Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Adult realities

As a kid who grew up watching The Fast and The Furious, playing Need For Speed: Underground, and reading Import Tuner, I’m all about aftermarket car modifications. To turn an otherwise stock car into something uniquely to my tastes. Do we even buy cars without first thinking about what different wheels to put on them? The stock exhaust has got to go! We need more loud and obnoxious.

Of course, adult realities hit, and I’ve found that I can’t ever pull the checkout trigger on car parts, especially not overnight ones from Japan. How do I explain to my financial advisor (read: me) that I’m going to spend 10% of the purchase price of the car - immediately after buying it - on another set of wheels. There’s nothing wrong with the factory set, other than the looks. The sensible thing to do is to wear out the stock wheels - depending on how you drive, wheels can be a wear item - before even thinking about replacing. To get my money’s worth, if you will.

It’s not just finances (or lack thereof), too. Honestly, my Mazda Miata could use a fruitier sounding exhaust. Set aside the fact a replacement back-box is nearly $1,000; where the heck am I going to store the factory exhaust? I certainly don’t want to sell it or throw it away, in case I ever decide to sell the MX-5 and need to return it to factory specification.

Alas, as a renter in San Francisco making under six figures, living space is at a premium. I don’t have a garage to perform maintenance with, never mind hoarding redundant car parts. I’m just happy I managed to live on a block where street parking is super easy. No one’s mad you’ve parked in front of their house, or leaving cones out to reserve space. If that weren’t the case, I probably wouldn’t own more than one car.

So I resign myself to scrolling with envy on instagram. Kudos to those of you who can drop thousands on wheels, thousands on suspension bits, thousands on bigger brakes, et cetera and et cetera. Broke boy over here shall be content with driving factory-stock cars, spending money only on gas, insurance, and maintenance. Cheers.

Motor oil madness

I drove by a gas station last evening and saw that a gallon of premium 91 octane was over the $7 mark. A gallon of diesel was nearly $9! That is quite high, even for California. No wonder my coworker has stopped driving to work and instead is taking public transit. That extra half hour of commute time is worth the trade-off at the gas pump.

Meanwhile, my 10 minute walk of a commute remains unchanged.

Nevertheless, petroleum isn’t just purely at gas stations. It permeates and affects many things we buy and consume. The ongoing war with Iran is putting a self-inflicted squeeze on the petrol supply chain, and we haven’t yet seen the full brunt of it. Gas prices finally cresting $7 per gallon here in California might be the proverbial canary.

Word on the street is motor oil is suffering through a shortage, and consequently pricers are increasing. I’ve got two cars, both of which are gas burners. Every calendar year, they will need a flush and replenishment of oil. Much like the great toilet paper stock-up of early 2020 pandemic, the supposed smart wisdom amongst the car enthusiasts discussion is to stock up on engine oil before the prices inflate any higher.

Sadly for me, I don’t have the space to store copious amounts of oil containers. The inflation hammer will just have to hit me whenever it may fall. My Golf GTI is due for an oil change next month, so I bought six liters of the good German stuff at a little over $13 per liter. According to what I can find, that price has remained stable from the start of the year. In before the lock? Seems like it.

My Miata isn’t due for a change until next July. Out of curiosity, I checked the pricing for five quarts of Castrol on Amazon. A jug is $32, which honestly seems reasonable given the surround news. According to records, the last time I bought the same oil back in 2018, it was $31! That is super surprising. Either Castrol has done the consumer a favor and kept the pricing friendly throughout, or the company has cut corners to the same product. Shrinkflation is a heck of a drug.

It seems, at least for the two particular cars that I own, the great motor oil inflation has yet to reach the shore. Of course I am fully expecting things to change sooner or later, given the lack of end in sight for the Iran war. I’ll simply enjoy the mulligan that I’ve got this time round. Happy motoring!

We're all going to feel it

This morning I woke up from a dream that I'd bought a Mercedes G Wagon, the preferred wealthy housewife car of choice. I knew it was a dream even when I was in the dream because there’s no way I would drop six-figures on a singular automobile. Did that once, enjoyed it, not YOLO-ing like that again. To comfortably afford a car priced in the six-figures, you really should be earning well past the quarter-million mark. Unfortunately, my salary is closer to zero than it is closer to $250,000.

