Bye-Bye Netflix

After nearly 4-1/2 years as a customer of Netflix I’m going to cancel my membership this week. We really haven’t been watching movies at a rate to warrant paying them the $23.31 a month. I have been keeping track of all my rentals over that time in an Excel spreadsheet worksheet. Here are just the highlights:

1567 Total Days Member
317 Total Movies Watched
72 Movies Not Finished
22.7% Percentage of Movies Not Finished
6.1 Average Movies Watched Per Month
$3.48 Cost per Rental
19 Average Days Out

Busy Week

Next Sunday is the Rspeed Open House and some of us in the Club will be making the trip over to Marietta for the party. I’ve got a spoiler sitting in the garage that would be nice to have on the car before going. According to the FedEx site my new tires will be delivered tomorrow and it is imperative that I get them installed before the trip.

The tires will get done for sure, I’m just trying to figure out how to work in leaving the Miata overnight at the paint place in between the normal shuffling of the week (Donna’s Mom’s Mon-Wed-Fri afternoon dialysis and Donna’s Mon-Wed evening Pilate’s classes) and the extra this week only specials (5 days of all morning training for me, an afternoon Dr.’s appointment for me and the Miata Club meeting Thurs night.)

Last word on the clutch shudder issue (unless of course it returns): The transmission is not in the exact same spot or orientation as when it went in. We are talking millimeters I’m sure, but while taking the 30 mile long way to the 3 mile away store this morning the 2 to 3 shift seems a bit long. But the real telling point is when shifting from 3 to 4 straight back, twice I bumped into the neutral area instead of right into 4th. As I said, it is very minor and I’ll adjust, of course it could have been just me…

Comet Incubation Period: 9 days

I Don’t Know What They Are Paying Him, But It Ain’t Enough

When the day started I said what the heck and dumped $15 worth of gas into the Tribute, Rader sure wasn’t. Besides if I was going to have to wait on a reimbursement I might as well make it worthwhile. Service department hours are 8 to 12 on Saturday, so I waited until 9 AM to call. Kellie said the tech got in at 8:30, but hadn’t looked at my car yet. He was going to do a couple others first, because they were there waiting. She said she would call when the car was done. As I’m always a little slow on the uptake, it wasn’t until Donna reminded me that I had been waiting since Thursday for my car, that I got a little upset, after all, it should have been a ten minute fix. Its kind of like getting to the counter in a shop ready to pay or ask a question and the phone rings. The clerk immediately answers the phone and starts to help them, ignoring you. Maybe everyone figures you are content because you have a loaner car.

Kellie calls at 10:45 and says the car is done and I can pick it up anytime. The service department closes at noon (the techs probably go home at 11:30) but she would leave the key to my car with Scott as the sales crew will be there until 5 or 7 depending. Scott is an occasional reader of The Diaries (everybody say, ‘Hi Scott!’) and having noticed my car sitting on the lot all day Thursday, checked in here to see what was up and how bad I was beating up his place of employment. So when Kellie gave him my key he took the car for a little spin, for two reasons; 1) make sure the repairs were really right and 2) fill it up with gas. I needed more than a half a tank and because the car requires premium we are probably even on the gas front. I don’t know what they are paying him over there, but it ain’t enough. Why could Scott do this and Kellie could not? In my entire experience at Rader, Scott has been busy trying to cultivate a long-term relationship while the service department has been trying to sabotage it.

The Miata sits quietly in my garage tonight, home again and happy. I just hope it lasts. I’m sorry, it is my nature. There are stories on Miata.net of folks having to get the TSB done a second time, because the shudder returned. Most of those were early on in the process and Mazda supposedly has an updated disc that seems to do the trick. I’m sure after a while I will forget about the shudder and go about my way, but my subconscious will be worrying on the issue, so if it does return, I won’t be surprised.

Comet Incubation Period: 8 days

Didn’t You Check That?

Last night on the way home in the loaner Tribute, about 5 miles out, the low fuel light came on. I had just jumped in and didn’t think to look at the gas gage, it still read about an 1/8 of a tank, but nNot knowing which one of these indicators were more correct, I decided to put $5 worth of gas in it. The 3 gallons approximate, sent the needle to just below a 1/4 tank and ought to be enough to get to work and then to Rader the next day. The car/truck is filthy too, I think the last person to borrow it was testing it’s off road capabilities. Not only do they not check to see if there is gas in it, they don’t even take enough pride to wash it off or vacuum it out before some else gets in it.

About 8:15 AM this morning Kelly, my service “advisor”, called to say the car was done. Seems as if the technician finished up just before going home yesterday. I told her I’d be over as soon as I got off work and mentioned she should get five bucks from petty cash to reimburse me for the petrol. I made it over to Rader a little after 5 to get my car. Kelly went off to get someone to bring it around. While we waited I popped upstairs to run the Master’s Miata Club newsletters through the postage meter. When I came back down the car was there, but she didn’t have neither the $5 nor the paperwork. She couldn’t find the paperwork because the tech who did my work was not in today (no wonder he finished up yesterday, he knew he wasn’t coming in.) She also said she would have to talk to the service manager on Monday about getting the money to me. We ran through this routine when I wanted to get reimbursed for the tow charges on the 95 when the timing belt broke. I wonder if it will take nearly two weeks again? Walked over and chatted with Scott, my salesman, for a bit, he’s planning a membership drive for the Club to be held at the dealership in November. He is writing a letter to mail to the 30 or so Miata buyers in the last year and a half at Rader and invite them over to meet the crew.

