Cars

Back From HHI

A pleasant little diversion was had this weekend. Drove down to Hilton Head Island to take more pictures of condos. My friend Jerry who manages a bunch of places at the Hilton Head Island Beach & Tennis Resort has snagged a few new ones (bringing the total to 25) and I need to update his website with the new places.

Took Friday off from work and drove down in the morning. We had Japanese food at Donna’s favorite spot for lunch, met with Jerry, took pictures then we had pizza at my favorite spot for dinner.

Saturday was up “early” for a walk on the beach, leftovers for lunch and a movie in the afternoon. Dinner that night was over at Jerry & Donna’s (Jerry’s wife’s name is Donna too) place. When we got there they came out to ooh and aah appropriately over the new car. I handed him the keys and said, “Let’s go for a ride.” We then proceeded to terrorize the neighbors and their dogs by driving around way too fast for his quiet little plantation development. Back in the day, Jerry used to drive of-road rally cars and it shows. At one point he said aloud, “Not bad clutch work for someone who has only driven automatics for the last 4 years.” I commented that it was pretty much like riding a bike and he responded back by heel and toeing a double clutch down shift through the next corner. To which I kidded, “You know they have synchros in the transmissions now a days.”

This morning it was raining, so Donna (mine) and I cancelled the beach walk and drove on home. Sometime on the drive home the CD Changer switched to disc 2. Not bad, nine days to finish listening to all 170 songs. At this rate I will have to swap out the 10 disc magazine, sometime in early April.

Remind me tomorrow to tell you about this afternoon’s dueling car washes.

Low Fuel Light

Up until model year 2003, if you wanted to start a nice little flame war over on the Miata.net Forum all you had to do was ask why the Miata doesn’t have a Low Fuel Light. On one side you had the pro camp who wondered aloud about how come the cheapest Hyundai has one. The con camp consisted of the sports car purists or the ones who actually use the normally included gas gage.

I guess Mazda figured if it sold a half dozen more cars they would add it, so in all 2003 Miatas you now get a low fuel light.

I was on my way to the local gas station this evening to fill up as the needle was about on ‘E’ when mine came on. Filled up the tank and I managed to get 10.4 gallons in there. The total capacity according to my brochure is 12.7 gallons, so I had 2.3 left to burn. Even at the lowest EPA city mileage of 23 MPG I still could go over 50 miles before actually running out.

Shift For Brains

After much deliberation, tonight I removed the short shifter. I really liked the shortened shifts and even the slightly higher effort with added snick-snick, but the little whirring, spinning noises (only noticeable with the top up) were making me crazy. I’m sure they were there in the old car, just didn’t hear them, what with the older cars higher ambient noise level. Shifting is back to longer, but smoother and quieter.

Afterwards Donna and I went out and tested it of course. 🙂 It is about 60 degrees tonight and a beautiful night for a topless cruise. At one point Donna said it is a little brisk maybe we should raise the windows. When she mashed the switch, nothing happened. Rut-Roh! I must have messed something up, because you have to remove the switches to get the console out to change the shifter. I thought it took a lot more pressure to hook back up. I hope I didn’t break a pin. Turns out I did bend one, straightened out, hooked it up and now the windows fly up and down on command again.

I’ve got a question for the Miata.netters. Remember how I complained about there not being any oil in the turret? While reading in a post about notchy shifting 6-speeds, someone made an off-hand statement that you need to remember 6-speeds trannys don’t have oil in the turret. Huh?!? Did they stop putting it in 5-speeds too? If so, did putting some in muck up the works?

After Donna and I got back from our evening top-down drive (it’s like 60 degrees outside) there was a sticky note attached to my monitor, “Tim called” it read. My mother-in-law had taken the message. I guess Tim just said, “Tell him I called.” I only know one Tim, and he is a rare caller, so I tried his number. No answer. Hmmm. Did she mean some one else? Jim? I know a ton of Jims. Whoever it was, it must not have been important as he never called back.

