The Oils They are a Changin

The Miata, the Infiniti, and my Dad's Honda and Mom's Toyota (not pictured) had their oils changed in my garage. It took all of fifteen minutes for all four cars and cost very little compared to doing it a dealer or quick lube type place. Plus who wants some fifteen year old making eight bucks an hour changing your oil. Because there's no labour cost involved I was able to spend a bit more on a better type of oil: Mobil 1 Synthetic. I believe this is the choice of oil for Porsche, Mercedes and BMW so it should be good enough for the Miata. After the change was done I used the Infiniti to jump the Miata and after four months, it started right up and ran fine. That's good.

My dad did all the changes and he's a pro mechanic. It was also the first time he'd had a good look at the Miata. Of course he found some things.

1. The battery is toast
2. There's a very small oil leak from somewhere (probably transmission) that has to be investigated
3. The main accessory belt is loose and glazed and has to be tightened and eventually replaced
4. The crankshaft pulley is vibrating weirdly (if this is a problem, it's so big I'm choosing to ignore it completely; I'm going ostrich on it if you will)
5. Brakes: the front pads are kinda worn and the back is a mysterious mess; The pad on one side isn't worn at all and the pad on the other side is completely worn. This could indicate seized caliper($). I remember in some earlier post I complained about the brakes well...



There is nothing more indignant for a car than to be parked on jacks in someone's garage or worse on someone's drive way or worse worse on someone's lawn. It's one step away from being one of those abandoned project cars that can't move under it's own power and rots away into oblivion. That won't happen to the Miata. It has to stay this way for now until it's properly inspected and diagnosed, which should be today. I did some long days of extra work last week to get the cash to cure these ills.

My own inspection of the brakes found this pupae lodged in the caliper. Did Buffalo Bill work on this car? I wonder. Nearby in an oil stain that emanated from the Miata I found this dead moth. I think this might be some kind of beautiful metaphor about birth, death, transformation and the automobile. It could be the universe reaching out and talking to me but it could be just a dead moth.