Applicable to: '90 - '97 '99 +
White gauges during the day, Indiglo Blue or Green at night
I love these gauges. Well worth the money and they get a lot of stares.
The blue at night is sweet. The green is pretty good. A bit of a task to install but the guys over at Serious Auto helped me out on numerous calls. Buy them!!!
Over 30 minutes to remove completely
Applicable to: '99 + 1.8 liter
A replacement for the factory gauge faces on your instrument cluster. During the day, they are "typical" white-faced gauges. During the night, they have the indi-glo appearance that you commonly see on wristwatches. The gauges can be dimmed and there's a switch that lets you choose between a blue and a green color.
The gauges were on backorder for a long time (about 2-3 months). Once Serious Auto got them in, I received the set in 3 days. They included their own installation instructions with the set. The instructions are very thorough and easy to understand. It took me about an hour or so to install the gauges. If you've installed gauges before, it'll be much quicker. The gauge faces actually overlay the existing stock gauge faces and you have to install a transformer in the steering column. You also have to install a dimmer switch and connect it to the fuse box. Once installed, the most difficult thing for me was to calibrate the gauges. The hardest one was the speedometer. Serious Auto recommends that you mark the positions of the needles on a warmed-up engine or take a picture of it. This didn't help for the speedometer. I actually paced my wife's car and adjusted the needle while she read of her speedometer over the cell phone!
One thing I also noticed was that Serious Auto recommended that the wire be hooked up to the radio fuse. This made the faces light up the entire time the car was on (you can't really see the glow during daylight unless you're in a tunnel). However, I only wanted the glowing to occur when my headlights were on so I connected the gauge to one of the headlight fuses. The quality of the product is excellent. During the day time, the gauges look like regular white-faced gauges. The markings and workmanship are very good. Even if they didn't glow at night, the would have made me very happy. When the CoolGlo is on at night, it's even better! The color is what I expected and the light dissipation is even. There are no hotspots or dark areas at all! If you paint your needles a fluorescent color, the original backlighting makes that glow as well! Overall I would highly recommend this product to anyone interested in considering this product.
Under 30 minutes to remove completely
Applicable to '90 - '97 '99 + 1.6 liter 1.8 liter
Replacement gauge faces in off-white with green backlighting.
As for quality, I am fairly impressed especially compared to some other replacement faces I've seen. The price of $95 U.S. adds even more value.
There are absolutely no hotspots anywhere on the illuminated parts of this set. This will vary a little due to quality control tolerances, but mine is perfect. The actual color of the faces is beautiful- not quite as bright and stand-outish as pure white but they still offer enough contrast to attract the proper attention. They nicely compliment the spun Voodoo knob and satin vent rings installed earlier. Installation was a breeze. The only part that could be considered anything other was realigning the needles and even that took less than 30 seconds. Mazda really did have us in mind when designing the Miata. The install was done on a '96 White/Tan LE.
I ordered these faces on Nov. 9, 1999 and recieved them Jan. 21, 2000 though I still highly recommend Serious Auto for any purchase. Vendor problems can scar the reputation of any retail distributor and I commend their honesty and professionalism concerning the matter. Afer recieving the faces in Calif., Serious had them to me in old Ga. in 2 days. Usually takes about a week coast to coast.
Over 30 minutes to remove completely
| Back to Product Reviews | 7 March, 2014 |