Default

Gas Mileage

Monday’s drive was just to go fill up the Miata. We had 700 points (or 70 cents off a gallon) that expired in three days and we didn’t want to lose them. Stats: 198.6 miles traveled, 7.869 gallons at $4.879 per (instead of$5.579) for an average of 25.24 MPG.

For whatever reason this fill up was marred by the fact that the pump kept auto shutting off like the tank was full. After it happened the first time at 3 something gallons the poor guy had to just stand there and actually man the pump. He was hesitant to keep feeding the car fuel because he didn’t want to over fill the tank. I told him it should take about 8 gallons, so he just kept squeezing and waiting for it the shut off, repeating it numerous times, maybe five times until it got close to eight.

24.3 miles between drives on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday & Today
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 42

 

Busy Weekend

Today was both the big downtown show for the Kruise of Klamath and the Klamath Kinetic Challenge along the Link River Trail. I only took a few photos of the cars in downtown because it was hard to capture nice pictures of the cars as they were jammed in, in the intense sunlight or half in and half in deep shadow, plus lots of people.

Its summer so the Miata is getting a “workout. Last night we went over to Moore Park to see some of the cars from the Kruise for 11.1 miles and today we went 8.6 miles to downtown to see the car show and up to the lake to watch Kinetic fun.

Tomorrow we’ll probably take the Mini because the Kinetic folks do their water course just before lunch and by then it will be very warm out.

19.7 miles in the last two days.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 38

 

Spatial Recognition Test

List the following items from the picture above in order of size from small to large:
Truck, SUV, shopping cart, Miata.

1.
2.
3.
4.

21.7 miles around town mopping up our weekly shopping.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 37

 

81,000 Data Points

When we bought the CTBNL in August 2016 it had a little over 46,000 miles on the clock. Yesterday, June 2022, it hit the eighty-one thousand mile mark.

Because every time the Miata hits a comma and three zeroes mark I post about it and I add the tag “Miata Mileage” to it, so I decided to track down all those posts, get the dates it happened and create the nifty chart you see above.

I think I could have made it fancier in Microsoft Office, but all I have to use now is the free office program, LibreOffice, and I can’t figure out if it possible to get something nicer looking.

We are fast approaching 6 years of ownership and in the first 3 years we drove it almost 29,000 miles. Since then, in 5 years and 10 months the CTBNL has only added another 6,000 miles. There are a couple factors involved in this decrease of Miata mileage. First is that in the those beginning three years we were participating in those Moss Motoring Challenges, which caused us to drive around a lot locally and to take some long road trips. Secondly, we moved to Oregon where our convertible driving weather is in much shorter supply than it was in South Carolina.

17 miles on an evening drive last night & today’s pizza pick up run.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 36

 

Moore Park Monday and OC&E Trail Tuesday


No Snow Plow Needed

Today to celebrate the first day of summer we rode our mountain bikes 9 miles1 on a section of the OC&E Woods Line State Trail, a 109-mile rail to trail State Park. We have walked or rod bike ridden the first paved 10 miles of the trail before, but this is the first time for riding on the first bit of the unpaved 100 miles section going east out of town.

Yesterday we did our usual walk along the trails of our favorite Klamath Falls park for Moore Park Monday.

7.3 miles to Moore Park for Moore Park Monday.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 34

 

Fourth Favorite Natalie

For the last 4 or 5 years we worked at the Valve Store™ we had a an HR Manager named Natalie Zeitoun. And like every other HR Manager that worked there after the guy who did it before Emerson Electric bought ASCO, she was a young up and coming Emerson hot shot on their way up the corporate ladder (not that there is anything wrong with that.)

One day she visited my department area to, you know, seem friendly and concerned with the happiness of the “associates.” When she passed by my cubicle she asked, “How’s my favorite manufacturing engineering draftsman?” I’m the only one that fits that job title. I replied, “I’m great, but I hate to tell you this, but your only number 4 on my list of favorite Natalies.” “Oh, who are the first three?”, she asked. “Well, lets see, at number one is of course, Natalie Merchant. And while I love everything Natalie Merchant does, this recent concert were she does several songs in duets with Abena Koomson-Davis are really outstanding.

Number Two is Natalie Hurley who was a character in the Aaron Sorkin TV show Sports Night which folded after 2 years:

And coming in at Number 3 is Natalie Portman, AKA Miss Elizabeth Swan in TDPM2:

My 4th favorite Natalie took it in stride, and retorted with I was actually only her second favorite Brian here at ASCO, she likes Brian Howell, a Quality Engineer, a lot better.

17 miles to the Running Y Ranch for a tandem ride.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 34

 

Lowered Miata

When we bought The CTBNL it was lowered on a set of Racing Beat springs along with a set of Koni Sport yellow shocks. When a car is lowered the spring rate needs to increase, otherwise the shorter suspension travel will bottom out on sharp road imperfections. The Racing Beat springs were around 20% stiffer and that would have been great is all the roads we traveled were fairly smooth, but in the real world it seemed like were hitting the bump stops way too often.

Our previous Miata was lowered on a set of Flying Miata springs with those same Koni Sport shocks. So, not long after we bought the current car we swapped the Racing Beat springs for Flying Miata’s almost 100% stiffer units. No more hitting bump stops.

Flying Miata says that after their springs are installed the ride height, measured from wheel center to the fender lip, should be 12.5″ in the front and 13″ in the rear or an even 3/4″ lower than stock. When I measure the ride height on the CTBNL now it comes in at the advertised 13″ in the rear, but the front measures just 12″.

This extra 1/2″ lower ride height comes into play rarely and only when really pushing the car the car through a very sharp turn. The tire will scrape the inner plastic fender liner. This is especially prevalent in the winter when I have the taller Mini Cooper all-season tires on the car.

I don’t remember these stiffer springs feeling this harsh on both the last car and on this one when we were in South Carolina. There is probably a reasonable explanation for this. It could be we are getting older and less tolerant of being jostled. It could also be that we used to drive the Miata a lot more back east so we were used to be jostled around. It could possibly be the roads out here are worse than in South Carolinas. Or it could be a combination of all three.

I have been considering swapping out springs back to stock to maybe mellow out the ride some. Also, because of that whole aging thing again, it might be nice to get that 3/4″ of ride height back. A set of used springs are fairly cheap, around $100, but the labor to swap them out will probably be 4 times that. After the swap and alignment would be needed. With what little we drive the Miata anymore, 238 miles in the last 6 months, I’m not sure it is worth it.

17.1 miles to the Running Y Ranch for a walk.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 33