I recently bought a 1992 Miata 3 weeks ago from my brother when he moved to the Philippines to study. He showed me the car on craigslist and originally I wasn’t interested. Naturally he bought the car and he came by me visit me in Houston. When I saw the car at the alignment shop, I immediately wanted it before I even drove it. So when my brother left for the Philippines I bought the car and got to work.

When I got the car I immediately replaced the brake pads and rotors. The brakes was digging into rotors and making that horrible metal to metal sound. I just bought that Autozone shit because I didn’t want to dump money on the Miata, and I still have other priorities. Next was the getting the car safety inspected and registered in the state of Texas. That was a pain in the ass and the registration process was pricy because the previous owner signed the title wrong. After about a week and roughly 1000 miles later I did a oil change, radiator flush, replaced the broken fan switch, and adjusted the 4 pt seat belt harness.

Looking under the hood, the timing belt looked a little worn out so I bought a timing belt and water pump kit. I also noticed the starter motor was going bad too. Old car problems. I drove to Austin to visit friends and family and the car survived the trip! Only $25 for a full tank and only used half a tank heading to Austin. The next week and another 1000 miles later I noticed the car was harder to start to a point I needed to jump the car. I bought a new starter and replaced it the next day.

Thinking that was the end of my problems, 3 days later I was heading back to Austin for the Sarap Buhay meet, when my car died an hour away from Houston. Lucky there was an Autozone nearby (a super getto one) and I had a friend also following me. Thinking it was the battery, I bought a new battery and headed off into the night. The car was running fine for the first 2 hours and literally 1 hour away from Austin my car headlights and instrument light was getting dimer and dimer. My friend and I pulled over and checked out the car. It was probably the alternator not charging the battery since it has a new battery and starter motor. The car was losing power soo bad that I had to drive with NO lights or turn signals at 1am! Lucky my friend followed me and no cop caught me.

I called up my good friend Joe and I parked the car his shop, Active Motorwerks (formerly called Protech Performance) in Austin, TX. He came by at 2am to open the shop so I can park my car but the thing was that someone locked the garage. So I just left my car outside and headed home. Active Motorwerks does really great quality work and have an appreciation of cars. They specialize on BMW and high end european cars. I would recommend them to anyone if they want good quality work and want the best parts put in. They worked on Japanese imports back when I was in high school and they still work on cars like mine. My dad even bought a couple of cars from them.

The next day the guys at Active Motorwerks was wrenching away on my car. Turns out the alternator belt was loose and the alternator wasn’t charging the battery properly. The alternator was bad from the loose belt, so they had to replaced it with OEM Bosh. The Miata even had the wrong bolts for the alternator also, and that was replaced. I had the parts for the timing belt and water pump and and they changed it. I got a Mishimoto racing thermostat and had that put in too. After 3 hours the Miata is reliable again and no more worrying if the car will start or not.

Not going to lie, I really do love this car and seems like people notice this car more than my GTI. Im just happy and thankful I have 2 stanced cars at the age of 24. My fiance says its a cute car and I just told her it will be the date car. Im not done with Miata, I have more plans to make it more badass.