Porky The Mini

If you follow my spouse Trauma To Travel then you probably know about Porky The MINI! which we bought to build a little more credit in hopes of making our dream of Full-Time RVing a reality which it has so far done a great job of helping us build credit and explore more at the same time, that is until the Layoff Train hit me.

So fast forward about 9 months, The car has been amazing, we have taken so many adventures in Porky. We put 26,000 Miles on her in just the last 9 months, including two trips to lousiana and back, about 6,000 miles each round-trip. So Mini's have a pretty bad rep for reliability or otherwise issues specifially 2013 and older, In-which Porky is a 2012, however we have been super lucky to thusfar only have an issue with an o2 Sensor that needs to be replaced at somepoint which is really just effecting my gas milage, that is until this week when my clutch drove its last mile!

To be fair, insert letterkenny joke here haha, I am not upset, I got way more than is to be expected in lifespan of that clutch and its a part that is expected to wear and need replacing, however being that MINI is made by BWM everthing is expensive. So I take it to my import mechanic and they confirm that is indeed the clutch and that i need a full clutch replacement, not horrible but not ideal considering the state of my employment right now. I ask how much and to my surprise they quote me a little over $4000, Sticker shock is an understatement here, which I do not have right now so I started scrambling to find somwhere else to get a quote, I call the other highly reccomended shop for imports in town and they quote me about $3500 which is better but still not obtainable for me right now.

So I thought to myself, theres got to be a shop that does only or mostly just this type of work and thus labor should be less. I found a few Transmission shops and the best rated/reviewed one in town was actually really close to me so I give them a call and they said they can do it for $1800 and get it started by the end of the week. So off Porky went to the Transmission shop today. Fingers crossed that she is done quickly and without any unforseen consequenses. Insert Half-Life Reference here

So long and Thanks for all the Fish!