I don't drive my car hard enough.
For whatever reason, I tend to baby my cars; it took me a long time to realize this, but it's true. Doesn't matter when I had a 305 horsepower all-wheel drive machine, or the current Mazda Miata: taking the tach needle past 3K is a rare affair. Cars are meant to be driven, I would tell myself; I guess I forgot the other part: give it the full beans as often as I can.
It makes perfect sense. The 2-liter motor in the Miata is an absolute joy to rev out, and it pulls all the way to redline with gusto, unlike its chief rival the Toyota 86. The fact it's only got 155 horsepower means visiting the upper reaches of the tach won't necessarily mean immediate jail-time, unlike my previous car the Subaru WRX STI. That car had an engine that too, begged to be revved, but for an entirely different philosophy. The EJ257 motor carries so much turbo-lag that belong 4,000 RPM it is utterly gutless. However, in the STI by the time second gear is over I'm already in vast illegal speed territory.
The fact the car got piss-poor gas-mileage also didn't endear me to prod the accelerator pedal for long before upshifting.
On the Miata though I have no such excuse. No matter what I do with the gas pedal, the car dutifully returns miles-per-gallon in the upper 20's. Therefore give it the Italian tuneup often I shall.