How to treat a new car?

This might help:

Welcome to the Miata world!

Kempi '01 silver,IL

Drive it on a variety of roads at a variety of speeds with a variety of braking/acceleration; the secret is of course, variety. Everything in moderation, including moderation itself...

Slow, followed by fast, followed by throw it another curve, enjoy! Until the pads get used to being used, I would avoid really abrupt stops.

I changed the Rollerskate's oil at the 600 kilometer (approx 350 mile) mark the first time when it was new, on the theory that loose metal bits from manufacture would have worked their way into the oil. I used, and still use, non-synthetic oil, i.e. ancient dinosaurs, and change the oil every 5000 kilometers (approx 3000 miles)

Drive it! It's made to be driven. I had to keep reminding myself that it's not a delicate object to be handled with kid gloves; put on those kid driving gloves and do some major playing on some twisted ways somewhere.

Some have said that one should wait about 6 months before waxing a new car to let the paint dry fully, but I wonder about the necessity for the wait, as the car was usually manufactured at least 6 months before it arrives in North America, and it's likely the paint is already fully dry.

Welcome to the Miata way of life, and watch out for the aching grin muscles!

At the factory, the paint is completely cured in a high-temperature oven before the delicate bits are installed, so it's ready to be waxed immediately.

Your owner's manual will give you tips as well. Happy Miating! You're going to love that ZOOM ZOOM ~Cissy '89 Miata

FWIW, oil isn't really from dinosarus. It's generally accepted that it's mostly all from algae and plankton (and maybe diatoms) from pre-dino eras. There are, of course, a few people with other theories:

But how did the oil get in the Middle East in the first place? To answer that question, we must go back millions of years, to an era that geologists call the Voracious Period, when giant dinosaurs roamed the Earth, eating everything that stood in their path, except for broccoli, which they hated.

And then, one fateful day (Oct. 8), a runaway asteroid, believed by scientists to be nearly twice the diameter of the late Orson Welles, slammed into the Earth and killed the dinosaurs, who by sheer bad luck all happened to be standing right where it landed. The massive impact turned the dinosaurs, via a process called photosynthesis, into oil; this oil was then gradually covered with a layer of sand, which in turn was gradually covered by a layer of people who hate each other, and thus the Middle East was formed.

-- Dave Berry

For further (serious) info:

021108

Thanks for the advice and for the links, everyone. Hmmm - been a long time since I found a friendly newsgroup :)

jay

There's a novel idea! Read the manual. You might be surprised to find it's far less conservative than the miata.net or Miata club protocols. My 2002 SE had under 20 miles on the odo when I took it home.

I kept it under 4000 RPM for the first couple of hundred miles, then revved it briefly above 4000 RPM for the next couple of hundred miles, decided it was broken-in, gratuitously changed the oil at around 600 miles. I would have put Mobil 1 in then except the dealer didn't carry it, so I waited until 3000 miles or so went to Mobil 1.

It's a car, not a baby. Break it in gently but firmly. My experience with a number of new engines over the last 20 years has convinced me that super-gentle break-ins, especially when not required by the manufacturer, are worthless or even bad.

Dana

Yep, it's a nice place to come and find out that there are still polite and gracious people in society, that posting doesn't have to involve cursing and that some people really are out to help others. Oh, and congratulations on the purchase.

Tom

92 Red

Jas> Thanks for the advice and for the links, everyone. Hmmm - been a long

It is???? WAAAAAA! All this time, I thought my Krikkit is a baby!! What AM I going to do? ;) hehe ~Cissy '89 Miata

I think all of the people here have it correct. The person that bought my '91 new, couldn't read and when I got "RED" at 13,000 miles, it had a little smoke out the tail tipe when it took full power. I didn't see this until I let an friend drive it. As I watched it go away, I saw the smoke, They DO need to have the power put to them! If you don't turn up the wick on them and streatch out the rods and other parts, you will start a wear pattern of short piston travel. Some day when you climb on it, you could break a "ring". SO, do as has been suggested. After a

1,000 or so bump the REV limiter every once in a while. (you won't break anything when that happens. It just cuts the fuel off for a second.) Drive the car like it should be driven on the road, but "bump it sometimes too".

Oh, and for RED, it see's 7,000 + once or twice a week. It has over

121,000 miles on it and the smoke stopped at about 13,500 ! (Good ol'e rev limiter solved that problem ! It just needed to be run hard)

Bruce RED '91

Uh, Cissy? I'm not sure how to break this to you, but at her age, Krikkit is nearly a grown woman. :-)

Yes Jason, you'll find quite a friendly / lively group here. It's probably the most focused group I've delt with. Don't take it personally though when you ask a question that everyone here has heard / seen a million times and you are (politely) asked to go to Miata.net. There's no offense, just that it's an unbelievable site with tons of info and you can easily answer allot of the straight forward / simple ?'s (and some of the hard ones).

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Chris

92BB&T

USeful links always welcomed :)

I intend to...just found out its registration number and I'm getting unbelieveably excited.

jay soon to own Splash Green '04 1.8i FY04 KOD

GASP!!! REALLY??????? ;) dang! ~Cissy '89 Miata