The Miata Club’s Bug Splat is coming up and this year we thought we might return to the loop where it all began. We used to start after a meal at a Zaxby’s in Evan, GA by heading north and crossing over the Strom Thurmond Dam into SC before turning south and returning to Georgia for ice cream at a Dairy Queen. It has beeen at east a dozen years since we’ve run that route, so yesterday evening we thought it might be a good idea to run the loop to make sure that suburban sprawl hadn’t obliterated those long stretches of uninhabited roads.
About halfway to Zaxby’s for dinner, after a right turn the Miata hiccuped. Several feet later it hiccuped again. Donna said, “Turn around and take me home.” I took the next right to prepare to make a u-turn and the car died. I coasted to a stop a the side of the road. Like homicide detectives, I don’t believe in coincidences, so I called the shop who just did the work on the car. We were about an hour past their Saturday closing time, but we were hoping someone was still there, maybe catching up on paperwork. No such luck, so I left a long disappointed sounding message about our situation.
Before making the second call for a tow truck, Donna said, “Try and start it back up.” I did and it did. We drove home slowly all the while waiting for the car to stop running again. It didn’t quit, but we did get two widely separated hiccups that causing some breath holding. It was a very hot afternoon, the hiccups and the engine dying, made me get a big whiff of déjà vu. A little more than two months ago, the CTBNL did the same thing on the way to lunch with the Club.
This time it didn’t trigger the Check Engine Light. When we got home I ran Torque Light app and it too showed no fault codes. Anyway for now, I did what I did last time, I put my backup Cam Angle Sensor back in the car. I’m not sure if I should buy a new one or what. Right now the plan is to take it back to the shop to have them look at it. Maybe their OBDII reader will show a code…
On the bright side, the Moto g7 phone is still working after more than a week.