Car question
 

Okay, so I need to get a decent car for work because my old one pretty much blew up on me and I can't drive a demo forever, apparently. They have this one at work that I really dig, it's a 2000 Mazda Miata with a soft top, manual with about 100k miles on it. I took a basic look at it and everything seems fine, drives pretty well and what not, but I am not any sort of expert.

Has anyone ever owned one of these? Good idea, bad idea?

seems like a lot of miles on the car

It is. I'm generally pretty frugal about my financial stuff, but I want something that even if I only get 5k~ out of it I'll have a good time. At the same time, I'd like to get real life out of it, if I can.

And thank you, Merc. The is pretty much what I was thinking about.

Well if I would give my 2 cents I would not buy it. To poor of a record. The used Subaru is a much better car. They are actually hard to find on the used car market because they are so popular. We bought one for our college aged daug a few years ago.

I'll look into it. I'm basically wanting a small convertible with good gas mileage that's fun to play with on weekends.

Also, to give you an idea of what I'm looking at here, they only want about $4k - $5k for this thing. That's a pretty decent deal, even if it is a little fucked.

Well I just would not want to turn around and have to drop 2 or 3 grand on it to make it right. We have done that with two cars for our kids (not the subaru) and I don't think I ever want to do that again. I would rather pony up the 8 grand to get something that will never have to be towed or leave one of my kids stranded without transportation.

It's a chick car.

I had a friend that had one. he got side swiped by a tractor trailer in a snow storm. he bounced back and forth between the truck and the concrete median enough times to dent all 4 sides of the car, but it never rolled, and he drove out of the collision.

girls will like to ride in it, too.

go for it.

Ahh, the crux of the matter...
reliability? No
economy? No
Value holding? No
safety? No
Will it pull chicks??? YES

Mazda Miata has reliability ratings for 2001 models that are competitive with Toyota. Only part that has average reliablity is its transmission.

100,000 on the Miata would be equivalent to about 40,000 on a GM product. Miata is also listed in Consumer Reports in "CR Good Bets" for used cars. Also useful is that no Mazdas appear in the "CR Bad Bets" list.

Cited as reliable used cars are the 1999 MX-5 Miata in the $8000-$10000 category, the 2000 MX-5 Miata in the $10K-$12K category, and 2001 and 2002 MX-5 Miatas in the $12K-$14K category.

100,000 is not much mileage among those who have long since divorced themselves from the high failure GM mentality - cars designed in the accounting department.

Once, one would buy used cars at 40,000 miles. Today, same reliability is found in 100,000 mile cars. That assumes the car is not using 1968 and 1978 technology engines in their year 2000 models.

Okay, so after reading all this, it seems like getting this car at $5k is a pretty good deal since it's what I'm looking for. I think I'll pick it up at the end of the month, take it to the mechanic and have them do about 2k~ of restorative work on it and give it a new paint job. I could probably even drop a new transmission in it (unless it's somehow just perfect still) and stay under what I would expect to ordinarily pay.

Thanks, folks. If I do get this and everything works out I'll take some pictures of me zooming around in it and post 'em here. :D

Nitpick: it's a manual, it doesn't need a new transmission. It needs a new clutch. But that's cheaper.

That's not nitpicky, that could save me a lot of money. Thanks, UT.

I might not have to spend too much money to bring this thing up nice, that's a relief.

Well, it depends. If it was abused by someone with poor shifting skills, it might need a new transmission too. But you would know that from a test drive, because it would be very difficult to get it into gear.

I strongly recommend you invest a few hundred dollars in an independent inspection. I've learned to do this - especially when buying from dealers - and it certainly saved me from a major lemon once.
Down Under, the Automobile Association provide this service. It is a little expensive, but trivial compared to the cost of, say, an engine rebuild. Best of luck.

I may do that, Zen. The nice thing is that I work in accounting at the car lot that it's on, so I'm not too worried about the whole lemon thing.

"Hey, Mockingbird, why didn't you come into work today?"

"You sold me a shitty car!"

I also know how much they bought it for and how much profit they want to make on it already. Looking at the numbers and my discount, everyone wins. I can't wait for my paycheck.

What ever needs restoring on a seven year old car? Generally, a new paint job often means paint that looks even worse after three years. It must be in abused shape to need all that.

Translation: tw either drives like a grandma for less than 10,000 miles a year... OR tw is one of those people who does his own car maintenance and thus fundamentally doesn't understand the reliance an average person has on a mechanic.

Personally, I'm betting the latter. "Why Everyone Should Be Doing Their Own Car Maintenance" sounds like a speech that could easily follow the standard "Why Everyone Should Be Able to Build Their Own Computer From Scratch" speech.

Some car repair can be fun and easy.

I just replaced the brake pads on my car over the weekend. I was always afraid to tackle something like that because if I screwed it up, it would be a big deal. Well, I spent a lunch hour or two reading online about how to do it, and then I spent two hours Sunday afternoon doing it. The reading was actually fun, so I don't count that as work. The first wheel took an hour and a half. The second wheel only took half an hour. It's pretty damn easy once you know what you are doing. Only tools you need are a socket wrench, a c-clamp, and a clean turkey baster. I saved a few hundred bucks, and used higher quality replacement components than the garage would have given me.

So yeah, I'd agree that some car repair jobs are within the realm of a DIY.

I'm a painter, myself. I want a decent fresh coat put on it because I plan on painting the entire car a bit like a canvas.

tw got educated by 1970 crap cars. Often fell asleep on shop manuals. No way was I going to have anything repaired and not also learn why failures happen.

