I'm off topic again, but we are gathered here today to celebrate the 1 year-ish anniversary of my ownership of the Craigslist Miata, which you may or may have not heard about at some point because I apparently never shut up about it. Sorry bout it. Today I am going to review my last year of ownership and all the interesting events that came with it. Oh, fun fact, this one is gonna be a little long so bear with me.
Why don't we start at the beginning? It's like mid-July and after just barely missing out on buying an old British convertible, my friend found the Miata on Craigslist in Missouri, or Kansas, honestly I cant really remember but all I know is that it was like a 3-ish hour drive away from Omaha. I decided to take a trip down there with him and found myself coming back at 1 in the morning with a white convertible and the biggest smile on my face.
The next day I come outside, get in, and scream through the streets of Omaha at 45mph because thats the speed limit and I never break that (Hello cops), but also because the Miata isn't very fast and has about the same amount of horsepower as my blender. In other words it's a bit slow.
I believe the next issue came about a few days later when I found oil where there most definitely shouldn't be oil and I had a heart attack because I thought the car was done for and my 1 week love affair was already over. Luckily it was nothing major and through the use of a McDonalds straw and a brake bleeder the oil was contained. But there was no way I was getting off that easy, because it kept going until it sheared a bolt that attached the alternator to the car. If you don't know what an alternator is just imagine something extremely important that a car cant really live without. My car tried to rid itself of that. Maybe it hates me or something.
Flash-forward to some month later in the year and I'm working at your friendly neighborhood Family Video until about 12:15am. It had apparently been snowing while I was at work and I'll let in you in on a little secret here readers, a light, rear-wheel drive car is not going to do well in the snow. So I'm driving along and guess what? I figure out that my car is hiding a secret from me. It doesn't have anti-lock brakes. So there I was, sliding through an intersection at 12:20am in a snow covered convertible in probably mid-October. Go me, and go Miata.
S/O to my grandfather for letting me store the Miata in his garage for the winter. Also, S/O to his garage floor for taking the brunt of a small oil leak for a few months. You the real MVP.
During those winter months I decided to tackle the issue of the car's exhaust, so I bought a new one off of Ebay and that was pretty much that for awhile. Winter came and went as did my dreams of a successful car blog. Moving on!
SPRING BREAK 2014 - A toddler gave me a stomach virus that laid me up for 2 days and the exhaust I bought off of Ebay was A) massive and B) did not fit correctly so I had to take it to a muffler shop to have them weld on an extra inch of metal. Thankfully it now fits and looks and sounds ridiculous. Go me. Oh! I almost forgot! My brake caliper had seized up earlier but by spring break you could clearly tell that there was some metal grinding going on back there. So I basically deafened everyone when I was on the throttle and made everyone cringe when I braked. I didn't have enough time to tackle that during break so I decided to wait until summer.
Summer break, that magical time of year when seventh graders go to the pool and you can just feel the puberty-filled tension in the air. I, however, spent about zero time at the pool before I left the country because apparently my life is never easy and I had to replace a brake caliper. After buying/ordering two/three different calipers, my friend Devin (who probably deserves a full name S/O at this point for all his help) and I finally made a franken-caliper out of two of them and it works and to this day I'm still astounded by that fact.
Time for another S/O to the people I spent most of my summer with in Spain! Spain was amazing and so were the people I met, and I urge anyone who has the opportunity to study abroad because you will not regret it. Now, I was unable to drive the Miata most of the summer because I was studying abroad, but as soon as I was home, I busted it out again to tear through the streets of Omaha at an extremely reasonable and legal speed (Hello again Mr. Cop). I have taken a few road trips in the car since I've been home and those are stories for another day, but suffice it to say it was very stressful and did not go as smoothly as I had planned, but the point is that it made it.
Done! Here we are, a year later and probably around 3000ish miles and the little white POS that could is still running. It's had some issues along the way and there have been a few times where I cursed its name and prayed that god would smite it along with the man from Missouri/Kansas that sold it to me. Overall however, it's been one hell of an adventure.
Instead of leaving you guys with a lesson, today I'd like to finish this post by thanking anyone and everyone who has had anything to do with the Miata in the last year. Whether you've helped put it back together, seen it fall apart, ridden in it or even just heard me rant about it for hours on end, I'd like to think that you've all been a part of this adventure with me. So thanks again, and here's to another successful year!
Flash-forward to some month later in the year and I'm working at your friendly neighborhood Family Video until about 12:15am. It had apparently been snowing while I was at work and I'll let in you in on a little secret here readers, a light, rear-wheel drive car is not going to do well in the snow. So I'm driving along and guess what? I figure out that my car is hiding a secret from me. It doesn't have anti-lock brakes. So there I was, sliding through an intersection at 12:20am in a snow covered convertible in probably mid-October. Go me, and go Miata.
S/O to my grandfather for letting me store the Miata in his garage for the winter. Also, S/O to his garage floor for taking the brunt of a small oil leak for a few months. You the real MVP.
During those winter months I decided to tackle the issue of the car's exhaust, so I bought a new one off of Ebay and that was pretty much that for awhile. Winter came and went as did my dreams of a successful car blog. Moving on!
SPRING BREAK 2014 - A toddler gave me a stomach virus that laid me up for 2 days and the exhaust I bought off of Ebay was A) massive and B) did not fit correctly so I had to take it to a muffler shop to have them weld on an extra inch of metal. Thankfully it now fits and looks and sounds ridiculous. Go me. Oh! I almost forgot! My brake caliper had seized up earlier but by spring break you could clearly tell that there was some metal grinding going on back there. So I basically deafened everyone when I was on the throttle and made everyone cringe when I braked. I didn't have enough time to tackle that during break so I decided to wait until summer.
Summer break, that magical time of year when seventh graders go to the pool and you can just feel the puberty-filled tension in the air. I, however, spent about zero time at the pool before I left the country because apparently my life is never easy and I had to replace a brake caliper. After buying/ordering two/three different calipers, my friend Devin (who probably deserves a full name S/O at this point for all his help) and I finally made a franken-caliper out of two of them and it works and to this day I'm still astounded by that fact.
Time for another S/O to the people I spent most of my summer with in Spain! Spain was amazing and so were the people I met, and I urge anyone who has the opportunity to study abroad because you will not regret it. Now, I was unable to drive the Miata most of the summer because I was studying abroad, but as soon as I was home, I busted it out again to tear through the streets of Omaha at an extremely reasonable and legal speed (Hello again Mr. Cop). I have taken a few road trips in the car since I've been home and those are stories for another day, but suffice it to say it was very stressful and did not go as smoothly as I had planned, but the point is that it made it.
Done! Here we are, a year later and probably around 3000ish miles and the little white POS that could is still running. It's had some issues along the way and there have been a few times where I cursed its name and prayed that god would smite it along with the man from Missouri/Kansas that sold it to me. Overall however, it's been one hell of an adventure.
Instead of leaving you guys with a lesson, today I'd like to finish this post by thanking anyone and everyone who has had anything to do with the Miata in the last year. Whether you've helped put it back together, seen it fall apart, ridden in it or even just heard me rant about it for hours on end, I'd like to think that you've all been a part of this adventure with me. So thanks again, and here's to another successful year!
