still sad...

So, now it's been 13 days! And 418 is still in the hospital. I got a false alarm yesterday, Morristown MINI called and said she's ready to go... but about 30 minutes later they called again, and said sorry... They fixed the air conditioning, but had some probs with battery sensors. They thought it was fixed, but when they tried to put on charge, the battery light came on again... so still no word on when it will be ready.

I think I shouldn't have to pay for the weeks I don't have the car... Paying a lot of money each month as it is, to "test drive" the car. No car, no test drive, no lots of money! Right?

Sad Day this morning...

So after a very fruitful morning getting the green EZPASS tag... I had to drop 418 off at Morristown MINI! The air conditioner stopped working last week. Lets see how long this takes. I'd really like it back by tuesday morning for the Opportunity Green event in NYC!!

GREEN PASS HAS LANDED

So after my first visit to New Jersey's EZPASS service center... I finally got the green pass this morning. On my first visit about 2 weeks ago.. I was first told the MINI-E didn't qualify since it wasn't a "hybrid"... I guess those attendants don't get paid very much. Anyway... after digging deeper with a very helpful supervisor, it turned out they identify cars via their VIN, and the service they use didn't have the VIN decoding info for the MINI-E.

Ed, via facebook, suggested I contact Richard Steinberg at MINI. Surprisingly, Richard responded very quickly. Here is his resonse:

We have already received a reply from the EZPass people that this is aclerical error on their side. From their perspective, the car qualifies and it should be in their database already (but its not). I hope its ok, but they asked for your info, and we shared your email with them. They may contact you directly.
RS

The next day, I got this email from Art Richardson at NJ EZPASS:

Mr. Bondorowsky,

After conducting Web research, we now understand why we could not validate your Mini Cooper by the VIN number as a qualified GREEN auto. Your car is a non -production car and is not listed as yet, but the car certainly qualifies for GREEN PLAN status in NJ. I request that you visit our Walk-in Center again and present the registration for the vehicle so that we can issue the appropriate GREEN E-Z Pass transponder to you. The tag will be specifically assigned just to your Cooper and will not be usable in any of your other vehicles.

Regards,
Art Richardson
Senior Supervisor
E-Z Pass Service Center
ACS Transportation Solutions

All in all, I'm very impressed and pleased that this was taken care of this quickly and very professionally! Yay team!