The new Miata comes with some small black accent pieces all the way around the lower edges of the car. Those accents look good, but they also have what they call the Appearance Package that comes on the Club trim as standard. These are slightly bigger and a little more aggressive looking and are available as a port installed option for around fifteen hundred bucks on some cars.
Mine did not come so equipped. I’ve seen a car with the package and I like the looks, so I ordered most of the appearance package from my dealer. I say most because the $1500 option includes a trunk lip spoiler that I’m not interested in. Mainly because it comes in gloss black like the lower trim pieces and it would look tacked on. Maybe if it was body color…
My total for just the parts was a little over $1,100 and I figured I’d put it on myself. After all I added the 1st gen R Package (front lip, rear diffuser & trunk lip spoiler) on my second Miata and I installed a front lip and side skirts on Miata #3, a 2nd gen car, so how hard could it be. For the heck of it I asked the service department how much would they charge me to put this new package on this new car, $1,410.35 was the answer. I said thanks, but no thanks, I’ll do it myself.
To get ready for the job I watched the 2 YouTube videos I could find to get some idea how difficult it was going to be. It doesn’t seem too complicated, but it will take me several days to do the whole job because I’ll probably do the front lip on one day, then the rear diffuser on a second and the side sills on the third. It is similar to some of the other pieces that I’ve done before, there is automotive grade double stick tape, plastic spacer pieces, longer screws, etc. But there are some new twists, there is some riveting and installing something called jack nuts. The good thing is that all the holes that need drilling are into plastic instead of metal like on the side skirts for that 2nd gen car.
So, I needed to buy a rivet tool and a jack nut tool, Amazon Prime to the rescue. While I was at it I went ahead ordered a set of Metric drill bits. In the videos I watched they just used SAE drill bits that were close, but what’s another twenty bucks in the grand scheme of things?
I did learn in one of the videos you need a small a piece of plastic angle iron that goes on under the front behind the new front lip. (aerodynamic reasons?) So, I had to call the parts department to have them get that too. Fortunately, even though I had them order it a couple days after the three big pieces, it came in at the same time as the rest of it on yesterday.
I knew, based on seeing those videos, that the boxes the parts come in are pretty big, so I took the Mini to pick them up. When I saw all three boxes there in the parts department I wondered if they would all make it into the Mini. I had the back seats already folded down, but I had to slide the front passenger seat as far forward as it would go, remove the headrest and recline the back of the seat. Even with that, they just barely fit inside the car enough to close the rear hatch. For the ride home the only rearview I had was through the driver’s side outside mirror.
Last night I opened all the big boxes so I could pull out all the instructions and see just what I’ve gotten myself into. Well, wouldn’t you know it, there in the instructions for the rear diffuser is a section that said “Additional Parts Required”, so now I need to order some $15 sticky strips. Not that this particular thing is going to hold me back, all the instructions say, “For proper adhesion of the double stick tape this should be done when the temperature is over 60 degrees.” That ain’t happening here until spring…
While out driving around yesterday I stopped in at the Mazda dealer to see if the little tape things (AKA Protectors) arrived. Nope, so my friendly parts guy ordered another set. I have lost all my days that have no rain and will reach to low 60s and now I have a hard deadline of Sunday the 17th of getting the under skirt on. Hopefully those Protector things will get here during the coming week so I can get them on the car by then. The skirt itself can be done after the 17th if need be.