Better send myself an email at work so I’ll remember to ask Tim if he did call me.

SSK

Installed the last of mods to the Miata for the near future, the Moss Motors Short Shifter Kit. Taking the console off the new cars is not much harder that it was in the old one, just, surprise, different. They hid the middle screw under the power window switches instead of the ashtray which had me stumped for awhile, then I went to the garage section of the mother lode of all knowledge that is Miata, Miata.net.

When I pulled the stock shifter out I looked down in the turret to see what color the oil is in there (it was icky black and thin when I installed the SSK on the old Miata) only to discover that it was very dry in there. Not totally, but the level was much lower than I expected. May have to put some in there next time I visit Clunk & Thunk.

After installation the shifter seems shorter than I remember, I’ll let you know what I think tomorrow after I have driven it.

Post Thanksgiving Stuff

Did everybody get enough to eat? I was a good boy in keeping my servings small so that with even having seconds, I had enough room for a slice of pie and didn’t explode.

Visiting Donna’s sister and her husband was nice, but the 550 mile trip, one-way, was a killer. No need to mention that there are too many people traveling on I-95 and they are all going too fast and driving too close together. On our 10 hour trip down we passed on accident and in the 11 hours homeward we passed two. One of those was a 6 car chain reaction cause by just such behavior. All three caused us to travel at least 2 miles at walking or slower pace.

The car is back at the dealer awaiting Wednesday’s arrival of the “paint guy.” Who I guess is like Thursday’s “dent guy”, traveling shamans who visit dealers to fix what ails new cars. Kind of puts me in mind of Mr. Haney from Green Acres or Professor Marvel from the Wizard of OZ. I remain skeptical that it can be fixed with anything less than a repainted door, but we shall see.

Crap, Now What?

My quest for new car ownership took a major blow today. The Mini Undewhelmed us. Not bad, but it was no Miata.

After 3 years of no car payments, when we do undertake them I would like them as small as possible. Ideally $300, with 325 really being the max I feel comfortable with. With a Mini that was a distinct possibility, with a new Miata it is a lot further out of reach. Then you have to take into consideration that insurance will now go up for your more expensive car, next year’s (and hereafter’s) tax bill goes up too.

There is zero percent financing on 2003 Miatas until next Monday, so for 60 months, $300 would be financing a total of $18,000. Even if the dealer was generous and gave me what KBB claims is a private party price of $4k, that only brings me to the 22 thousand mark. That is base Miata territory and if I’m buying I would want the upscale L package for the cruise and limited slip.

The other option open is there is a rebate on Miatas of $2750 until next Monday, 12/1. This is more appealing as in the price range we are in here and available interest rates now it is cheaper to take the money off up front.

The real problem with all of this is the same one that sent me Mini shopping to begin with, there is no real color Miata out there that really appeals to me. Most the ’03s left over out there are that hideous Splash Green and the equally as repulsive Special Edition color of Strato Blue (which is more violet than blue.) It is almost enough to drive a man to buy a red car. Actually there a few Garnet Red (which is actually more maroonish) cars out there and Donna kinda likes it, but I can’t abide by the tan color interior I’ve seen them with and I’m not too sure they would look good with my interior color of choice, black.

There just may not be a new car in my future. Small sporty convertibles are few and far between. The Toyota MR2 is too quirky looking and has less storage space than the average women’s purse. Boxsters and SLKs are out of my league. I guess I could start looking at 2 year old Honda S2000s, they came in sort of an attractive blue with a blue interior.

Mini Underwhelms

The day I’ve anticipated for 2 weeks came and went. After a chilly drive down (the 1st half with the top down, until we got too cold) I drove right by the dealership. The Mini place shares the building with the BMW folks and it is a new building that is attractively landscaped. Unfortunately the palmetto trees and other plants practically hide the place from the road unless you know it is there. I guess this is probably OK with them because it fits more in with what I think the BMW car dealer philosophy might be, if you want one of our cars, come find us. Not like your basic US/Japanese dealer where the cars are on spinning pedestals 6 inches from the road with flags and balloons flapping everywhere. Really, has there been marketing studies that found a direct correlation to balloons and car buying desire.

