Sonata Mileage

Car 54k Where Are You?

On the way to the Valve Store(tm), that is where. The Purple Whale needed just to travel 1 mile from our driveway to reach the 54,000 mile total and it happened this morning on the way to work.

I’ve been hanging on every word and photo of the next generation Miata. Our first 2 Miatas were 1st generation models. The first car we kept for 6 years and the second one stayed around for eight. The current car is a 2nd generation model and has been in the family for going on a dozen years. We thought we were going to get a 3rd generation model about 4 years ago, until we sat in and drove one. Neither of us liked the look, the bath tub like feeling and the fact that they stole passenger foot well room for routing of the exhaust. Plus, the couple of inches it did gain in all directions made it appear a lot larger than the previous versions of the car.

The 4th generation car is supposed to be smaller than the 3rd in a most areas and is actually shorter than the tiny first car, but you can’t tell it from the pictures below, it looks larger.


On the plus side I like the looks, except for those tail lights, and a leak of the Japanese market brochure shows that it will quite possibly be available in something called Dynamic Blue Mica. On the down side, I can’t imagine the “bath tub” feel has improved any from looking at the door height in those photos and I’ve read that the seat has been lowered in the car for more head room and improved balance. We will definitely go sit in and drive a 4th generation model later this year when they become available and even though right now I think I want one, odds are the reign of the Emperor will continue…

53,000 Things It Could Be

Yesterday we filled up the Miata with gas. I came home and checked all the other owner serviceable fluid levels, they were all nominal. I washed the windows inside and out. We are headed down to Florida for the Celebration of Life for Sandy. The Miata was our transport of choice so we could score some more Motoring Challenge points.

One of the categories this year is Moss Motors Distributors. One point each for the first three and two points for numbers 4 & 5. There happens to be two of the distributors on the same street in Stuart which is the next town over from where we are going to be. Plus we had in mind a certain place just off I-75 in Micanopy, Florida for our Adult Playground Destination – Cafe Risqué!

After a few minutes creatively loading the trunk of the Emperor with probably more stuff than we really needed for a 4 day trip, I backed out of the garage and headed down the road. Three houses away I noticed a pretty orange symbol mid-dash that was unfamiliar…
check-engine-light_8D0206E867F895F0

Pulled over, shut the car off, then started it back up. The check engine light stayed on, so we u-turned back home. Unloaded everything from the trunk and cockpit, tossed it all in the respective places in the Sonata. Then added some more stuff, because we could, and got back on the road. Total lost time 5 minutes.

The light could mean any of 53,000 things could be wrong, from major to minor, but no sense taking any chances. I’ll get the code read at the corner auto parts store when we get back to see what it says. I have been watching all chatter about the new Miata over on the Miata Forum with a gleam in my eye recently, much the chagrin of the family CFO, and she even went so far as to suggest that this light might a subtle ploy towards getting one. She told me to forget about it, even if we need a whole engine, we’ll be getting that before we take up car payments again.

About 5 miles north of Statesboro, GA the Purple Whale passed through the 53,000 mile mark.

52,0000 Snowflakes

Somewhere just south of Spartanburg, with Donna at the wheel, the Purple Whale swam past the 52,000 mile mark.

We are up in Hendersonville today at the SMH to have turkey dinner with my sister, her husband and my brother Paul who is down from Connecticut. As we drove the last couple miles up to the house and for a while after arrival it was snowing lightly, well not really snowing, not even flurrying, more like about 52,000 randomly spaced snowflakes drifting down over the space of an hour.

Like we did a couple of years ago, we had a pot luck Thanksgiving meal at the Clubhouse of Diane & Allen’s gated community. There are about 100 folks eating in one big ol’ room, in the middle of which are 8 folding tables arranged in a cross that are piled high with food. This arrangement segments the room into four quadrants of three or four tables each. For the first pass at the food we are instructed to only select from our L-shaped serving area and to go in a predetermined direction. To eliminate any long lines the social director calls out table numbers one at a time for each quadrant.

Some people, move way too slow, fill their plates from the wrong direction and/or reach across over to the other tables, but it mostly works OK. It sure is a darn sight better than letting everyone loose at the same time and to go wherever they think the best looking food items are.

51,000 Transponders

Friday, a dozen or so miles north of Yeehaw Junction on the Florida Turnpike, the Purple Whale rolled through its fifty first thousandth mile.

For the first time, in the dozens of times we’ve used the Florida Turnpike to travel to or from Palm City, we didn’t have to stop at a toll booth. We motored right on through, only slowing a bit. After listening to BIL Paul tell us of all the advantages of using SunPass for so long we finally decided to take the plunge.

There are two kinds of SunPass devices, a sticker for you window for $5 or a transponder for $20. We went with the more expensive kind for two reasons, the transponder has suction cups and can be transferred to different vehicles (and we have two) and Paul said that it would come with your twenty bucks back loaded on the device. Well, at least we got that portability thing. Maybe brother-in-law bought his transponder real early in the process or during a special promotion to get the $20 back on the unit at purchase time, we did not.

We did see, in our two trips using it, the other benefit he mentioned, saving a percentage off the cash toll price. On our trip home the toll using the SunPass was $11.04 instead of the usual $13.50. Plus we had saved another three bucks on a round trip to Miami. This means we are over a quarter of the way towards “saving” money using SunPass.

50,000 Trick or Treaters

Because all the kids in our neighborhood are grown and gone, the growing popularity of church, city and business sponsored high density candy giveaways, to serve 50,000 trick or treaters at our house it will take approximately 10,000 years.

Skull Head Mask Update: I did get the screening in and it did serve its purpose, but then I couldn’t drink my morning DD coffee with it on. Also, the mask didn’t fit over my regular glasses, so I couldn’t do any work with it on either. Although I really like the look of the Wintercroft masks, I’ll probably work on an actual costume for next year instead. I might just buy the pumpkin one, not to wear, but for entry in the company’s carving contest.

Just inside the town limits of Barnwell, SC the Purple Whale crossed the 50,000 mile mark.

49,000 Orange Skinny Plastic Posts

Not My Photo

Not My Photo

That is all that separates us plebeian I-95 drivers from those that are willing to pay extra to travel in the Express Lanes in the center of Miami. The lanes run for about 10 miles from central Miami to Exit 12, Miami Gardens Drive. What they have done is take two existing lanes and segregate them from the other 4 or 5 with plastic poles and charge your SunPass device 75¢ to $1.50 for the privilege of riding in these special lanes. Trouble is that during busy times, and I saw a couple of them last week, these “express” lanes are no better than the regular lanes.

About the time I was watching a car squeeze through two of these poles to go from the Express Lanes to the regular ones during Friday evening rush hour, the Purple Whale was passing through the 49,000 mile mark on his odometer.

48,000 Valves

I don’t know who the heck is buying all these solenoid valves but we ship out a crap load every day. The PIC (Production & Inventory Control) Manager sends me a PowerPoint presentation chart to print out at 18 x 24 on my plotter that shows Daily Goal, Daily Ship, Monthly Goal and Monthly Ship dollars. The daily goal number for September was 480k.

If each valve was $10 the would mean 48,000 valves went out our back door every work day, but I’m betting it is a lot fewer than that though. If you work in the process industry you’d know that an ASCO valve is premium product, sort of the Mercedes Benz of solenoid valves, so I think that $10 price is at the very bottom of our price chart.

As I backed into the parking spot in the North 40 of the Valve Store(TM) parking lot (our usual place) on Friday, I noticed that the odometer of the Purple Whale read 48000.