It was finally time to go, so I got in the Miata, dropped the top and crept out of the dealership lot, the clutch felt real smooth. Hung a right onto busy Washington Road and sped off the 1/2 mile before turning off. A short stretch and then right on Riverwatch Parkway to head home. As I got up to speed and shifted into 5th I looked down to check my speed and discovered I was going ZERO MPH! The speedometer cable is hooked to the transmission, I bet my just finishing up in time to go home technician had forgotten to hook up the cable correctly (or not at all.) Hang a right and then another and pull back into the service area. It is 5:35, they go home at 6, so I figure we can get this done and I’ll be on my way. Wrong. The advisors stay until 6, the techs go home at 5:30, so there is no one there to fix my speedometer. Luckily, they work on Saturday morning, so it should be solved tomorrow. I put the top back up on the Miata and Kelly gives me the keys to the Dark Teal Metallic Tribute, again.

I get 5 miles from home and the low fuel light comes on, again…

Comet Incubation Period: 7 days

Sad Day

And such a waste. Donna and I attended the wake/viewing of a co-worker tonight. He was more than an acquaintance, not really a friend, but only because we traveled in different circles. He was that way, friendly to everyone and I bet that if you needed help he would do it without regard. Wayne was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the Fourth of July weekend he was riding his trike (a chopper with a VW bug engine) down a main commercial street in town when a woman jumped her red light and pushed him into a ditch and ran over him. After a hospital stay he returned home to start recovery. He needed skin grafts for his arm that was burnt on his hot exhaust when the trike rolled over him and lots of physical therapy. We thought all was well, but a short while ago he started having seizures. Unsure what was causing them he was readmitted to the hospital, where died from a reported blood clot in his lung. I apologize if I’m hazy and maybe wrong on some of the details, but I’d ask about how Wayne was doing every other week or so and mostly got the positive side of things. Because we are a decent sized company in a small town, where Donna and I worked with Wayne also employed his wife, his brother, an aunt and his sister-in-law. His other brother was who I entrusted some of the Miata maintenance to when the warranty expired. In a weird twist of fate, the woman who hit him is the niece of some one else who works at the plant too.

You hug the crying wife and squeeze the shoulder of the red-eyed brothers, but the hardest part of the whole evening was seeing 6′-6″, 250 lb, Robert Turner, a Vietnam Vet who still has a limp from a shrapnel wound and tough as nails, reduced to blubbering at the loss of someone he has worked side by side with for the last 27 years.

So long Wayne, the world is a much worse place now that you are not in it.

Dark Teal Metallic

I guess I was wrong about this being a money making proposition for the Dealer. They told me 6 hours, yet they had the car all day and it was still not finished when I went to pick it up. Seeing as I went into this with low expectations, this just reinforces my bad feelings. I’m sure the optimist would say that the extra time is a good thing because the technician wants to get it right. I’m sure this means that he doesn’t know what the heck he is doing so it is going to take twice as long as specified.

Because they were keeping the car overnight, they gave me a loaner vehicle. A 2005 Tribute in Dark Teal Metallic which kind of brought back memories of Splash Green Metallic. It took about 15 miles before the feeling of being on stilts subsided enough that I just felt too high up. The drivers foot well seems narrower than the Miata’s so I never got my left foot comfortable. In typical Mazda (and maybe all Japanese car) fashion the seat bottom is too short for my thighs, leaving me feeling unsupported even with the more upright position. Remember me whining about the cheap plasticy feel of the Mini’s interior? Well the inside of this is worse. It is silver (really more gray) I guess to simulate aluminum, but it comes off more like a plastic scale model of a navy battleship. The only good feeling was from the steering wheel, a little from the way it handled (not really zoom-zoom worthy) and a little from the texture, hard to describe, but felt very grippy and comfortable.

Brian returned with is estimate from the folks who painted his car, $200, that is painted and mounted. They felt that they would want to add some pop rivets to go along with the silicone adhesive. This is all well and good, but they have not seen the spoiler. I’m having a hard time explaining that the construction of this thing just doesn’t allow for adding anything else for securing it to the car. I’ve tried to take a picture of it, but can’t get one that will convey the shape right.

Comet Incubation Period: 6 days

TSB 05-001/03

Just dropped off the Miata at Rader so that tomorrow they can fix the clutch shudder issue per TSB 05-001/03. Cross your fingers for me and/or pray to the deity of your choice that they don’t screw up more than they fix while doing this. I’m hopeful that things will be swell, seeing as for the 15K service I didn’t have to get out the breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts and I only had to use touch up paint on one little spot near the hood opening.

Comet Incubation Period: 5 days