What does a beater Miata go for?

[Al N.]

Friends, Roman, and countrymen...

 

I'm thinking of buying a cheap car to teach the kids in my church how to drive a stick car. While I personally think a Toyota Tercel is a great car to learn on (it's what I learned on), I'd like to have something that I would actually enjoying driving/auto-xing when not letting the kids burn the clutch out.

 

So, I'm thinking Miata. But I could be convinced otherwise. Please chime in if you have thoughts and price ranges. Under $2500 streetworthy/registerable would be great.

[scannon]

I've seen a few beaters go for $1,000 here. $2,500 - $3,000 will buy a fairly decent but high mileage early Miata. Its a good time of year to be in the market for a sports car.

 

Check out this article on how to evaluate a used Miata: http://www.miata.net/faq/usedmx5.html and pay attention to the part on the crankshaft problem on '90 and early '91 cars.

[11Budlite]

Nice job on the write-up Skip, but I would change this:

 

"If the car has an automatic transmission, pull the dipstick and check the cleanliness of the oil. Smell the oil when the transmission is hot. If it smells at all burnt, walk away and find another. If you see sparkling metallic particles, walk away"

 

To this:

 

"If the car has an automatic transmission, walk away"

 

[TheDingo8MyBaby]

While I think a miata is a great car, I'd also look at early 90's Sentra se-r's, late 80's (MKI) or even early 90's (MKII) MR2's, 85-87 RWD toyota corolla GT-S (with LSD), CRX Si's...

[scannon]

Nice job on the write-up Skip, but I would change this:

 

"If the car has an automatic transmission, pull the dipstick and check the cleanliness of the oil. Smell the oil when the transmission is hot. If it smells at all burnt, walk away and find another. If you see sparkling metallic particles, walk away"

 

To this:

 

"If the car has an automatic transmission, walk away"

 

 

Thanks Bruce.

 

I have the same feeling for automatics in sports cars but there are many people out there, even young ones who don't know how to drive a manual transmission and aren't willing to learn so I covered it. Had to cover all the bases ya know.

 

Who knows, someday my left knee that was scoped in 1978 might give out on me and I will need an automatic Miata myself. :ack: The heavy duty ACT extreme clutch in two of my cars isn't helping that situation either.

[scannon]

Spotted this one for only $3,000. Turbo and lots of extras, it's in Kansas.

 

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?p=4201521#post4201521