Miata

Bucky Update

I’ve addressed those maintenance issues I mentioned last week. I greased the turn signal & wiper stalks, and they are quieter now. The turn signal one may need a bit more grease, as it isn’t as silent as the wiper one, but that’s for another day. The driver’s door power mirror not working was because the wire connection from mirror to door was not hooked up.

I took Bucky down to the folks at PDX Wraps to pick out the color that I wanted the stripe to be. We hashed out the color and location, so now when I’m done at the DMV next Thursday, I can just drop it off and Uber home. Reverse that on Friday afternoon and drive it home.

While we were on the driver’s side of the car, he noticed what looked like a light scratch. Upon closer inspection it appears to be a line of excess paint drips. The Carfax showed no accidents, but I am beginning to think, with this excess paint and unconnected mirror wires, that it was in a fender bender of some sort and it was fixed off the books. Not a big deal, but still every time I turn around there is another surprise with this car.

Excess Paint?


 
Speaking of surprises, when I went to restart the car at PDX Wraps, it was hard to start. It was a hot day, so that could be the issue, but it wasn’t that hot. So now what? It could be the 25-year-old fuel pump, regulator, or fuel injectors, or a couple, three of them. This car has really become a money pit, and I’m starting to reconsider the plan to keep Bucky and sell the new Miata plan.

Miata World ’99 Revisited

Getting the Shot at Miata World ’99 in Dallas


Back in February of this year I took a photo album from 1989 off the shelf and scanned the photos I liked. I then used them to create five separate posts of content out of it.

Today I jumped ahead a decade to 1999 and scanned some images from the photo album of our trip to Dallas to a national Miata event. Most of these photos aren’t nearly as scenic as the 1989 ones. If you are new around here you might assume that all that Roadside America stuff from the recent April-May-June trip was something new, au contraire, I’ve been making road trips “meaningful” that way since the end of the last century. Postcards also played a crucial roll in this trip as well. See the – Slow Miata to Texas Tour

Lien On Me

I took out a loan for the New Blue Miata, made three payments (Oct,Nov,Dec) and two days after the December payment I paid off the rest of it. And I waited for my Title to show up in the mail. By the end of January, it still hadn’t arrived. I decided to check the loan account online to make sure it said paid in full, and it did. At the bottom of the page, I noticed a small line of text, “To request a lien removal letter, click here.” And I did. On the next page I was told the letter would take 5 to 7 business days to get to me. Huh? Any other time I had financed a vehicle they just sent it to you automatically.

I promptly went on a month-long adventure to Santa Fe and Hammond, LA with a friend and forgot all about Oregon and the Miata and the lien letter thing. Somewhere around the middle of February I went back online and clicked the link again. I gave it 2 weeks in regular days and still no letter. This time I dialed up Chase Auto Finance and got on a phone conversation with a human.

We ran through the details only to find that the dealer who sold me the car left off the ‘Unit 1’ part of the end of 21100 NE Sandy Blvd. While on the phone with me the CSR steered me to the right place to correct the address. I thanked him and hung up. I had to delete the incorrect address and add the correct one. I gave it a few days to get inside their system and clicked the link asking for the lien letter for the third time.

On business day eleven with no letter in my mail box, I call again. Same routine with a CSR as last time, check details and it turns out when I entered my own address in the account, I entered 2110 instead of the 21100. Duh! This time the CSR changed it for me and made me repeat my address a couple times just to make sure I knew what my address is. She told me that I didn’t need to click the link she would get one out in the mail today so it would get to me right away, well, 5 to 7 business days away.

The elusive lien letter arrived today via FedEx. When I opened up the envelope there were two lien letters in there, one dated 12/30/24 and another dated 2/27/25. I thought they would spit out a digital copy of what was on file, but no, someone dug around in a physical file cabinet in Monroe, Louisiana and sent me the actual 2 letters they tried to send me, but got returned.

Miata Gender and Names

A week and a half ago I mentioned that I gave the both boys a bath, meaning both Miatas.

The ’01 has been christened Bucky (or Buc-ee after the Texas sized gas stations) and that is obviously a male name, at least to me. The Winter Soldier, Steve Rodgers best friend from childhood is called Bucky. Or Bucky Dent of the NY Yankees and for Red Sox fans everywhere they include his middle name F’in’.

The ’24 has yet to be named? It started gray but turned blue. How about Luminol because that is white-ish in color but when it comes in contact with blood it turns blue. That one won’t work. Marge, the Simpson’s mom has gray hair that has tuned blue? Nope, that’s a female name. Gender swap Bucky to female? When I searched for ‘can bucky be a female name’ I was told that there is a recent trend of that happening and it could be short for Buckley or such.

