Discovering Your Ride is a Chick Magnet

Last Saturday Mark was good enough to help me by loading the Miata onto his roll-back and we transported the soon to be Track Miata to the paint shop of Masterblend in Rolesville.   Phil has done a lot of work for me in the past and we always are happy with the quality of his work.

I talked to Phil about using Rustoleum’s satin black paint for the body of the car since I used it for so many things already, such as the shelf area behind the seats.  He felt it was worth a try but only after he had a chance to test it to make certain that it would work.

After going over everything with Phil, Mark and I drove back to his shop and performed some standard maintenance on the roll-back.  This included an oil change, a top-off of transmission fluid and greasing all the driveline and pivot points.  We also changed out the intake filter and the fuel filter.  Fortunately the truck sits high enough that a lift is not a requirement for performing those services.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I decided to head home since there was no Miata to work on.

Sitting stopped at a traffic light in town my trusty red Toyota Pickup was struck from behind.  Some gal was driving her Toyota Corolla and apparently didn’t see that she would have to stop.  I was hit quite hard but most of the impact appears to have been on the spare tire, which saved my truck from a lot of damage.  Unfortunately for her, her Corolla is toast.

This is the second time I have been struck in the rear of my pickup truck.  Back in 2008 another girl hit the rear and took our the tail light and did damage to the bed and tailgate.  Since that one I had completely restored the truck with a new tailgate, paint, engine, exhaust, Bilstein shocks, wheels, and tires. 

I explained all this to the insurance adjuster.  I was able to back that up with receipts and links to this blog.  If it had been a typical twenty-year-old Toyota Pickup it probably would have been a total loss in terms of cost of repair vs. market value.  Fortunately the insurance company agreed and on Monday I will get the truck to the shop that will restore it to the condition it was in prior to the accident. 

That makes me very happy as I really do enjoy having this as a daily driver and hope to continue with it in that capacity for many more years to come.  I just hope that it doesn’t continue to be a “chick magnet”.