I wanted to kill a DMV employee yesterday.

[Jims5543]

4 trips to various DMV's and we finally have the Bini registered and on the road. Long story to follow will try to give clifs.

Disclaimer, this has turned into a rescue rather than a car purchase.

This poor car has been flipped 4 times in the last 2 years and barely driven. The guy I bought from held it for 6 months, never registered it and then flipped it out. This would cause a problem as the title from South Carolina was signed over to him and he tried to skip right over the transfer process and cost of it.

I was not pleased when I saw this, and did not like that I was going to have to deal with 3 transfers prior to mine, once from Michigan (Honda Dealership) to North Carolina (used car lot), then to South Carolina (another used car lot same owner of lot as NC) then to Florida. (brother of used car lot owner) So 3 transfers between dealers then one to a private party individual.

Our first trip to the DMV we got a nasty woman with a hell of a RBF* who was not pleased with our paperwork trail. 30 minutes of waiting and she told us she could not register the car unless the guy I purchased from gave me a power of attorney form. then she could do it but she would have to exempt the mileage on the car, why? I have no idea but she seemed pleased to tell me this and was more pleased with my dissatisfaction over this news. I asked for an option where this would not happen. She then told me the seller would have to take title of the car then sign it over to me.

This ends trip one to the DMV

He lives 2 hours away.

So we agreed to meet 1/2 way at the south end of Brevard County (County he is in, car was at north end of it)  where he would take title and sign over to me. Same deal goes down there, a few employees mull over the paperwork for 30 minutes, then decide they need to call the dealership in South Carolina and verify the car was sold to the guy selling to me. Why? I have no idea.

Finally he gets the title and signs it over. Here he makes a critical decision, rather than using the odometer reading that was on the bill of sale between us, he figures he would add 50 miles on to it for good measure. This comes back into play next.

This ends trip two to the DMV

My wife and I meet up and we head back to our DMV to register the car, pleased we have the title in hand and can keep the mileage on the title and not exempt it. We get the same DMV employee, RBF. She hands us the title and asks us to fill in a few spaces on it, names, and the mileage on the car. I refer to the Bill of sale, never noticing the mileage already on the title is 50 more than the bill of sale.

We hand it back to her and almost like she was anticipating my error, she says, "Oh! We are going to have to exempt the mileage, you put a lesser amount and that is odometer fraud". You could hear the glee in her voice. I protest and ask how is that possible she happily points out that the stated mileage by the seller is more. So I was committing fraud by stating 50 less miles. I explain I put what was on the bill of sale and it seems that does not matter. As long as my mileage was MORE than the mileage on the top of the title it would be fine, because it was 50 mile less it was a problem. I said, hell, I can change one number and fix this, she then tells me no I cannot and I DID THIS TO MYSELF.

So now I have 2 options, let her register it with Odometer exempt or get a odometer statement from the seller agreeing with mine.

I told her to give me back my paperwork and I will weight my options, I had steam coming out my ears. She tells me not to be mad at her because, again, I did this to myself.

This concludes trip number three to the DMV

So I calm down and look the title over, I can make a 2 and 8 very easy and the mileage will be 500 and change more than the seller had and will eliminate the problem.

I give my wife power of attorney to handle the registration and have her go to a different DMV 1 day later as I did not want to deal with RBF ever again. This has been going on since Friday last week, she registers the car problem free. We are finally on our way.

That would conclude trip number four to the DMV for those still trying to keep count.

Clif notes:

- Purchased car realize it has been flipped between 3 dealers and onto the guy selling to me
- DMV will not let me register due to seller never taking title
- Seller takes title and sings over to me, adds 50 miles to cars mileage on odo statement
- I put 50 miles less and cannot register car
- I change one number to increase my miles by 500 and we can register car.
- all this over the span of 5 days

Car is finally on road.



And finally belt tensioner arrived with idler pulley and new belt, sunroof sunscreen arrived and I love it. Box of maintenance items arrived today from Bav Auto so I have some work to do now.







*Resting Bitch Face
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=RBF

[Jims5543]

Oh and yeah this is a car rescue, there is no owners manual, there is no JCW documentation even though it is indeed one. The maintenance on it has not been good and it is getting a good once over by me. Tune up, oil change, air filter, fuel filter belt pulley etc...

Cosmetically she is good I can see a lot of mechanical neglect that is going to be fixed. Just what I need!!  2 projects in the same garage.

I tracked down a 2005 owners manual, all the books including the leather binder on Ebay and bought it. I reached out to Mini USA and hope they can help me with a reprint of the JCW paperwork.

I only have one key and it is beat to shit, so I am going to go to my local Mini stealership and see how much they want to rape me.  I read online from $180-500 for one depending on the greed factor. I am going to inquire about the JCW paperwork there too. Hopefully I can get a reprint somewhere.

[Willie_B]

I learned a new term today (RBF) so it was not a total loss.

[Jims5543]

LOL!! Glad I could be enlightening.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

What's a Bini?

[MPlayle]

"Bini" = "BMW MINI" = reference to the redesigned MINIs from 2002 (2001 in Europe) onward as opposed to the classic Minis (1959 - 2000).

[Jims5543]

What's a Bini?

Like Mike said, it is a BMW Mini, I set out to find a R53  Cooper S John Cooper Works  I limited my search to 2003 to 2005 model years. On Autotrader there were only 5 in the county for sale last week.

My buddy stumbled across this one on Craigslist, it has 73K miles on it as well as a manual. So I went and looked at it, not perfect not horrible so I grabbed it. It was supposed to be a Prius but my wife and I agreed that we would prefer 20 MPG less and have a fun car. She should get in the mid 30's with this as she will be driving 20 miles each way on back roads, hardly any stop and go and speed limit is 50. 

I need to grab some better pics of it.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

Ahhh. For some reason, I read it as "Big Mini" rather than BMW

[SoCalMiniFan]

*RBF is probably one of my most favorite terms for uptight, pole in the *ss, hasn't gotten laid in a long time people. 

Glad you got the DMV non-sense out of the way.  What a pile of crap.

[gasmini]

So Jim5543 you went with the RBF definition of
"Root Beer Float
Hey man, wanna go to weinerschnitzel and grab an RBF? "  :D

[Mudhen]

Glad messes like that don't just happen to me!

Sucks.  Looks like a cool car though...and JCW...mmm...

Congrats!

[Jims5543]

Glad messes like that don't just happen to me!

Sucks.  Looks like a cool car though...and JCW...mmm...

Congrats!

Thank you sir. saw your cool parts on instagram and thought we should start a "R53 support group thread" on here.

I laughed last night, I looked of the box of parts I already ordered for the Mini and thought, man if this was a Prius I would not have needed to order anything.

I was debating doing the mass dampener too while I was doing the tensioner and idler.  I am sure it will go soon, may as well while it is apart.  Use your gas grill to heat it up, I did that on my sons girlfriends car and it slipped right on, that also keeps car parts out of the kitchen and the wife happy.