I am happy and grateful for what I already have: the perfect two car solution. A MK7 Volkswagen Golf GTI for the utility factor, and a Mazda MX-5 Miata for pure driving fun. Both combined cost less than what I paid for a brand new BMW M2 back in 2019, which is saying something given the abject inflation that’s gone on since then. Is this German and Japanese duo the ones to ride into the proverbial sunset? Difficult to predict, the future is (Yoda). I’m just really satisfied right now.

And thank god neither of my cars run on diesel. Thanks to the ongoing war with Iran that was supposedly going to end quickly, the oil shock stemming from the Strait of Hormuz closure is finally materializing fully. Here in California, it’s over $8 for a gallon of diesel! Even if you don’t have a personal diesel vehicle (thanks, Volkswagen diesel-gate), the repercussions of such high pump pricing will directly affect your wallet. Commercial transportation is hugely reliant on diesel. Cost of goods sold will continue to trend higher because the cost of shipping is increasing.

Never mind that petroleum is an ingredient in so many products that you wouldn’t think of. As if the AI build-out inflation isn’t already bad enough…

So you EV owners can’t sit there too smugly about your cars not using gas. Though they can be slightly smug at the news of Costco rationing the sale of motor oil and raising prices due to shortages. (The upcoming annual oil change on the GTI is going to cost nearly $100 in materials alone!) But, the downstream negatives of the oil shock will affect us all. This collective hurt is quite the revenge on the individualistic streak so prevalent in American culture.

Klarna pay-in-four at the gas pump, when?

Here we have the GTI in its natural habitat.

Run away into the sunset

This Reddit user is slightly ranting about the state of the car enthusiast market. How everything that’s new and exciting all cost into the many hundreds of thousands, or millions. The user ends with this nugget: “Do I just buy a Miata and run away into the sunset?”

Insert Leo pointing meme.

That’s me! I literally just bought a brand new Miata, and hopefully shall ride it into the eventual sunset. I too am disappointed at the monetary inflation of the enthusiast market. The special Porsche that was once a stretchable goal for the working man (I literally did it) has been punted beyond any reasonable reach. The manual transmission is a dying mechanical art from, but no worries, McLaren is bringing it back into their lineup… in a limited special priced equivalent to a house.

I can see how that can be discouraging. Unlike the kid with the Countach poster on the wall, working-class car enthusiasts have already come to the realization that we can’t afford a Lamborghini. At least the kid can still dream and strive for a reality that isn’t yet set in stone. 38 year old me? The chances of me ever being able to plop down $250,000 for a singular car is absolutely zero.

Instead of lamenting it, we in the peasant class should rejoice that there are still some options for our income bracket. Just a few options, yes, but kudos to the manufactures for still catering to our niche. My Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Toyota GR86 remain affordable samples of what car enthusiast claim to want: naturally-aspirated engine, real-wheel drive, and a manual gearbox. All for the relatively low price of mid 30,000s.

For sure those two cars don’t carry the social media scene points of a BMW M car or a 911 GT3. You shouldn’t care about that, right? For sheer joy of driving, the two sports cars from Japan is excellent at any price. The fact that they are priced affordably is a damn win for the common enthusiast. Of the two, I picked the Miata because I had one that I miss dearly.

Something it is not

This morning I finally got an opportunity to take my 2026 Mazda MX-5 up to the local mountain roads. The verdict so far is: it’s a bit more floppy than I remembered. And that’s not a bad thing.

Coming out of a BMW M2 that’s flat and sharp at all times, the Miata’s innate softness and rolling character is quite the contrast. With the Mazda you definitely cannot ham fist it into a corner; the driver must work with the delayed fluidity that the car has. You walk the Miata on its tippy-toes, rather than bludgeoning the tarmac with maximum force. The car floats and undulates with the road imperfections, and you have to let it do its thing and not force it into something that it isn’t.

