Back from the bodyshop - now for wheels and tires....

Well, I picked up my '97 M-edition Miata from the bodyshop yesterday.
They replaced the left rear quarter panel, the driver's door, the
front left fender, repaired the driver's side rocker panel, and
repainted, restriped, and reassembled the car. Close inspection
reveals no overspray, no tape lines, no orange peel, no evidence of
body filler, excellent color match; basically the professional
workmanship I was hoping for. I do have an appointment to take the
car back to have them look at the driver's door stereo speaker, which
now sounds as though it is blown. I believe it's the original oem
speaker, so it might have been pretty fragile, and taking it out of
the old door and installing it in the replacement door, it could have
easily been damaged in the process.

The accident was on June 11, so I missed most of the summer driving
the car, and I had only had it for about three weeks (!) before the
accident. Anyway, a couple of days ago a cold front passed through
the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S., and a high pressure has set in here
in northern Virginia, and the weather is simply gorgeous. No other
way to describe it; low humidity, bright sunshine, overnight lows in
the low 50's and daytime highs in the mid to high 70's and for the
next couple of day, low 80's. I drove the Miata to work this morning
feeling almost giddy, it was *that* nice.

At any rate, I am now looking to replace the 8+ year-old Pirelli P3000
tires on the car with something newer and less age hardened. (Not
that I hold the old tires responsible for the accident, but they
certainly didn't help to prevent it, either.) Also, the oem chrome
M-edition wheels are the worst cosmetic feature of the car, discolored
from brake dust, chrome thinning and peeling and bubbling. Plus, the
previous owner had two of the wheels straightened after bending them
on potholes, so I am going to relegate them to winter duty with pure
winter tires on them.

I'm looking at the Konig Gold Feather wheel at just about 12 pounds
and about $110 each after adding centering rings and new lugnuts and
locks and shipping, which seems like a good price. I'm not usually
much for gold colored rims, but this Miata is the dark green color,
with a gold pinstripe the length of the body, so the "dusty" gold
color of the Konig wheel just looks like it will be a nice match, and
still be pretty understated. I'm sticking with the M-edition's
original 15-inch wheel size. I looked at the Enkei Racing RPF1 at
just under 10 pounds, but I'm not sure paying twice as much ($200 per
wheel) is worth it to save 2 pounds at each corner; plus the Enkeis
are silver and won't match the look of the car as well, at least not
to me.

For tires, I'm looking at the General Exclaim UHP. an ultra high
performance summer ionly tire that is, interestingly enough, rated
superior in the rain along with extremely high resistance to
hydroplaning. It is light (16 pounds in 195/50-15 size) and
inexpensive ($59 through Tire Rack) and seems to have outperformed the
more popular and less expensive Kumho Ecsta AST. I currently have
about 15,000 miles on a set of General UHP light truck tires on my
2006 Chevy Silverado 1/2 ton pick-up, and they have been great tires,
not just great tires for the price. So I'm inclined to give the
General Exclaim a shot.

Feedback, comments, thoughts to the contrary?

Tim

Replace both door speakers.

"Tim M." > wrote in message
...
> Well, I picked up my '97 M-edition Miata from the bodyshop yesterday.
> They replaced the left rear quarter panel, the driver's door, the
> front left fender, repaired the driver's side rocker panel, and
> repainted, restriped, and reassembled the car. Close inspection
> reveals no overspray, no tape lines, no orange peel, no evidence of
> body filler, excellent color match; basically the professional
> workmanship I was hoping for. I do have an appointment to take the
> car back to have them look at the driver's door stereo speaker, which
> now sounds as though it is blown. I believe it's the original oem
> speaker, so it might have been pretty fragile, and taking it out of
> the old door and installing it in the replacement door, it could have
> easily been damaged in the process.
>
> The accident was on June 11, so I missed most of the summer driving
> the car, and I had only had it for about three weeks (!) before the
> accident. Anyway, a couple of days ago a cold front passed through
> the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S., and a high pressure has set in here
> in northern Virginia, and the weather is simply gorgeous. No other
> way to describe it; low humidity, bright sunshine, overnight lows in
> the low 50's and daytime highs in the mid to high 70's and for the
> next couple of day, low 80's. I drove the Miata to work this morning
> feeling almost giddy, it was *that* nice.
>
> At any rate, I am now looking to replace the 8+ year-old Pirelli P3000
> tires on the car with something newer and less age hardened. (Not
> that I hold the old tires responsible for the accident, but they
> certainly didn't help to prevent it, either.) Also, the oem chrome
> M-edition wheels are the worst cosmetic feature of the car, discolored
> from brake dust, chrome thinning and peeling and bubbling. Plus, the
> previous owner had two of the wheels straightened after bending them
> on potholes, so I am going to relegate them to winter duty with pure
> winter tires on them.
>
> I'm looking at the Konig Gold Feather wheel at just about 12 pounds
> and about $110 each after adding centering rings and new lugnuts and
> locks and shipping, which seems like a good price. I'm not usually
> much for gold colored rims, but this Miata is the dark green color,
> with a gold pinstripe the length of the body, so the "dusty" gold
> color of the Konig wheel just looks like it will be a nice match, and
> still be pretty understated. I'm sticking with the M-edition's
> original 15-inch wheel size. I looked at the Enkei Racing RPF1 at
> just under 10 pounds, but I'm not sure paying twice as much ($200 per
> wheel) is worth it to save 2 pounds at each corner; plus the Enkeis
> are silver and won't match the look of the car as well, at least not
> to me.
>
> For tires, I'm looking at the General Exclaim UHP. an ultra high
> performance summer ionly tire that is, interestingly enough, rated
> superior in the rain along with extremely high resistance to
> hydroplaning. It is light (16 pounds in 195/50-15 size) and
> inexpensive ($59 through Tire Rack) and seems to have outperformed the
> more popular and less expensive Kumho Ecsta AST. I currently have
> about 15,000 miles on a set of General UHP light truck tires on my
> 2006 Chevy Silverado 1/2 ton pick-up, and they have been great tires,
> not just great tires for the price. So I'm inclined to give the
> General Exclaim a shot.
>
> Feedback, comments, thoughts to the contrary?
>
> Tim