We turned into a different Hendrick dealer’s lot and tried to snake our way back as it looked all connected. It was not and we ended up way out back, close to the BMW service area. There were a couple of Minis back there that we looked at for a few minutes before going in the service counter and asking where the Mini dealership was located (it was still not apparent from where we were.) On the short walk over, I dragged Donna over to see a BMW Z8 that was in for service. Donna wanted to know what the big deal was and I said, “It’s like a hundred thousand dollar car.” She harrumphed and said, “It’s ugly.” In magazine photos I thought it looked real sharp, but in person I had to agree with her.

When we arrived the place was strewn with Minis of all variations and colors. We met out “Motoring Advisor” Dana and she set about lining up a couple of cars to drive. My only requests were to drive a base Cooper and an S, with one of them having a sunroof. First up was the base car with no sunroof. It had some dealer installed 16″ wheels instead of the standard 15s, too bad, I had hoped to try the base in stock form so I could gage ride/road feel and handling differences when I got in the S. Didn’t really matter as the MA rides with you and guides you on about a 10 mile loop. You get a half a mile of Interstate and then just city streets. There is one patch of a road with a couple of bends in it, but nothing to really gage the handling capabilities. Next was a drive in the supercharged Cooper S. The normal S tester and the one she wanted to take us in didn’t have a sunroof either. I reminded her that I wanted one with the sunroof, so off she went to find one that fit the bill. Found one but I think that she didn’t want to take us in it was that hadn’t really been fully prepped. It still had plastic on the seats and cardboard all over the inside. It didn’t matter to me because all I wanted out of this was to see if I felt the extra 50 horses were worth the $3K over the base. Out for the same 10 mile loop.

When we got back I had one more request, I wanted to see some cloth seats. The base had leather and the S had the leatherette. The fake stuff was a very nice quality, the feel and finish would fool a lot of people, but I think cloth would be better than the vinyl and leather at $1600 was too much for too little. And if I was buying a Mini I think the cloth would be the way I’d go. There was one she could show me, but Dana had to go back inside to get the key. After we stood around a bit idly chatting about colors, I thanked her for her time and asked for her card. I think we both knew that I wasn’t buying.

Here is why I’m not buying: Neither blue in person blow my skirt up, after that any color was a compromise and neither Donna or I could pick one we really liked. The inside was too plastic feeling, the door pulls felt really cheap, the dash when you touched it had the feel of the side of a Barbie pedal car. The rear view mirror on the inside reminded my of a child’s compact mirror. It was small and quirkily shaped and surrounded by a 1/2 wide plastic frame. On the first run we started out with the A/C on and the fan seemed really loud for the amount of air it was putting out. On the second run with the roof open and both windows down it was really noisy, even at city driving speeds. Almost as loud as the Miata with full top down and if you are going to have that much sound and fury, why not have the whole convertible experience. The sunroof from the inside didn’t seem as big as it does looking at it in the roof. I didn’t find the dead pedal until I was stationary back at the dealer looking at the cloth interior. I was not impressed, Donna on the other hand didn’t like it at all. A ten mile, 15 minute drive is not enough of an experience to really tell if you like the car, for that length of time a new Chevy Cavalier is probably a wonderful car. I guess if you were meant for the car that is all it would take, but having owned a Miata, I needed to be sold and wasn’t.

Here is some of the nice things. The base car, although 15 HP shy of my Miata and 200 lbs. heavier, felt just as peppy. Not being a big HP guy the S version wouldn’t have been worth it. Good thing too, as the hood scoop sort of ruined the cute front end we both thought. Damn thing is cute as a button. Plenty of leg room, I had the seat forward a couple of notches. The doors opened really wide. Did I mention it’s cute?

Donna said it best for both of us, the inside doesn’t live up to the fun promised by the outside.

Purchased Today: $14.00
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2641.54
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 283