The saga of Black Kate

Dateline 8 June, 2009

At 5:00 I came out of work and climbed in Black Kate. Put my key fob in the socket (she doesn't have a proper key) and pushed the start button. Kate fired up and dinged that I needed to fasten my seat belt which I was doing. Then she tossed a funny little trill in at the end of her song causing me to look around. New cars are like that; they occasionally surprise you. I noted the low tire pressure light was one. Then I noticed it was RED. Now the low pressure light comes in two flavors: red and yellow. Yellow means low. Red means flat. Oh damn.

My first assumption was that I had somehow mis-re-calibrated the sensor when I was working through the instruction book Saturday. So I drove across the street to Motomart where there is free air. Now you may be wondering why didn't he just look at the tires? Remember, Kate has run-flats so you can't SEE a flat tire. Checked pressure on the driver's front and it was fine. Checked the driver's rear and it was fine. Checked the passenger front and it was flat. Found a large bolt/screw in the tire. Frak! Car is less than 48 hours old and I have a flat. But I bought the extended tire warranty and my tire's are covered against this for the first 50K miles or some such. I call the MINI dealer (sales) to advise them of the situation. Why sales? Well, they still had my paperwork on the warranty I bought and I had their number. I was told to bring the car right in and not to pull out the whatever it was. So off I go across town in Rush Hour with a flat tire (meaning no more than 50 mph) to the MINI dealer. I arrive at 6:05.

I then find out that service closed at 6:00. Moreover, service is at a different building about 4 blocks away. While I was told when we bought the car that they had 30 or so loaner MINI's to lend to people during service, those are controlled exclusively by the service department; sales cannot give me one. So I'm stuck at the MINI dealer 40+ minutes from home, still with a flat tire, and no way to fix it until tomorrow. Moreover, because this is a run-flat, it will probably require replacement, not repair. Sales guy tries to get his boss to give me a demo, but there are none to be given or permission is refused. I call my wife and asked her to drive 40 minutes to come get me while i cool my heels at the MINI dealership. The salesman suggests that the only thing he can think of is that I could drive my MINI home and once I got there, I can call the Roadside Assistance (which is free while the car is under warranty) who will come to my house and either tow Kate back to the dealer or put the spare tire on for me. This seems silly so I drive her to the service department and the salesman drive me back to wait for Cinda. Cinda arrives. Car fixed by 10:15 the next morning. If it hadn't been that would have been a WHOLE new issue. No problems since then.