GT, because that is it trim level in the Miata hierarchy. Little Boy Blue, of “Come blow your horn, The sheep’s in the meadow, The cow’s in the corn.” of nursery rhyme fame. Old Gary Mare, doesn’t fit at all. Maybe just Old Gray could work?

But, for now, it’s just Blue Miata.

Club Badge

Back in October 2024 when I was adding a bunch of mods to the new blue Miata I was visiting the the local dealer’s parts department quite often, the same guy was always behind the counter. We got to talking as car guys do (he has a tastefully modded Mazda 3 hatch) and on my 3rd or 4th visit HE came back with the part I ordered and another item he thought I might find a use for, an official Mazda Miata Club badge. His manager had asked him to throw it out because it had been sitting around so long and there is really no demand for it anymore because it was on only certain Miatas in a 3 year span a decade ago.

The third generation Miata ran from 2006 to 2015 and in 2013 they replaced the Touring trim with a Club trim that was more sportier than the Sport trim (really the base car) and harder core than the Grand Touring trim level. The Club got a limited slip differential, some different shocks and a nifty badge that went on the driver’s side front fender. This badge was my gift from Mr. Parts Guy.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do it at the time. When the fourth generation car came out in 2016 the trim levels were again called Sport, Club and Grand Touring. The Club trim was the still the “sportiest” version of the Miata, but they weren’t putting the Club Badge on them anymore. This meant that I didn’t want to put the badge on the new car because it was the Grand Touring trim and that seemed a little like sacrilege to do so.

Fast forward to January and I was now the proud owner of second generation car and that version of Miata didn’t ever have any trim called Club, I felt that is the car I could put the badge on. After all I’ve added new shocks, springs and a freer flowing exhaust to make it more Club like. I put the badge on the left front fender like it would have been on those 2013-2015 cars. In Mazda parts bag along with the badge there was a template on where to put it on the car. Of course the different generations made the template not exactly right, but I fudged it and I think it looks good where I stuck it.

Those early cars only had the one badge, but I thought if I could find another one I’d have badges on both sides. eBay to the rescue, I found one for sale and bought it, it came today. Bucky is now ambidextrously badged.

Bucky Update

Maybe a side stripe?

For some reason both seat belts had a short section on them that was frayed, making it hard slide the tab to put it in the slot. Not only that but it kind of weakens the the strap. Yesterday I pulled both seatbelts out of the car, boxed them up and mailed them to a company in Massachusetts called Safety Restore for them to re-web the seat belt mechanisms. The stock belts were black, but the interior is a tan color so I ordered the new belts in a beige color.

On Saturday’s post I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what kind of mats I was going to put in, well, I went ahead and ordered a set of the #91 Jaspe (AKA Calico).

I also said I’d probably just use the $15 Amazon Bluetooth gizmo, nope. After a real day spent with it on Sunday it works, but the volume of the “Connecting to Bluetooth” then shortly later “Bluetooth Connected” is too loud and you can’t turn it down. The real issue is the same thing that happens in most aftermarket sound things, there was a background whine that changed pitch as the RPMs changed. This morning I yanked the radio out and UPS’d it Bishop’s Vintage Car Stereo Repair for the addition of a Bluetooth module. As it would have it, this item also going to New England. Mr. Bishop is a one man operation in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Bucky Earns His Name

A lot of folks name their cars, a lot of folks name their Miatas, I don’t always, but this time I will. For most of this purchase process on buying the 2001 LS off of Bring-A-Trailer I just referred to it as Miata #6 as in it was the sixth Miata I have owned.

But after 2 separate, very entertaining, visits to the phenomenal outsized “gas station thing” called Buc-ees on Sally and my road trip she came to calling the car Bucky. I was just using it in conversations with her, until Sunday when I took a trip to take post offices pictures.

I noticed that for the first 20 or so minutes it was hard to smoothly engage the clutch in first gear and occasionally second as well. No matter how I tried to start from a standstill the car would buck like a scared foal. Then, a memory floated up in my consciousness, I’ve been here before, the Emperor suffered from the same malady. I wrote about it back in 2004 if you are interested.

Technical Service Bulletin 05-001/03 covers what needs to be done which is basically put a new clutch disc in. I’ll be adding another couple hundred grand the Bucky’s budget spreadsheet. Mazda replaced the disc in the 2003 for nothing and according to that service bulletin they would do it on this car too, I’m still under the 12,000 mile warranty cap, but I missed the time limit by 21 years.