Miatatude

Gonna Need A Bigger Garage

We have been virtual wishful car shopping recently, maybe it is because we are under a year in the countdown to a New Miata or maybe it is talk of taking this year’s trip out west in a car instead of a plane or maybe it is because automakers are offering great deals at this time of year (Mazda is offering $4500 off left over 2009 Miatas), but I have been hitting the web and having fun.

If you had told me 4-1/2 years ago that I might be driving anything other than a Miata I would have told you you were crazy. But now I’m not so sure. It all harkens back to our first ride in the current generation Miata back in October of 2005, we were underwhelmed, so the seed of doubt has been planted. The Miata is still at the head of the list, but there are a couple of other contenders on our radar, cars that are in our cost comfort level, around $25k and are convertibles and are available in blue. From worst to first they are:

  1. Sebring. This only makes the list in that it fits all three criteria, but its faults are many, chief among them is that it is as ugly as sin.
  2. Mini. High fun to drive factor, but we were underwhelmed when we drove one back in 2003 and the convertible version takes a big hit in the looks department, both up and down, over the closed car.
  3. VW Beetle. Donna has always liked the looks of these, I have to admit that I do too. Downsides include no manual transmission and cockpit wind with that big an opening.
  4. Mustang. The base V-6 falls in our price range, but the blue is kinda odd and it is 7″ wider and over 2 feet longer than a Miata, contributing to the title of this post.
  5. Miata. Needs another test drive and to take advantage of the the current deal we would have to accept a color that sucks.

Now let’s go a little further out there, what if we don’t get a convertible at all. Wild huh? Suppose we consider a little larger “sporty” car instead of a convertible. The car would have to be in the same price range and it would have be a coupe (I may be getting older, but I’m not ready for a 4-door Buick just yet.) From worst to first they are:

  1. Accord. We were Honda folks (2 Accords, 2 Civics and a Prelude) before the Miata revolution, but my how this car has grown. It weighs as much as a Mustang and is a foot longer than one too!
  2. Gensis. The front look leaves me cold and there is that still lingering Hyundai crap car association.
  3. Altima. Really like the looks of this and the blue is a terrificly bright shade, but I know nothing else about it.
  4. Mustang. With the convertible we were stuck with the V-6, but a coupe means we can squeak a GT with a V-8 in under our spending cap.
  5. Mini. It has lots of techno gizmos to go wrong and doesn’t have the best reliability record, but it is fun to drive, good looking and will fit in the garage.

A wild card in the coupe class would be a Miata with the detachable hardtop, leave it on nearly all the time and just pop it off for nice weekends.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519

Didn’t Help

Can you find the Miata in this picture?
school bus

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 474

Cabin Air Filter

The Miata cockpit can be a very warm place for various reasons. It is not helped that the outside air vented into the cockpit is heated 15-20 degrees above the ambient outside air.

With Out FilterSeveral years back I decided to try and cool this air down. I used nearly every trick that I could unearth on the Miata Forums, ensure the heater flap closed fully, close holes in hood with tape, stuff a piece of insulation in the seal between cowl and engine compartment and tape over holes in firewall leading to the windshield cowl area, yet I remained defeated. On my own I thought maybe if I removed the big plastic piece over the inlet for the cabin air I might get some outside air directly in the system. This exposed a big opening directly to the vent system’s squirrel fan covered only with a wide mesh appropriately sized to keep out overweight house cats.

With New FilterHaving had to clean small leaves and pieces of pine straw out of that fan from inside the car a few times in my Miata owning career (major milestone approaching) I thought it would be a good idea to cover that up. The only thing I had handy was a spare 20×20 house HVAC filter. So I cut out a piece of the fiberglass mesh roughly the size of the opening, edged it in some maroon duct tape I had left over from covering the holes in the hood and taped it over the opening.

