Miata Washings

Wash Day

We have a friend who can make vinyl stickers, so I had her work up a small angry ladybug for the back of the big Angry Ladybug.

Yesterday both cars got bathes. The Miata needed one to wash off the mud and grass from parking along the side of South Carolina roads on a rainy day and the rest of the weekend’s road grime. The Mini was not nearly as filthy as the Miata, but a recent rain had left easly noticable spots all over the gloss black flat roof.

The Miatas have never gone through an automatic car wash because, not only the convertible thing, but it is small enough that by the time I realize this is a chore it is over. The Sonata on the other hand was just big enough to be annoying, so more often than not we spent the $10 to take it to Lulu’s. The good thing about downsizing from the Sonata to the Mini is now I wash both cars in the driveway in about the same amount of time it took to hand wash the Purple Whale.

Thought We Forgot About This?


It has been almost 2 months since we last took any Motoring Challenge photos, but we were out cruising yesterday evening when Donna remembered seeing this rug shop in downtown Augusta she had seen before. Seeing as we were somewhat close by, we detoured that way to grab a point.

We are now at 158 points out of 257 possible or 61% and we are 260 days into the 365 days or 71% of the allotted time to get those points. I guess we better pick up the pace some.

The CTBNL got a wash this afternoon to remove all the plant matter stuck to its sides from driving around post hurricane and get rid of the dead bug on the nose from the Bug Splat 6 weeks ago.

Twice in 2 Days

We had a Masters Miata Club event today, an actual road rally1 put together by a member, we couldn’t show up in a dirty car, so last night I gave the CTBNL a sponge bath in the garage using the bottle of cleaner and microfiber towels I got from CroftGateUSA.

The rally finished up at a Sonic over in Georgia and in back of the parking lot there was a group of Navy JROTC kids from a local high school holding a charity car wash. Hey, we need one of those for the Motoring Challenge. So while waiting on the rest of the entrants to finish the rally and arrive at Sonic, I pulled the car over and let them have at it.

All Clean

I’m not sure if pine pollen season is entirely through, but both vehicles got a wash this afternoon. The Purple Whale had gathered a nice little coating of the stuff and today’s light rain washed some of it off, but the rest was redistributed in a somewhat ugly design. The C.T.B.N.L. has spent the last week mostly outside and mostly stationary so it too had a relatively thick coating of the yellow stuff. For now they are both clean, but for how long?

How Did We Do ????

About a week ago I got an email from my buddy Frank at CroftgateUSA. Today’s post title was the entirety of the body of that email. I wrote back to say that I hadn’t used either of the products yet. Last week it pretty much rained the whole time and this week is supposed to be a repeat, so on what was to be the only marginally nice weather day in a fortnight, Saturday I washed the Miata. I started in the usual way with a soapy bucket of water, a fresh water hose rinse and drying with a squeegee and several towels.

Then I broke out the special sauce and followed the instructions on the spray bottle: spray on surface, spray on microfiber towel, wipe surface with towel, then buff with separate microfiber towel. I will have to admit that the matte stripes do look cleaner and nicer. Whether that is placebo effect or an actual difference, I don’t know…anyway, we’ll see how it works. Especially how it handles beading water on paint.

I’m gathering the makings of the glove box light. The little LEDs are in hand and the switch is on its way. Figuring where to mount what and wiring it up, well those details are sketchy at the moment.

It is not all fun and games here at LOB HQ though, the CTBNL is afflicted with what every Miata of a certain age gets, slow power or hard to crank windows. Mazda in their effort to save weight or money or both sourced a plastic window bushing guide with a useful life of 8 years or 10,000 ups or downs. Now you can get these same guides on the aftermarket made from Delrin which will outlive the car. I’ve got a set on the way from Rspeed and might be just the rainy weekend project.

Well, That Explains That

24V on 22V

24V on 22V

Washed both cars this morning. Started with the Sonata because I knew if I did the Miata first, I’d look over at that big car and just put away the hose. After drying the Miata I was struck by how the license plate frame, painted with the same silver paint as the patch on the bumper, looked sort of greenish too. I was fully prepared to believe that the silver paint I ordered from automotivetouchup.com was the correct shade and I screwed it up with the off-brand clear coat I used, but I never clear coated the plate frame. So I looked at the information sticker inside the driver’s door and found the color code of the car, 22v. Then I went over to the shelf where I had the touch up paint stored and looked at the can, it read 24V!

There was only one silver on the Miatas in 2002 and it was 22V, AKA Sunlight Silver Metallic. How could I have gotten the wrong paint? I went back in the email and looked at the order confirmation I received and sure enough there at the bottom was “Description: 12 oz Aerosol Spray Paint, 2002 Mazda MX5 Miata: Cerrion Silver Metallic 24V.” I went to the paint web site and found out what the problem is, you can choose MX5 Miata or just plain Miata and each page has a different list of paint codes.

I went to the contact page and filled out my name, email, phone and this is what I put in the text area:

I believe I was led astray by your web page color selection process. On August 15th I ordered a 12oz spray can of silver touch-up paint for my 2002 Mazda Miata on Order #9167888. The paint code for that year Miata is 22V, but I received 24V.

Admittedly I probably had several chances to realize I had the wrong color paint, but I didn’t notice it until I had painted a portion of my rear bumper (and license plate frame.) My fault was my trust in my knowledge of Miatas in that I knew there was only one silver offered on the Miata in that year.

When I selected my color I must have chosen from the drop down boxes “2002 – Mazda – MX5 Miata” because the generated list of colors shows one silver, so I selected it. Unfortunately that was 24V, a color not available on the Miata in 2002. To get the right color you have to chose “2002 – Mazda – Miata” to get to a list that shows the right color code, 22V. Why 2 different selections anyway?

Attached are screenshots of the two different pages. And now that I look at them closely I see several errors on the two pages, both in omissions and additions.

Could you please ship, at your expense a replacement 12oz spray can in the color I really need – 22V?

Thanks for your consideration,
Brian

After I sent that off I did a little research over on the Miata Forum and found out that 24V actually was a Miata color in 2002, it was used on some Special Edition cars in Japan and Australia. Ahh, maybe that is the reason for the two Miata options on the touch up paint maker’s web site. If they are using MX5 Miata for non-US cars their chart is still wrong as there was 22V silver available in both those countries as well…we’ll see how they respond.

61,000 Pieces of Flappy Strips of Cloth

When we got home from work tonight I was feeling energetic, so I decided to go outside and wash the Purple Whale. I took one look at the car and thought, man that’s a lot of metal and decided to wash the Miata.

After dinner and the evening news we opted to do our weekly grocery shopping tonight instead of Saturday or Sunday morning. On the way to the store we made a quick stop at Lulu’s to run the Sonata through the automatic car wash. Normally we just do the “Molly Wash” which is basically a wash and a tire shine for $10, but not tonight. All I had in my wallet was a twenty and we wondered if the automatic check-in machine would give change. The answer to that question would go unanswered because as we pulled in there was an advert for the Manager’s Special for twenty bucks so we decided to shoot the moon.

The top of the line wash is $18 and there are like 4 different add-ons that range from $2 to $4 each, the Manager’s Special tossed everything in for a mere $2 more. We got Bug Shielded, Simonized, Buffed and more than I can remember. What I did remember was something called Lava Wash where the Sonata was coated in three times as much soap as usual and instead of it being plain white, the suds were a mixed combination of red, orange and yellow colored.

After shopping I filled up the Purple Whales tank and when I looked to read the mileage from the last fill-up I notice the total mileage showed 61,117. Hmmm, missed the transition from 60999 to 6100 which probably happened some time last week. Shame on me.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 164