

-Ricardo

[ayde_bury]

23 hours and 6 minutes to go until collection - anyone would think I want the day to end.

Just off to give my current MINI a farewell clean, polish and vacuum - she's done me proud.

[Laury]

mine's not even in production yet!!, oh well only a number of X days to go....

[fjpatriot]

At least she's in the WW tracking system now They pushed back the departure time of the Manon to 22:00, to give them 4 more hours to load the cars. Their are 88 cars in the booking number GBSOU414551, and Baby is one of them!! Hopefully she gets changed to loaded tonight with the other 88 - I'm pretty confident because only 10 out of the 88 have been loaded, and she is on the first page for loading ( if that matters ). Geez, I might have her for my Bday after all

And cooler yet, we get to draft off the Liberty, with everyone else's cars on board! Hopefully see you all in port 2 days later!