Old FilterI change the “cabin air filter” out each time I change the oil which is about every 3 months. Do I breath cleaner air because of this filter, I doubt it, what with all the time I spend with the top down, but it must be doing something judging by how dirty it looks when I swap it out. If you look in the clean filter picture above you can see a bunch of debris to the right of the filter, I don’t think this would have made it into the fan without the filter because of the 2″ vertical wall of the opening (probably designed that way to keep out water), but stuff has made it in there before, probably due some sort of perfect storm scenario, and since I have been using this filter method nothing has made in there yet.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 467

Tips From The Web

The Art of Being A Miata Passenger
Donna always gets this one right, but sometimes the driver just doesn’t listen – …you must be sure to remind the driver to get gas, and have money on hand in case you want to buy something in one of those small towns that don’t have ATM’s or take credit cards.

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do
My favorite – #18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, ?Who?s having the shrimp??

50 Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen
Chalk? Really? – #14. To banish ants from the kitchen, find out where they are coming in and cover the hole with petroleum jelly. Ants won?t trek through the jelly. If they are coming under a door, draw a line on the floor with chalk. The little bugs also won?t cross a line of chalk.

Helpful Hints for Life
No time for a bath? Wrap yourself in masking tape and remove the dirt by simply peeling it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 466

Head To Toe

Yesterday the Emperor had dental surgery. It was November 1st, so the Vampire Teeth came off and went into their plastic bag for the next 11 months.

After nearly 23 months and 27,000 miles the Emperor’s shoes are getting worn out. They are not to the wear bars just yet (close) and are starting to get hard, so yesterday I ordered up some new foot wear. General Exclaim UHPs in 205/50 x 15.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 464

98,000 Pieces of Coal

Loading CoalSaturday the MMC took a trip to Winnsboro to visit the South Carolina Railroad Museum. This weekend there was a visiting steam engine to give that old time feel (and smell) to your train ride. We combined the Club’s monthly breakfast with the train event, plus following the hour long train ride we drove to a nearby town for lunch making for almost a full day Miataness.

After lunch Donna and I went our separate ways from the group because we had an alternative agenda, that’s right, geocaching. Before leaving we made tentative dinner plans with another MMC couple to meet in Lexington at the Uno Chicago Grill at 5:30 to complete the Trifecta (all 3 meals out.)

Got all caught up chasing camo’d containers in the north central part of the state and ended up not being able to make it back to Lexington in time for pizza with Rudy & Patti. We were disappointed on two levels. With the dreary day and approaching of dusk we opted for the more direct way home from where we were and resigned ourselves to eat in Newberry at whatever place we could find. Luck was on our side though, willing to dine in a Hardee’s or a Subway, we stumbled on The Flying Pie on Main St and had a wonderful pizza about half way between the thin crust of West One in Hendersonville and the thick Chicago style pie in Lexington.

Saturday by the numbers:
299 – Miles driven on the day
98,000 – Total miles now on the Emperor
1 – Tank of gas used
5 – O’clock wake up call
14 – Hours from leaving home until returning
58° – High for the day, 20 below normal
9 – Cars in a line (7 Miatas, 1 Boxster and a Jeep)
11 – Mile train ride (5-1/2 under steam power)
100 – Pounds of coal burned by the train per mile traveled
8 – Caches found
3 – SC County Challenge caches and
2 – DeLorme Challenge pages finished

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 437

Squish

When I got into the car today after work I noticed that when I stepped on the floor mat it went squish. It was soaking wet.

Admittedly it has rained like crazy the last few days, but there was no way I could track in that much water. In the Miata world there are two main reasons why there would be a lot of water on the floor, not counting leaving the top down in the rain, a plugged drain in the door molding and a plugged A/C drain line.

The water was only on the driver’s side of the car which eliminates the A/C drain line because that soaks the passenger foot well. Must be the hollow in the door molding. I poked the long thin brush I have for cleaning Camelback hoses down there and it wasn’t plugged at all. A mystery.

I dried out the area as best I could and we’ll see if the water reappears.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 433