Miata

Strike 1, Two Months Ago – A Cooked CAS Sensor and Smoked Pig Butts
Strike 2, A Week Ago – Was That Money Well Spent?
Strike 3, Yesterday – Someone was coming to look at the house between 12 and 1 so we hopped in the Miata to vacate the place. We didn’t really have a solid plan on what to do to kill the roughly 1-1/2 hours we needed to stay away, but one was, unfortunately, thrust upon us.

We were a mile away from home, waiting patiently for the light to change and give us our left turn arrow and I noticed a minor roughness in the car’s idle. When the light changed I eased out the clutch and as soon as I depressed the gas pedal the car died. I briefly thought perhaps I had stalled it, but it didn’t feel like that, the car just shut off. When I went to restart it, it wouldn’t. Great. We were first in line with about four cars behind us, talk about major embarrassment.

I hit the flasher button and started waving people around me. We were in a nose up attitude because of the slight incline, so if everyone would clear out behind us we could possibly coast back into the parking area of the corner quick stop. Those behind me all made the light, but the lane to the right of me didn’t fully empty before the light changed back to red. At the next light change there were fewer cars behind us and they all made the light, so I let off the parking brake and starting coasting back. I was almost completely into the lot when a white pickup truck decided to exit the lot. He hit his horn, but I kept backing up, so he stopped moving and I managed to get the car 98% off the road. He rolled down his window and when I told him why I did what I did he mellowed out and backed up a bit to allow Donna and I to finish pushing the CTBNL into the lot.

So, first, a quick update from Strike 2: I took the car back to the shop and they ran their code reader on the car and received no fault codes either, the only questionable reading they got was a slightly elevated charging voltage. So I told them that I would just order a new Cam Angle Sensor and see what happens. The new one arrived on Wednesday afternoon and I had been driving with it in there several small trips (all longer than a mile!) and the car had behaved fine. It also ran fine with the back up CAS in it from Saturday to Wednesday.

Because it was midday this Saturday, the repair shop was still open and they have their own tow truck, so I gave them a ring and told them my tale of woe and where we were. They promised to send the truck right over. While we waited Donna went into the quick stop and bought us each an ice cream bar to enjoy. Just as we were finishing our treat our knight in shining truck arrived. After the car was loaded up he offered to drop us off at home as he took the car in. We declined because we still couldn’t go back there for at least 45 or 50 minutes.

There was a Zaxby’s a couple hundred yards further down the road, so we told the driver that we were going to get lunch and when I got home I’d drive over and talk with them. When I arrived at the shop the head mechanic was eating lunch in the front lounge area and I asked him what he’d found out. They had plugged in the code reader and once again there were no stored codes. They were in the middle of finishing up some promised jobs, so he promised to do some troubleshooting on Monday. He also said that if the car started and ran fine on Monday, he would take it for at least a twenty minute drive in the heat of afternoon before he gave it back to me.

At this point, even if he finds another sensor or something bad, Donna has vowed never to get in the car again. She won’t trust it to get to the store and back, let alone an evening drive, or a day trip or a weekend get away. It has now left us stranded on the side of the road three times in the last 10 weeks. The next time it happens it may be in a place or time where or when we don’t want to be. Frankly I am quite near to that point myself.