Miata Service

Read Part I, Part II and Part III first.

Thursday after work when we arrived at the glass shop there wasn’t a silver Miata sitting outside waiting. While one of us was saying out loud, “Uh, oh, that’s not good.” The other one was simultaneously thinking the very same thing. As I open the front door I can see through into the shop floor and the guy waving us back. Donna and I go through the second door and see the CTBNL in the middle of the shop. They are just finishing up.

Owner guy says, “I put those rubber pieces on the blocks and you can see how everything is tight.” So I reach over and peel back the gasket at the top and sure enough it feels just like the one on the Emperor did when I blacked out the windshield surround. He then points over to a small bench that has a windshield face down on it. “I went ahead and bought a new windshield to put on your car.”¹ “If you know someone who needs one, I’ll make them a good deal on a used one.²” Then, “They’re just finishing up, so give us a minute and we’ll bring it around front to you.”

Donna reluctantly leaves me behind and drives home in the Sonata. After a few minutes I hear a Miata fire up and circle the building. I step outside and there are two strips of blue tape across the upper corners of the windshield. Owner guy asks if I’m going right home or do I think I’ll be driving it around. “Two miles home is all,” I tell him. He says, “If you were going to drive a bit I’d put the tape all around, but this’ll hold you for just that.” I think for a second and say, “Why don’t we just go ahead and tape around the whole thing. Just to be safe.”

Because we rode the tandem to work on Friday I didn’t even pull the blue tape off until Saturday morning and with a couple of drives on Saturday plus a short one today, so far so good.

In hindsight, maybe we should have learned to live with that little divot.

Read Part I and Part II first.

Wednesday morning I carefully peel off the blue painter’s tape. The windshield still looks a little low, but the gasket fills the gap in the corners. Donna took the afternoon off, so I took her home and drove back to work uneventfully, if you don’t count the weird look out the back through the magnifying squared off mirror.

After work about a mile from the Valve Store, on my way to the glass shop, I start to hear a slight whistle. What the heck could that be? Then I notice a thin line of black peek above the windshield header on the passenger side. As I’m cruising along at 45 MPH the line turns into a loop growing in size and starting to flap around like one of those inflatable wacky waving arm tube men, now, with whistling sounds. As I slow while approaching a stoplight, the flapping and whistling decreases until at around 20 MPH it stops. But of course as soon as I get back above 20 it starts all over again. To limit the distraction, after I’ve shifted into 3rd I drive along with my right hand up above the header holding down the gasket. I have no idea if that looks even remotely normal, but at least the whistling is stopped.

When I enter the shop, a fellow I haven’t seen before (the owner?) is there and he greets me with, “How you doing?” “Not good,” I reply, “My windshield still isn’t right.” He picks up a box and says, “I can fix that, got your new mirror right here.” I tell him, “That’s just the half of it. Come outside, I’ll show you.” He takes one look at the car and says, “The gasket has come unstuck. We’ve had a rash of that happen lately. Its the cheap glue they’re putting on them now.”

Now that the gasket is out of the channel I can see that the glass itself is still a 1/4 inch low all around the top, so I ask owner guy, “Is this the right piece of glass? When I blacked out the windshield surround on my previous similar car I had a hard time getting the vinyl under the gasket here at the top glass because it was way up here.” “Or considering your little mirror trick,” I say, “Maybe you lost the two blocks that support the bottom of the glass and put something else in there.” “Oh no,” he says, “Those two are in there. What I’ll have do is pull the window back off and cut a 1/4″ thick piece of rubber to place on top of them to lift the glass.” “Can you leave the car with us?”

So for the second time in three nights the CTBNL spends the night in the shop at B & B Glass.

to be continued…

Read Part I first.

Tuesday after work we drive back to the glass place and there is a silver Miata in the same spot as yesterday, so it is probably finished. We park the Sonata right next to it again. The sides and top of the windshield has a line of blue painter’s tape around them. I peel back a corner of the tape and there is the OEM (or an aftermarket replacement) gasket. That’s more like it. I go inside and give the guy a check for the work and he says, “Just leave the tape on until morning to let the sealant dry.”

