The driveway slopes down as it nears the end towards the door, rises up to the door and then drops again into the garage, forming a low wide pyramid. When we brought home the first stock Miata back in 1989, the car bottomed out with a quick thunk on the frame rail with both of us in the car. A coworker at the time helped me solve the issue by filling in most of the area in between the external down then up portion.
The Emperor was lowered slightly and with this fix in place it would only bump if I didn’t slow down a notch before entering. The CTBNL is just slightly lower than the Emperor and as a consequence of that I need to take more care entering the garage at all times. With just the driver it is not too bad. Add a trunk full of groceries and you really have to creep in slowly. Add a passenger and the car hits bottom every time on the high point where the garage door closes on right under my butt.
Donna has taken to not getting into the Miata before we leave and getting out before I drive in. This is fine in a way though, as long as it is not raining, because it makes it easier to get in or out. When I park the Miata in the garage I have to pull to left and just clear the tandem up against the wall on my side and there are cabinets on her side that leave barely 18 inches to open the door and then squeeze in (with the top up and holding a purse and travel mug this is a giant feat of gymnastics.)
At first I though my easy solution would be to extend the interior slope of my wide pyramid about a foot or maybe two with a few bags of Quikrete like we did in 1989. But the other day I had both of us ride into the garage just until we hit bottom. We squeezed out of the car because the doors lined up with the garage door. I then measured the length from the bottom of the pyramid to to the front tire and it came to about 5-1/2 feet. Wow. I’d have to raise the floor up, for at least a half inch about 6 feet into the garage. So much for a couple bags of Quikrete.
My next though was to get some of those 12″ x 12″ plastic tiles and lay them down. Because of the cabinets on one side and the inside of my personal speed bump 10′ x 16′ would cover the floor nicely. I think because the car is not hitting very hard the half inch thick tiles might just do the trick, I’d still have to slow down some, but both of us could ride inside. Total cost would be $420 to 430 depending on tile color selection. The black ones are cheaper. The new garage door has no windows so it is dark enough in there already color in the floor would be almost necessary. For grins I went to one of the sites design tools to see what it might look like. What do you think? Classic Checkerboard or Stripes?
