My beloved Mazda 3 Sport! I decided to invoke the purchase option at lease-end, and buy the Mazda out-right. Rather than try to do it all with one car, the plan is to keep the Mazda as a daily driver, and get a sportier weekend driver, once the Mazda is paid off
The Next Ride
The lease on my Mazda 3 is almost up. So, what will I get next? Will I stick with the Mazda 3? The Practical Contenders In this category are vehicles that need to fit four adults comfortably. This include the Suburu WRX, Alfa Romeo Guilia, Volkswagen GTI, and of course, I could decide to keep…
Building Chassis. Well, Sort Of.
I picked up another DIY project. Two actually. I needed to put together two new to us, single-bed, wooden bed frames, since the boys had outgrown their five-year-old bunk-bed. The misses got the bed frames, including head and foot boards for both, second-hand. However, one of the frame sets didn’t include cross-slats. Pre-work With none…
Toyota MR2 – Unguilty Pleasure
One of the MSCA members who is pretty savvy at finding automotive bargains, that are actually fun, told me some time ago he had a surprise. I was indeed surprised when I watched him zip into a parking space in front of our breakfast spot. It had been years since I’d seen a Toyota MR2,…
How Are You Holding Up?
It seems like it’s been a lifetime since MSCA has had a meet-up. Unfortunately, the current spike in COVID-19 cases in Arizona doesn’t inspire confidence. Still, the current state of affairs won’t last forever, and we, once again, will be out there together. What I enjoy most about MSCA isn’t just the driving, and the…
Finally, Fixed Those Damned Fenders
Again, I have our current coronavirus pandemic to thank for helping me have the time to finally fix the fenders of our resident 2010 Toyota Corolla SE. That single-owner beast has clocked over 192,000 miles. I’ve told its owner that our mission is to get it past 300,000 miles. And, yes, it’s quite doable with…
Keeping HVAC Pipes Cool
With COVID-19 keeping a lot of us on lock-down, I find myself doing a lot of (ahem) home improvement stuff. Dare I say, it has been interesting reviving skills I haven’t used in decades. Of course, the Internet, makes it a whole lot easier, especially YouTube. A project I had been putting of a while…
Car I’d Like To Social Distance In Right Now
Well, it’s a brave new world since the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic made the United States 2020 Presidential Election cycle seem like page six news. The good news is that things have radically focused us humans on what we deem precious. Health, time, food, freedom, yes, freedom. The absence of the usual day-to-day stuff to distract…
Revive All Muscle Memory by Adding More RAM
This is something I’ve been wanting to post for a while, and now here we are. As I’ve written in some past posts, I’m no uber-mechanic, but I do have little projects I take on to get me into the habit of working with my hands to figure out certain technical challenges. The purpose: to…
Chevrolet v. Mazda
It’s easy to drive the Mazda slow, and it requires some effort to drive briskly. Whereas it’s easy to drive the Chevy at murderous speeds, and requires significant effort to drive in a pedestrian manner.