Miata Mods

Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

Because I have bought new lightweight 15″ wheels and some summer rubber for #6, AKA Bucky, I wasn’t sure what I’d use the the 2001’s stock wheels for after I get rid the 1/4 century old rubber that is mounted on them. My first thought was to put some snow tires on them and have them handy for winter time use. But then I ran into a picture someone had added to a thread on the Miata Forum, this fellow has a dark colored 3rd gen Miata that he had put the 16″ OEM Miata wheels on. I did a rough draft by adding a bright blue to that image:

Hmmm, I think I like that better than the stock 17″ wheels of the New Miata. I think that they looked better when the car was that Aero Gray color, but now that it is blue…

My Car Is Instagram Famous

 About a month ago the folks that did the wrap on the car posted a video that had a couple seconds worth them working on the car, a teaser if you will. I took a screen grab of it to make a post for here.

Yesterday (12/20) PDX Wraps released a story on Instagram that was just of my car as a promo for doing a color change wrap on a vehicle.

And 3 days later (12/23) they also added a seven image post on Instagram.

Non-Christmas Lights Fun

I installed a red LED strip between the tail lights and the very next day I dopped the car off to have it wrapped. When I got it back, a Brake Light Malfunction warning showed in the left-hand dial on the dash. Hitting the INFO button dismissed the warning. Trouble is now at every start up; I have hit that INFO button.

Step one in troubleshooting was to back up to some shop windows to see if both tail and brake lights were working properly. They were, so what’s wrong? This led me to that red LED strip. I had purchased it from CravenSpeed. They are local to me, so I drove to their shop in Tigard which is southeast of Portland to save on shipping. All in all, the cost of gas used might have been more than shipping, but a Miata drive is a Miata drive.

CravenSpeed doesn’t make that kit it is produced by someone called MX5Things. So, I used the contact us link on the website wondering if the product still worked well in the 2024 models because that is model year that went full CAN Bus. Turns out it is a one man show and Sergey has the same 2024 GT soft top as mine. He said first check to make sure I had the correct wiring jumper harness. I did, so he said if the LED strip lights up, the only thing left is the harness. He suggested I return to CravenSpeed and try a new harness. When there we swapped the jumper harness and that didn’t fix it.

When I got home there was one thing I hadn’t yet tried yet, unhook the jumper and take the LED strip out of the circuit entirely. Unfortunately, the brake light malfunction warning was still there. It was time to punt. I went to the dealer last Friday to see if they could fix this issue. They wanted to keep the car for 2 to 3 days to troubleshoot it because if it wasn’t a simple fix they would have to do a deep dive. I said, “I’ll let you know.” When I got home, I put the LED strip jumper back in. I’d just keep hitting the INFO button on the steering wheel to dismiss the warning.

I knew they took the tail lights out to wrap the car and I’ve got the LED strip jumper plugged in on the driver’s side, but I’ve never messed with the passenger side tail light connection, so I unplugged and replugged in that tail light to see if that might be it. That wasn’t it, but doing this caused a tail light malfunction warning in addition to the brake light warning. Crap. So now I’d have to hit the INFO button 2 times to clear the warnings.

Using a long broom stick to depress the brake pedal, I checked the tail lights again and everything appears to work normally, even the blinkers. I called the dealer and set up an appointment to take it in and Monday I took it in. They asked if I wanted a ride home? I said, “I was just going to call an Uber.” The Service Rep’s reply was, “We’ll get you a Lyft. They’ll pick you up out front.”

The car was in their possession for about 24 hours. They cleared some codes, then started and shut off a car a couple times to check and the light warning did not reappear. The next morning, they did the start-stop thing a couple more times and called it fixed. They did have one code that couldn’t be cleared, the one for a missing satellite antenna. That’s because I removed the antenna and vinyled over the hole on the trunk lid. At least that particular error code is silent and does not cover over any of the dash displays.

Cost all of $100 for the tech’s time. But I recouped a 1/3 of it back when they replaced both windshield wipers, even though they aren’t a warrantied part, when I mentioned there were several fine streaks left after each swipe from day one.

