Miata Washings

Membership Drive


Today was the Master’s Miata Club annual membership drive at Rader Mazda. Because it was a Miata show-off day I got out here early to wash off the car. Water can be down right cold when the outside temperature is at 48 degrees. This year, super salesman, Scott went the extra mile (besides setting up the tent, buying and cooking the food, icing the drinks, etc.) and wrote a nice letter to everyone who had bought a Miata through them in the last 18 months and invited them to come out. It worked pretty well. We got two new memberships, one possible, one not-so-long lost member rejoined and chatted with a couple of Miata owners who just dropped on in. They had invited the regional Miata rep to join us and that he did. Sloane Whitehead (a name right out of a soap opera or romance novel) came in from Columbia and brought along some goodies for giving away as door prizes. Rader also contributed some key chains and service coupons. They had enough stuff so that everyone attending came away with something. I was the lucky winner of a very strange looking clock, a free front end alignment and a hat. The hat is cream colored with a navy blue bill, all and all a nice little bit of millinery until you get to the bright purple Miata logo embroidered on it. Marty of V-8 Miata fame had hoped to get his now Kennie Bell supercharged V-8 Miata out to show us, but minor set back after minor set back kept him from a displaying it’s awesome power (to be used only for good.) He did roll it out, hoodless, for us to marvel at just how much engine can be stuffed into one of these little cars.

Silence so far from the German advertising firm from the other day.

New Shoes

Had the Toyo’s mounted this morning and what a difference. Smoother and grippier. Russ’s old Michelins were pretty hard as well as worn out. We are going to call this a mod for now, mainly because I forced the issue. Next time I replace the tires, in about 18 months, it will fall under service.

My wife will be happy to know that I’m almost finished modifying the car, there are just two things left to do. 1) Tint the windows. That’ll wait until next spring. And 2) the Mazda OEM small side sills. Those will have to wait until she figures I have suffered enough for this recent rash of purchases, probably sometime next summer…

The car got washed this morning. It really wasn’t dirty, as much as it was dusty, from sitting a couple days in a body shop’s garage while the spoiler was mounted and drying.

Wasted Another

Today was a perfect companion to yesterday weather-wise and the only time the Miata left the garage was when I backed it out into the driveway to wash it. The car wash soap I have don’t seem to work really well, it gets off the dirt OK, but anything else it seems to leave behind. After I dried the car off I used some Meguiars Quik-Detailer on the nose to get off a lot of dead insect residue. I also used it to clean some sort of road goo off the side sills. When I dried everything off I added a coat of wax to the nose, the side sills and the hood. Probably should have done whole car, but my light was fading fast.

Truth be told, yesterday the Miata did venture out. We went grocery shopping for the week in it around 9:00 PM. It might go out tonight around the same time as Donna has requested an ice cream run. I will have to try and dodge any bugs that come our way, so the car will stay clean though.

Comet Gestation Counter: 54 days

40th Anniversary Party

Washed the car this AM. Vacuumed the interior and in a fit of Felix Ungerism I washed the engine compartment. I used a procedure I read about in the Car Care Products section of the Miata Forum that involves Simple Green and Amorall Tire Foam. The first time I used this procedure was on the old 95 after 7 years and 100k miles. It only took me 14k to do it to this car.

The reason for the cleaning process was we were off to the Sno-Cap Drive-In’s 40th Anniversary shindig. The Miata Club, along with the Corvette Club filled the lot for the first 2 hours of the whole day and half the night affair. A couple of local news crews were there and both Donna and I, in different shots, made the evening news for mere seconds.

Comet Gestation Counter: 32 days

7500 Mile Service

Today was the 7500 mile check up on the Miata (done at 8010.) An oil change and a tire rotation basically. I had a couple of things I want them to address while we were in there too. The trunk was creaking when you opened and closed it, there were a couple of missing plastic fasteners on the splash guard on the right front wheel well and the driver’s side top latch was looser than the passenger’s side.

We have always been treated right personally by the folks there. We even got a loaner car to do some shopping when the service was taking longer than expected. I’m not so sure about the car. When we got back in the car to drive away there was this almost overpowering smell of solvent or cleaner. We opened the windows the first chance we got and that helped a lot. By the time we got home I kind of figured that it was lube for the trunk hinges. The car is in the garage with the trunk open now hoping the lube will be all dry and the smell gone by morning.

Past experience with tire changing at any place other than my driveway requires checking the lug nut torque. Sure enough, the lugs were replaced using an impact wrench with out any sort of torque limiter. I had to use a 2′ long breaker bar to loosen them up (and on a couple of them I feared for the longevity of the breaker bar.) Good thing I didn’t get a flat on the way home, I’d have never gotten the wheel off with the puny lug wrench in the trunk.

And because tomorrow is a Master’s Miata Club’s TSD Rally, I washed off the car to make it pretty.