As a great man once said, "Some of you I know, some of you I am meeting for the first time." As the username implies, I am inked, I inspect shit, my name is Travis. I have spent entirely too much of my life on Mazdaspeed forums and doing Nator shit. You're now caught up. Why am I posting this thread? Because as the title states, I caught the gays and bought a Miata. Specifically I bought a 2018 Club with the Recaro/BBS/Brembo package. But wait, you are saying to yourself, this is a mazdaspeed forum and that is not a boosted Miata. My response, have you seen the bull shit-ass forums that are out there for Mazdas? I cannot keep up the church boy act for more than about 5 fucking minutes, and they don't look kindly on that shit. Plans? Well to be honest with you, not much for now. A little down the road, maybe more. Depends on what I do with the speed (torn between offloading it or refreshing it, it's a tired bitch with 115k hard ass miles). To start I am having paint protection film installed next week, hardcore right? Apparently the paint on this thing is as close to quality as Bruce Jenner is to being an attractive woman. I just bought it, it's new, I want it to look half decent, so film it is. Tossed some weathertechs in arleady...getting spicy I know, and I may get wild and have a wooden shift knob made. Jokes aside, I have never driven a RWD car even remotely aggressively. I see no reason to tinker with this thing until I can half ass drive it as it sits. I am going to auto X it a few times this season, and once I get comfortable with it, who knows where I'll go with it.
Sup boi. For the Miata you might get a full paint correction / ceramic coat done before you do paint protection film. 100% worth it.
It goes in Monday for paint correction, both the installer and detailer did not recommend ceramic prior to the Xpel install, they said the film does not bond well to it, some people choose to do it after the fact. The detail guy actually did not recommend ceramic at all, but I've heard arguments for and against it. How you been my fellow beard aficionado?
Ahh I didn't think about the ceramic screwing up the adhesive. I'm good. Doing hoodrat stuff with my hoodrat frands.
I got the paint correction done this morning, car looks great. Dropping it off for film install tomorrow.
Ordered a weighted wooden shift knob from a gent on the Miata forums, went with the OEM shape, which is actually a 911 knob. The wood is called charcoal spectra ply, it's stained layers of plywood. I went with no shift pattern, aluminum trim. Welcome to old man mod life. This is the color. This is the shape. Dropped if off for X-pel film yesterday. Only downside of that paint correction was it made my three rock chips so fucking obvious where I didn't even see the damn things before. Detail guy thinks it'll just make them more obvious if I try to fix them, he's convinced the film will hide them by smoothing out the ridges. We'll see. Parked in front of Digital EfX here in Louisville. I get it back Friday.
Xpel is installed, it looks great except for one spot, the guy said give it a week to see if it dries and settles but if not they'll rip that panel off and reinstall. Overall View This is the edge of the film The bubble Shift knob is turned, it just needs sanding and clear coat, should ship Monday.
Bought a few things and washed the car for the first time, always fun, except you see just how quickly it has picked up micro swirls. Oh well, it’s a car, shit happens.
Modern day paint gets micro swirls if you look at it for too long. Dont worry about it, just wax it well and be happy.