Whatever they are paying that Service Rep is not enough. The simple offer of those wipers caused me to do something I absolutely hate to do; I filled out a ‘how was my service’ survey. Not only that, I give a 5 star review and actually left a really nice comment.

Mod Regret

In the 2 months of ownership I have added or changed 11 things to make the car my own. Of those 11, nine are just what I wanted, there are 2 I am slightly disappointed in.

The first is the Shark Fin delete. It was something a fellow on the Miata Forum was selling on eBay, a small 3-D printed plug that fills the hole on the trunk lid once the satellite radio antenna was removed. He did have some that were professionally painted in stock Miata paint colors, but my car’s Aero Gray wasn’t one of them. I ordered one in white and then bought a spray can of touch-up paint in 52C PaintScratch along with a can of clearcoat to finish it off.

After a little sanding and painting I went to but it place, but it wouldn’t fit in the underside of the trunk lid’s cavity. The “plug” portion wouldn’t line up because the round base was off center in the trunk lid’s round hole. I had to sand about 3/32 of an inch off the front half to get it to fit. When I did get it in and lined up, my Aero Gray touch up did not match the trunk lid’s Aero Gray. I was going to put the shark fin back on, but by then I had decided to vinyl wrap the car so I left it in.

The second item is the Rear Running Light Strip that I bought from CravenSpeed here in Portland. It is a strip red LEDs that are stuck to the underside of the trunk lid that spans between the two tail lights and lights up when ever the lights are on or you hit brakes. A few cars have something like this from the factory, most notably, the Porsche 911. It isn’t as nicely integrated as the 911’s, but it is cool looking. Trouble is, the 2024 Miatas have gone full CAN bus, so that every time I start the car the left info gage in the cluster shows a big old “Rear Brake Light Warning” note that has to be dismissed by by hitting the Info button on the steering wheel. It is a minor hassle to have to do this every time right now, but I’m not sure about how long it will be minor hassle.

Blue Is The New Gray


The guys at PDX Wraps did a great job. The vinyl is from Avery and the color is called Gloss Bright Blue Metallic. I think it looks like a combo of the two blues that I had on previous Miatas, 3/4 Laguna Blue from the ’95 with a 1/4 of Mariner Blue of the ’90 mixed in to darken it a bit.

It was raining all morning and it quit about half way on the to pick up the car. Then, the sun made an appearance for a few hours after reclaiming the car. Seeing as I was close to a couple Post Offices in the town of Tualatin I stopped and took their photos with the new car. After grabbing the DCU I headed over to get the regular Post Office. The photo above is of that, but I didn’t realize, until I got home and downloaded the photos that my left forefinger featured prominently in the upper left of the picture.

At first, I thought, well I’ll get back there, but then I opted to try and photoshop out the finger. I didn’t turn out too bad, with a causal look you might not notice anything. If you want to see the finger, hover over the image…

Its A Wrap

The folks who are wrapping the Miata posted an Instagram reel yesterday that showed what they were working on that day. Along with the commercial vans, fuel tanker trailer, semi trailer, a race car and a Range Rover getting a color change was this cute little foreign car. They called me 4PM today to say I could come and get the car tomorrow morning.

On an unrelated note, I started another jigsaw puzzle this evening and while I was sorting pieces I stepped on something. When I looked down I saw the missing puzzle piece from yesterday. How I missed with my high powered bicycle headlight I’ll never really know, but my money is on the alternate universe theory.

Genuine Rear Under Skirt

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.

Forget what I just said in the last couple of lines above, f*ck the Protector things, I put the rear under skirt on this afternoon without them. The first of the two YouTube videos I watched made zero mention of those little double sided “protectors” and second vid didn’t show the process, but did mention it was a pain in the ass to put them on. I would be willing to bet if I paid the big bucks the dealer wanted to install the whole kit and caboodle those guys wouldn’t have gone through that hassle and used them either.