MANUAL vs. AUTOMATIC
By Charlie Clark

The "dr. miata" article in the 99-VI issue of the Miata Magazine could very well have been titled "The Joys of Shifting."  However, the article overlooks one very important point; in the '99 Miata, unless one shifts carefully, one will experience a sharp pain in the right elbow on every shift, caused by the poorly located center console.  Making contact with this console is definitely "not a joy."  I suspect that Mazda designers did this intentionally to encourage buyers to opt for the automatic.  Shame on them!!

Really Mazda is not alone in doing this.  The positioning of the console in the 2000 Nissan Maxima SE is even worse, and the two height positions (which should take care of the problem) are unfortunately too high, and much too high.  They even went further with the Infiniti I-30 (basically the same car) and did not even offer a manual for 2000, which is why Joyce and I have a Maxima SE instead of the Infiniti I-30.  I feel if one is willing to pay the price for an I-30, one should not have to settle for an automatic.

The elbow pad, which MM Marketing sale to alleviate the problem in the Miata is not satisfactory; it decreases the elbowroom even further.  If you want one, mine is for sale - cheap!

It would be nice if some entrepreneur would provide a thinner console cover for the Miata, also for the Maxima.  Another ½ inch of elbowroom would probably suffice.