On Sep 2, 1:30*pm, "Chuck" > wrote:

> Replace both door speakers.

I suspect [hope] that the bodyshop is going to agree to replace one;
I'll have to replace the passenger door speaker on my own dime.

On Sep 2, 2:19*pm, "Tim M." > wrote:
> I suspect [hope] that the bodyshop is going to agree to replace one;
> I'll have to replace the passenger door speaker on my own dime.

Better to replace both speakers with higher quality, matched speakers.
OEM speakers are pretty much bottom of the food chain.

On Sep 2, 5:43*pm, Rubaiyat of Omar Bradley >
wrote:
> On Sep 2, 2:19*pm, "Tim M." > wrote:
>
> > I suspect [hope] that the bodyshop is going to agree to replace one;
> > I'll have to replace the passenger door speaker on my own dime.
>
> Better to replace both speakers with higher quality, matched speakers.
> OEM speakers are pretty much bottom of the food chain.

I agree.

In this case, the matter is complicated by the fact that the bodyshop
is not going to want to lay out any more money than they have to. If
I can convince them that I need to replace the other speaker anyway,
they may be willing to just give me a refund in the amount of what
they would have to spend for the one speaker that they are responsible
for. Then I could take that money and supplement it with my own, and
get a set of Boston Acoustics speakers or something else that will
sound good.

All this is moot until I talk to them, anyway.

Asuming a non Boise factory system, the replacement speakers shoud be
inexpensive, unless you get fancy.
The labor to replace the single speaker is usually more than the cost of a
pair of decent speakers.

"Tim M." > wrote in message
...
On Sep 2, 5:43 pm, Rubaiyat of Omar Bradley >
wrote:
> On Sep 2, 2:19 pm, "Tim M." > wrote:
>
> > I suspect [hope] that the bodyshop is going to agree to replace one;
> > I'll have to replace the passenger door speaker on my own dime.
>
> Better to replace both speakers with higher quality, matched speakers.
> OEM speakers are pretty much bottom of the food chain.

I agree.

In this case, the matter is complicated by the fact that the bodyshop
is not going to want to lay out any more money than they have to. If
I can convince them that I need to replace the other speaker anyway,
they may be willing to just give me a refund in the amount of what
they would have to spend for the one speaker that they are responsible
for. Then I could take that money and supplement it with my own, and
get a set of Boston Acoustics speakers or something else that will
sound good.

All this is moot until I talk to them, anyway.

Don't take this wrong but, don't be a cheap ass. You had a great body shop
experience and an old ****ty worn out speaker bit the dust. It's not their
fault and you shouldn't even bother them with it. If they are so kind as to
mess with it, why don't you be so kind as to buy the new speakers and let
them install them.

Glad you had the good work done and the car / color / wheel combo sounds
great. Show us pics when you complete it please.

I've heard great things about those tires but not from people I know first
hand. Car and Driver just had a comparo where (for some reason, I can't
remember, they weren't able to include the UHP's. I was disappointed, C&D
does great comparos on tires.

cd
99BBB

"Tim M." > wrote in message
...
On Sep 2, 1:30 pm, "Chuck" > wrote:

> Replace both door speakers.

I suspect [hope] that the bodyshop is going to agree to replace one;
I'll have to replace the passenger door speaker on my own dime.

On Sep 4, 11:26*pm, "Chris D'Agnolo" > wrote:
> Don't take this wrong but, don't be a cheap ass. You had a great body shop
> experience and an old ****ty worn out speaker bit the dust. It's not their
> fault and you shouldn't even bother them with it. If they are so kind as to
> mess with it, why don't you be so kind as to buy the new speakers and let
> them install them.
>
> Glad you had the good work done and the car / color / wheel combo sounds
> great. Show us pics when you complete it please.
>
> I've heard great things about those tires but not from people I know first
> hand. Car and Driver just had a comparo where (for some reason, I can't
> remember, they weren't able to include the UHP's. I was disappointed, C&D
> does great comparos on tires.

Thanks, Chris. I won't cheap out, but I do have to watch my budget.
I already am out of pocket $2k over what the insurance company paid
out on the repairs to the car (trying to get them to pay up) and this
car is a second car. As it turns out, the speaker started working
again, all by itself. So for now, no repair needed.

The tires arrived from Tire Rack 26 hours after I placed the order(!);
the wheels and lugnuts are scheduled to arrive on Thursday. My son
will hopefully mount and balance them on Friday.

Photos to follow.

Thanks for all the replies!

Tim