Gone in 60 seconds, Done with 8

So we have had Cindy’s Miata on Craigslist for about 10 days with little success.  I got a couple calls and emails but nothing I would consider serious interest.  Yesterday Cindy took the Miata to work with For Sale signs in the window.  She parked it prominently in the post office parking lot.  This old school sale technique of putting a vehicle in a heavy traffic area yielded far better results than 10 days on CL.  I got 5 or 6 inquiries during the day with at least a couple of them seeming very interested.

Last night Cindy was contacted by another potential buyer. The ironic thing this was this is someone she talked to way before the Prius was even an idea in my head.  A couple months ago this kid saw Cindy’s Miata and said it was nice and that she should let him know if she was interested in selling it.   Well Cindy let the kid know the Miata was up for sale and he was interested, not for himself but for his best friend who was looking for his first car.

Cindy told him that others were interested (true) and that some wanted to come look at it today (not so true).  This turned on the urgency light and the kid and his friend wanted to come over right away to check out the Miata.  Ok not how I expected my Monday night to go, but great!  Selling the Miata would mean clearing driveway real estate, giving Cindy a chunk of money to pay some stuff off and just be a big load off her back.

Unfortunately the two guys didn’t get there until daylight was just about depleted so it was tough to get a great look at the car although the potential buyers buddy had seen the car in broad daylight before.  We used the house floodlight, headlights and a couple of my lanterns used for races to provide lighting.  They went around the car and then Cindy and the kid went on a test drive.  I stayed back and tried to help the other kid fix a problem with his Acura he just bought 3 days ago.

The car was lowered, severely lowered with approximately an inch of ground clearance.  He said it’s so low that he can’t even drive it during a hard rain as any appreciable standing water would make it instantly hydroplane.  Why someone would want their vehicle that low is beyond me.  Well when he pulled in the driveway I heard a grinding metal sound.  The sound was from brackets used to hold up a plastic skid plate to protect the underside of the vehicle.  The kid just had an oil change and transmission fluid flush done on the Acura and evidently the place that did it neglected to properly reattach this skid plate.

He asked if I had any screws that he could use to temporarily hold the skid plate until he got home.  The couple I gave him didn’t work.  I laid down on the driveway and took a look.  The undercarriage of the vehicle was ridiculously close to the ground.  I don’t think even a golf ball could roll under it without getting stuck.   After surveying the very cramped workspace and seeing the hanging metal bracket I determined a series of zip ties would be the best way to get the metal off the ground.  I connected three of them together and was able to rig the bracket, hopefully good enough to get home.  While we were out there, he told me his buddy already has plans to trick out the Miata, part of which was making it sit even lower than it already does.

Cindy and the other kid went on a pretty long test drive, not pulling back in until I had finished up my Acura skid plate elevation project.  The only negative that was reported was the random check engine light which has been the case for as long as Cindy owned the car.  I told him I replaced the only O2 sensor on the car and the CEL hasn’t had any negative effect since Cindy owned the car.  Other than that he liked it.

There was a very quick and easy price negotiation where the kid offered us 300 bucks less than what the OBO sign listed.  The offer was still more than the bottom line number Cindy was willing to accept so she took the offer.  Going back and forth with two 18 year olds just didn’t seem necessary. They had cash in hand and were ready to roll.  I headed inside to fill out a bill of sale form.  After printing it out and having Cindy sign off on the title the kids were ready to head out.

As the Acura moved I still heard the metallic grind.  I told him to hold on and I took another peek underneath.  My zip ties were holding steady but a closer look revealed that much farther back there was another metal bracket dragging, in a spot unreachable unless the car was on a lift.  Doug said he would just baby it home and take care of it tomorrow.

Getting the Miata home was a risky proposition for the two 18 year olds since they had not brought a license plate with them and obviously I pulled Cindy’s plate.  If it was earlier in the evening perhaps we could have arranged for me to drive the car to the kids place with Cindy’s plate but it was already something like 9:30.  They did not seemed concerned about driving plateless but 18 year olds don’t get too concerned about many things.  They planned to have the Acura follow behind the Miata closely to hopefully hide it’s naked license plate area.  I felt a little uneasy as they drove off as technically until the title is officially transferred, Cindy is the owner.  The good thing was they didn’t have that far to drive.

Cindy was happy and sad at the same time as the Miata buzzed down 47th Ave for the last time.  She was very happy to get a decent amount of money for it but sad because despite it’s warts and shortcomings, which were plentiful, she had a lot of fun zipping around in the Miata in the year plus she owned it.  I didn’t feel as sentimental, despite my investing a lot of sweat equity in the car fixing numerous items.  I saw it as a money pit first with anything else being secondary.

Last night we finally finished season eight of 24.  Of course the ending was suspenseful, violent and not even loosely based on what any human being would/could do.  I now have seen all eight seasons thanks to the wonders of Netflix and Amazon Video and declare myself officially ready to digest the reboot of the franchise which is currently running on Fox.