This is why I only play with clan members or friends on Teamspeak.

Bauce as ----. Its like Victory by Design, but he spends an entire hour on one car, which I'm totally cool with.

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Rosenthal Mazda.

Thanks for shipping to my billing address in IL and not the shipping address I typed into your worthless website. Why even have me input it if you only use the PP address? Or maybe an email asking which address I wanted.

I guess I'm spoiled by FM. They called once to confirm I really wanted a 99' part since the last time I ordered from them I got a 97' part. I wish FM just sold everything I ever needed in the world.

Now I have to wait ANOTHER DAMN WEEK TO GET MY CAR ON THE ROAD. Never again will I order from Rosenthal.

Their new website sucks too... This is why I hop in my car, drive 2 minutes, and pick up the stuff in person :)

They did this to me twice, then I picked-up a Mazdaspeed account and never looked back.

Next time you go there can you urinate on something there for me?

How do us plebes get this?

Actually, it wasn't all that hard. Just frustrating in a couple of places.

Got a no-zip plastic top from M&T, along with their "economy" rain-rail because I wasn't sure of the condition of the one on the car, and figured that, like everything else, it was probably beat to hell.

The fitment of the top was good but not great. I mean, it fits on the car just fine, but I wasn't impressed by either the materials quality or the design. For $230 I can't complain too much, but it's definitely not OEM-quality. Instead of having pockets sticked into the top for the three tubular bows of the frame, for instance, it had a pocket only for the first one, and a pair of nylon straps to manage the other two. The straps came with alignment marks already scribed on them which, I am convinced, were put there only for comedic value


And definitely skip the "economy rain rail." It turned out to be nothing but a strip of canvas with a strip of brittle plastic sewn to it, and the plastic was already cracked in half when I took it out of the box. Utterly useless. Fortunately the old one was still serviceable.

It is not exactly hard to replace the tops, just a chore like you say. I have to replace the tops on both of my miatas this spring. I need to figure out if I want to cheap out or spend my money on good ones.

Edit: Just saw your second post. I definitely want rear windows that zip down and good rainrails, so I guess I will save up and go with slightly higher end tops.

Welcome to Florida
 

speaking of replacement tops...

I did two top replacements in a couple months. first one had a glue seam failure. even more frustrating? the second one's defroster tabs were pathetically soldered onto the window after someone broke them off. they fell off about midway through the install and have not worked since (even with the repair glue paint kit).

the worst part of all of this? even though the supplier replaced the top for free, the original is still sitting in my front porch waiting for him to send a return label or even a return ADDRESS.

First top was ordered in late May. Replacement was sent out in October.

I suppose I should email them one more time and then maybe re-glue and sell it?

GARBLE CHICKEN TURTLE POOP. THERE WAS GUN STUFF HERE. NOT ANYMORE. MUAHAHHAA


Edit: ----, I thought I was in the gun thread still.

Actually, I deliberately chose the no-zip plastic window.

On plastic vs. glass, my last top (on the red car) was a Robbins glass top, and while the top material was quite nice, the area where the glass meets the top is quite weak. Essentially, the top material is just glued directly to the glass, rather than having a proper NB-style mounting solution, with the result that the seam between the top and the glass started to fail after about 3 years, and the glass finally came completely un-stuck from the top at both lower corners.

So I figure that if I'm only going to get 3 years out of it anyway, I might as well go with the less expensive plastic window that offers better rearward visibility.


On zippered vs. non-zippered, I'm a lazy SOB who wants to just pop the latches and throw the top back, and then later just grab the top and pull it up and re-latch it, both of which I can do quite easily and quickly while seated without even unfastening the seatbelt.

I drive 500+ miles each way from SC to DC 4-5 times a year. After driving with the top down a few times I have found it makes the trip a whole lot more exhausting to have the sun beat down on you the whole way. With the top up and all 3 windows down you get most of the effects of the top down, but have the shade to keep you slightly cooler. That alone is worth extra to me to splurge on a top with a zipper window. Although my friend has a zipperless top that we installed 3-4 years ago and it still looks and works great. If I did not take long trips I would go with one in a heartbeat.

About the convertible top, my plastic rear window was "warped" down the middle where a bird ---- on it, just fyi.

Can you put a NB top on an NA?

You have to install a NB frame to use the NB top on a NA.

That is a long trip. I now use earplugs if I am driving any distance at all on the freeway, and find it helps a great deal (plus a baseball cap for the sun). For country road driving, the plugs aren't necessary. But on the freeway, especially ours which are chewed up by snow tires and very noisy, the road noise is simply too much to put up with.

The ones I use are etymotics Er-20s (http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html). I find they really cut down the ambient noise while still allowing the radio, conversation, etc to come through.

any trip over 30 minutes with the top down makes my head twitch for the rest of the day.

sadly I'm a few inches too tall to be out of the "wind zone" in an NB.

I think the only top-down Miata I've ever been in was Jared's. It was a weird feeling.

I was once called hardcore for driving the 3 hour trip to Austin with the top down. I also drove 4 hours to Begi in San Antonio with an open downpipe, I wore earplugs though.