I’ve watch and read many reviews on the ND Miata, and universally it seems people complain about the car’s built-in softness in the suspension. There’s too much body roll. I think problem here is people are taking the incorrect lens to view the car. You cannot treat the MX-5 like a modern sports car. It doesn’t have the flatness or immediacy of a Porsche 911 because it’s not that kind of car.

The Miata is more akin to the 60s sports coupe with skinny tires and massive suspension motion. Watch this Goodwood Revival race for an example of the sort of cars I am talking about. Instead of wishing it corners flatly with quicker reflexes, the driver should work with the MX-5. Let the motion and body roll inform you of how to best chuck it into a corner. Because you can easily tell when the car is upset: massive body lean, but going nowhere quick.

I reckon owners that modify the MX-5 by adding in suspension stiffness fundamentally miss the entire point of the car. I don’t think we should be turning it into a Honda S2000. There’s plenty of other sports cars with firmer suspension and faster steering controls. You buy a Mazda MX-5 because you can dance with it.

Don't be fooled by the algorithm

An anxiety I have in buying back into a 2026 Mazda MX-5 is of other drivers on the road. The Miata is a tiny car, and with the trucking monstrosities that are out on the road these days, the little MX-5 can absolutely disappear. Heck, it was already tough 10 years ago when I had my first 2016 Miata. In the farewell post for the car, I wrote that a major con is other drivers cannot see me. SUVs and trucks have only gotten bigger and wider subsequently. The Mazda roadster? Exactly the same.

It doesn’t help that the main Miata subreddit seemingly serves up daily posts of MX-5s getting rear-ended. Usually the culprit is a modern truck with too tall of a front-end that the Miata can completely hide in front of. While thankfully I don’t live in the land of pickup trucks (hello, Texas), the modern SUVs aren’t that much better when it comes to visibility. It’s a size arms race that I am intentionally forfeiting by buying such a small car.

The anxiety does take away some of the fun from driving. When stopped at an intersection, I can’t help but scan the rear-view mirror to see if there isn’t some truck or SUV dominating the view entirely. Not that you shouldn’t drive defensively in any car, but with a Miata, defense driving is a requirement. Like riding a motorcycle, you have to assume all other cars on the road are liable to bump into you at anytime.

However, I think it’s important to remember that social media platforms like Reddit serves up confirmation bias constantly. Live in r/miata long enough and you might never want to take your own MX-5 out on the road. Frequent r/gr86 and you may think most owners are idiots who cannot drive. Surely every person on r/bmw is paying $1,500 a month on their car note whilst making minimum wage. Worst, the more you interact with those type of posts, the more you get fed the same by the almighty algorithm.

So yes, it seems like lots of Miatas are getting wrecked from behind, going by social media. But there’s no way to know if it isn’t any worse than any other car. I will of course continue to drive defensively - in any of my cars, though I shall keep reminding myself that just because there’s some noise on social media, doesn’t mean it’s representative of real life.

Don't need my business

Before I chose to get a different set of wheels for my 2026 Mazda MX-5, the plan was to powder-coat the stock black 17-inch wheels in silver. The frugal person in me who grew up in poverty can’t in good conscience swap out a brand new set of wheels and tires just because I wanted a different look. The compromise in the middle is to change the color. Black colored wheels on cars is so not the business.

To the Yelp pages!

I’m the type of person who prefer to communicate using email. There’s a freedom of time, and it allows me to tailor my words to be as precise as possible. Specifically to cars, it’s easier to spell everything out in writing. For example, the power-coat color I want is a particular Porsche silver. In an email I can include a link to the manufacturer of the exact color, no ambiguities.

But it seems automotive shops prefer communicating over phone. At least when it comes to wheel repair. I emailed a few local wheel refinishing shops for quotes. One blew me off completely. Another took two days to respond. The one that did timely respond did not follow up, even when I wrote back inquiring how should we proceed to the next step.

I’ve done some sales back in the day, so it’s wild to me that these shops can ignore an entire channel of lead generation. In the year of our lord 2026, email communication is table stakes! The only logical explanation is that business is so good for these wheel repair companies that they absolutely don’t need email leads.

In my stubborn refusal to pick up the phone (changing the wheel color is more of a want, not a need), I pivoted to swapping out the wheels instead. No ragrets.