Odometer (Legend): 564.765
It’s that time of year once again where I give a summary of annual mileage. Check out the chart below for highlights from 2018. The car that I drove the most – the 2013 ILX – also cost the least to maintain at around 2 cents per mile. But what’s interesting was how cheap my highest mileage car – the 1994 Legend coupe – also was to maintain, costing me only $311 to drive over 7,000 miles this year.
The NSX had an expensive year, but that didn’t necessarily translate into a pocketbook impact for me. One of the service advisors at my local dealership covered a timing belt & water pump for free, in trade for some help I gave him selling a vehicle. So in the end, of the $4,000 or so shown there, I was only out of pocket maybe half that. Enjoy geeking out on some data with me!
My coworkers got crafty with Photoshop for my 37th birthday.
In the nearly 2.5 years I’ve owned my current home, I’ve always wanted to dress up the showroom. Simple concrete is so drab, plus when you’re parking a fleet of 2+ decade old cars, you accept the fact that they’re all going to leak a little. And my floor was starting to look like polka dot street art with the drips all over the place. As you can see in this before & after photo, I’ve elevated the look of the garage in a big way.
To get this all done, I engaged the efforts of Eric and his team at Brilliant Epoxy Floors, Inc, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. They completely transformed the look of my 988-square-foot, 6-car garage by fulfilling a 3-step process: Base coat, metallic “Quicksilver” epoxy, and top polyurethane. The sequence took about 5 or 6 days to complete because we had to wait (and weather is cooler than usual this time of year) for the surface to cure / dry in between stages.
Then I waited another 6 days before attempting to drive cars across it. Meanwhile, my backyard was full of cars and starting to look a little bit hillbilly with cars parked every which way. In all, the cars spent 12 days outside getting leaves & bird droppings all over them.
Yesterday was the big debut when I was finally able to park indoors. I am thrilled with the results! A couple of observations I’ve already made: The new floor does show dust and dirt pretty readily – from footprints, tire treads, etc. It’ll be extremely slick to walk on if it gets wet. But, spills and leaks (oil or anything else) will wipe up really easily. Let’s see how everything holds up over the next few years!
Here is a timelapse video showing stages 1 & 2 of the refinishing process. In all, I captured about 1,000 pictures at a 20-second interval with a small camera mounted in the southwest corner of the garage.
NSX & Integra “before”
Blank slate ready for customization:
The Brilliant crew showing up for day 1
End of first / base / single-color coat
Coincidentally, while the Integra sedan was out back, I received an order for a 1:43 scale model car in the mail – a twin to it!
Day 2 complete! You can see the metallic swirl starting to take shape here.
Meanwhile, the cars sat out back like this for almost two weeks.
Complete!
Even the “new car” went inside for a bit. Now you know what it is.
Few more shots of the garage, all staged & ready.
Thanks for reading & watching!
drivetofive 