Crap!

To quote another famous person¹ whose personal work included the words ‘Life of’ in its title, “What a revolting development this is.”

I followed Donna back home from Wayne’s Automotive the other day and when I turned into the driveway, she said to me, “The Miata sounds horrible.” She’s right. For the past couple three months there has been a metallic scraping sound that directly corresponds to the car speed. It started out very light and has slowly gotten louder. To me it was getting to the point where it was becoming really annoying, but when Donna noticed, that was the signal that it was time to get it looked at.

Having eliminated Wayne’s as a place to go, I wondered where to try next. I vaguely remember someone in the MMC saying they had good luck with the Automotive Workbench, so I called them and made an appointment to bring the car in on Wednesday.

I already like the owner as he came out and shook my hand, instead of just letting the desk clerk check me in, plus his name is Brian. We went a few miles down the street, he drove while I rode shotgun. He actually owned Miata for a while in the past and still has a 1.6 to 1.8 engine conversion in a 91 going on in the background. After the drive he had a couple of ideas what it might be, but needed to get it on a lift the next day to really troubleshoot it.

At the end of the workday yesterday I noticed a message light on my phone. It was the mechanic and he asked me to call back and he’d let me know what the repair would be. I tried calling, but got their answering machine. The place is practically on our route home, so I didn’t try and call again, we just stopped in.

Of course, of all Brian’s possible reasons that the noise could be, it had to turn out to be the most expensive one. The bearings are going bad in the limited slip differential. Used ones, if you can find them, run $800 to $1200 while new ones go for $2500.²

This morning I called the shop to let them know there was a place in Florida parting out a 2003 Miata and had a bunch of stuff listed for sale on Miata.net, including an LSD. I gave them the phone number and they said they’d check. Late in the day the mechanic called and let me know it had already sold. He had a line on one for the $1200, that came with a six month warranty and he would try them and let me know. I said if you can’t get that one, just go ahead and order a new one. He never got back to me today, so I guess we’ll find out the verdict on Monday.