We head back home in our little two car caravan. The first time I look in the rear view mirror it seems different, but I can’t place it. I shrug it off to the fact that I’m still adjusting looking through the 2 cross braces of the roll bar. The next time I glance at it, my brain registers that the view is seems magnified. By the third look I come to the conclusion that the mirror is not the same mirror that was on the car before I took it to them. It is too rectangular, it has square corners. Because at this point I was close enough to home, I figured I’d call them up and ask.

But first I wanted to pull up one of the pictures of the car I had taken over the weekend, just to be sure that that mirror was in fact not right. It wasn’t. I call up the glass place and say, “That’s not my mirror.” “Huh?” “The mirror you guys put back in the car is not a Miata mirror. It is too rectangular,” I tell him, “It looks like it belongs in that 1964 Ford Thunderbird that was in your lot.” Dude says, “Hold on, let me check.” When he gets back on the phone he tells me, “When they were removing my mirror they broke it, so they just put another one on it.” “That is not acceptable,” I say. “Don’t worry, I’m going to call Gerald Jones (the Mazda dealer in Augusta) right now and get you a new mirror.” “Just stop in after your work tomorrow and I’ll pop it on.”

Did they think I wouldn’t notice the random mirror?

to be continued…

When we bought the CTBNL we knew it had several minor blemishes on the exterior. David was apologetic about those conditions, but he needn’t have been, the Emperor’s exterior had it share of scuffs, scratches, chips and dings, so we were used to overlooking minor surface imperfections.

The one thing that we did have trouble overlooking was a small stone chip in the windshield, about in the center, both horizontally and vertically. I thought if I gave it a few weeks I might be able to get used to it and it would ‘disappear’, but Donna said, “Why don’t you see how much it would be to fix?”

There are only a couple places in town that do auto glass, so I called one. I explained the problem as best I could and he said, “That sounds like a (I forget the term), we probably won’t be able to repair that. But bring it in and we’ll look at it to be sure.” The place is located on the busy south side of town and right after work would be peak traffic, so I really didn’t want do that. As it happens the other shop is a mere one block off of our usual route to and from work, so I decided to stop there instead and have them look at it.

Last Thursday we stopped at B & B Glass on the way home. When we get there, there is a guy in the office on the phone and he holds up his index finger, the universal sign of I’ll be with you in a minute. When he hangs up he comes out front with us, looks at the windshield and says, “That might be fixable, but we don’t do that. I can give you a guy’s number that will do it for you.”

Donna and I follow him back inside so he can get a piece of paper and he finishes the thought with, “Something that size and shape might not hold for long, he charges $50, but it is probably worth a try.” Not knowing, so out of curiosity I ask, “Well, how much is a new one?” “$250,” comes the reply. I look at Donna and say, “Why spend 20% of the cost of the new one on something that may or may not work?” She looks at me and then she looks at the guy and asks, “When can you do it?” He says, “Not tomorrow, how’s Monday?” Sounded good to us.

Monday morning, we drive two cars and we stop at the glass place. I toss the keys through the slot and hop in the Sonata. Work passes slowly, but it is finally done and we drive back to the glass place. As we get close we can see a silver Miata parked out front, good, must be finished. I park the Purple Whale right next to it and hop out to look. No chip, but when I look around the edges of the glass it just doesn’t look right. They’ve used some generic gasket, but worse still there are gaps in the two upper corners between the end of the gasket and the windshield frame. You can see the black sealant underneath. Not good.

So I walk inside and find the guy and tell him I’m not happy. He comes out with me and I point to the corners and tell him the gasket doesn’t even look like the right one. “We used the one that came with the glass,” he tells me. I say, “Either way, it looks like this glass has to come up further to the top and how about we get an OEM gasket?” “OK, can you leave it overnight?” “No problem,” I say, “Just keep it the shop or at least inside the fence.”

Did they think I wouldn’t notice the gaps?

to be continued…