Wiz Performance Hood-Lift Ease

A Sebring requires the hood prop to be bent into a hoop to avoid a pipe. This reduces the height to which the hood opens. Also, the bent prop would hit the edge of my headlight cover and take the paint off. So I got a hood-lift ease from Wiz performance, which is a gas strut that replaces the prop.

Ordering

I called Wiz Performance's toll-free number and the custumer service number without success. I left messages on the answering machine to call me, and finally left an order on it. I also e-mailed Wiz performance and left an order that way. No response. Apparently the owner, Holly Altman, was on vacation.

A few weeks later, I did manage to get a response and I ordered my hood-lift ease. Chronology:

July 15. "Hood Lift Ease" is charged to my credit card.
August 7. I call Holly. I am told that the hood lift has been send to me using UPS during the week July 28-August 1, two weeks after my credit card was charged. The week after that (the week in which I call), UPS went on strike. Apparently, it did take sufficiently long for the package to move from mid to north Florida that it has became stuck in the strike. However, Holly assures me that she will ship a second hood lift to me using U.S. mail the next day, Friday August 8. She also instructs me that I should refuse to accept the UPS lift when it arrives after the strike.
August 15. I call Wiz at 3 pm in the afternoon since I have not yet received the hood-lift ease, which I believe to have been shipped August 8 from a location within my state. I ask for the shipping numbers. Unfortunately, Holly is not there and I get the answering service, which cannot tell me the shipping numbers.
August 16. I call again. This time, I am lucky. Holly is in. To my dismay, I discover however that the second strut bar has not been shipped on Friday August 8 as promised earlier. The difficulty is that the post office has started rationing the number of packages they accept from Holly to 5. (I assume this started exactly on the Friday August 8 at which my package was due to ship, so I must have been very unlucky again.) Although Holly can get partially around the rationing by dropping off packages at more than one post office, my strut did not come up for shipping until, coincidentally, today. Holly assures me it will go out today, Saturday August 16, more than a month after my credit card was charged. I ask Holly for my hood lift's earlier UPS shipping number and she gives it to me. I read it back to her and she confirms it. Thus I can go to the UPS web page to track my hood lift. To my dismay, however, I discover that my number is invalid; there is a digit missing. So I immediately call Holly back, and she tells me there were four zeros, not three. (I am absolutely sure that the first time, she gave me only three zeros. Also, I read it back as three zeros, and she confirmed the correctness, so I do not think I am to blame here.) Although there is only one set of 3 zeros in my number, I ask Holly to reread me the entire number. I read it back to her again, and Holly confirms that this is indeed the correct number. I go back to the UPS web page and try again. To my dissappointment however, I get the message "No tracking information available." So I post a message to the rec.autos.makers.mazda.miata newsgroup and to the miata mailinglist, explaining the above shipping difficulties and asking whether anybody can provide some insight in the difficulty of shipping Miata parts from central to north Florida, or provide other help.
August 18. A package arrives by U.S. mail. I pick it up the next day, and it contains my hood-lift ease. It was shipped August 16. Since this was the day I posted my message to the newsgroup and the mailing list, and since I had been informed earlier by someone that Holly does seem to follow the mailinglist, I am left to wonder whether it was my posting, rather than Holly's promise on the phone earlier that caused the shipping.
August 30, 1997. While I am writing this, no UPS package containing a hood-lift has arrived as yet for me to refuse to accept. When it arrives, I will note it here.

Installation

Compared to ordering, I found installation to be challenging for an amateur such as me, but not too difficult. The instructions are fairly good, though the illustrations, (xeroxed black and white photographs), could be improved.

In order to attach one end of the strut bar, you are to drill two holes in your fire wall. The difficulty is figuring out the correct location. Take your time, and read the provided instructions carefully. After some thought, you should be able to figure them out correctly. Also check the instructions in the reviews on miata.net; there are both reviews by users as well as one by miata.net itself. The location for the holes is hard to get at with a drill; I found it best to start the holes with a very thin drill bit and work up to the final size. I checked the correct distance between the holes at each stage. You bolt the strut attachment point down using your holes.

You also need to drill holes in your hood for the other end of the strut. Again, take your time and think before drilling. Wiz has you wrap your drill bit with masking tape to prevent you from drilling completely through your hood. Indeed that would be awkward. The attachment point is riveted fixed. I had to buy a rivet gun, but had no difficulty doing the riveting.

Evaluation

The strut is pushing the left hand (US driver's) side of the hood somewhat higher than the other side. It is one of those things you see only when you know it, or if you are looking for it. Since the strut exerts a force on one side of the hood only, I do not think this can be avoided. (Bob in Orlanda notes on miata.net that his hood does not sit higher, but I assume he means, 'sits not noticably higher'.) To compensate for the effect, I also raised the left headlight cover a bit, to keep the two aligned. This makes the effect less obvious. Still, I am pleased with the hood lift, though not with the ordering experience.

Price

$89.95 Hood-Lift Ease, from Wiz Performance (800) 532-0221; $15.00 rivet gun, from Sears.

The hood lift in action.

The lower attachment point of the hood lift.

The lower attachment point is also visible here.

And here.

The upper attachment point.

The side of the hood with the hood lift.

The side of the hood without the hood lift.

A front view of the hood.

Return