Two years after getting a Honda Accord, I took the tool box out. Never needed it anymore.

How many people in the late 1960s had intermittent windshield wipers. I did. The option was not available. So I designed it. How many had car alarms. I did. Again, it was not available. So I design multiple versions. How many had electronic ignition? Almost nobody. So I designed one. When did electronics ignitions finally appear? 1975 and only because EPA laws all but forced this innovation.

Ever have your electronic ignition fail? I did once in the late 1970s. So I traced the failure using only a light bulb. Replaced the failed part (with help from someone who picked me up hickhiking). Then broke open the electronic part to learn why it failed. I have little tolerance for failure and routinely must know why.

Every 5000 miles, cars went into the shop for a tuneup - points and condensor. About $100. Tires lasted only 20,000 miles (sometimes only 10,000 miles) since tire manufacturers conspired to keep the radials out of America. Grasp the trend? tw has significant knowledge about cars AND stopped doing all that maintenance once he bought cars not designed by bean counters.

What are most all failures directly traceable to (excluding those created by crashes)? Defective designs or human created failures. An idler arm was too loose (worn) causing dimished steering. So I installed a new one. But the replacement part was more defective than the original. So I put the worn one back in. That was a GM part. Read DeLorean's book to learn why.

Caught the mechanic putting 90 weight gear oil in my 1975 5 speed transmission. That would have destroyed the transmission months later. Again, failure that would have been directly traceable to humans too ignorant to first consult the manual. Humans are too often another reason for failure.

I learned by doing maintenance. Now I own Hondas. Maintenace so rare and simple that I do it all myself. Only oil changes, coolant change, an exhaust system maybe every 80,000 miles, tires every 70,000 to 108,000 miles (except when I once clicked a curb), etc. Oh. Another advantage of properly designed cars: bolts are made of proper steel so that torches and bolt cutters are not required.

Maintenance is so simple as to rarely need a mechanic. Spark plugs? No longer replaced even after 120,000 miles. A major change from the 1970s when cars were designed by bean counters.

Brake pad replacement? Once it was so complex. Even the parking brake cables were once located as to rust stuck or exposed so that water would cause them to freeze. No longer (even on the very first Honda Accord). Do you know why parking brake cables seized? I learned. It no longer happens after I stopped buying bean counter designed cars. Wheel alignment? No car designed by a car guy needs wheel alignment in its lifetime (except when a part is bent by a crash). But then how many got wheel alignment every year because they bought a GM product?

Repack grease in wheel bearings or lube all ball joints? No longer required as soon as I started buying products from car guys. Ever have to replace the computer? Again, maintenance - or connectors that corrode because some bean counter saved money?

I know this shit with a vengence because I fix everything in order to trace every failure back to its source. I can tell horror stories of auto defects routinely traceable to anti-American auto companies. No minimally acceptable car requires expensive maintenance.

One reason for buying parts from a dealer? How they treat women in the repair shop suggests which repair shop is probably inventing or creating failures. Women are routinely 'taken' by some mechanics and car salesman. I left a lot of my blood inside some cars - because I had to learn why.

There is no accpetable reason for major repairs on any seven year old car. Those problems are most always traceable to defective designs or some human who screwed up the car.

Do you buy your wiper blades at the dealer, or from Pep Boys, Walmart, et al? If not from the dealer, then you are probably paying maybe three times more money. It is normal for wipers to last 10 months to 26 months without streaking. When do you finally get tired of buying new wiper blades every three months? No wonder some people are so used to spending so much on maintenance. They even buy gas at the disount station and are spending more money on gas (a previous Cellar thread). I also dislike taking the car into the shop for inspection. Human hands mean failures. I never make that many changes to a car and don't like humans creating new failures. Humans - one of the two major reasons for expensive auto repairs.

Assemble a computer (nobody designs or builds one even thought they may claim to) to learn. It costs more money. Repair your own computer to learn. Again, the shop is (should be) cheaper.

As a sidebar, I used to repair other computers. Charge maybe $20 an hour. Did it to just see what other people had and why they were having problems. Where were the most failures (outside of viruses)? Clone computers. Almost never got called again once I got them into brand name machines. But moreso as demonstrated in a thread in the Technology section - Help, my comp is dying or dead - computers and cars are repaired by the same diagnostic methods (identify a problem before replacing parts). Failures are often traceable to defective designs as is also true of cars designed in the accounting department.

Will never forget that red 1965 Mustang. The owner was trying to sell it to a gas station attendant. He painted it with a paint brush. Said it was a classic. Maybe it once was. But he repainted it. He completely and permanently destroyed that Mustang.

Meanwhile, anything but the most expensive paint will result in a crappy paint job in three years. Ever see the many GM (and Chrysler) cars with paint pealed off exposing large areas of beige primer? If the shift ended when the car was only primed, then dust would settle on the primer overnight. Next day, that dust was painted with their 'cost controlled' paint. Paint pealed where cheaper paint was further compromised by dust.

What did Honda, et al do? Cars entered a clean room. Car stayed in a massive clean room until all coats were applied and dried. Learn why better cars have a superior original paint jobs. Repaint the car and learn from failures.

What was the original purpose of catalytic converters (as also used in car exhaust systems)? To clean the air that would spray the paint. Better assembly line paint jobs were that much better. Good luck getting the equivalent even in an auto body shop. Paint the car to learn.

What ever you decided, let us know how it turns out. Good luck.

*bump*

Short update, it's a 94', not an '00... S'okay, though. I only paid $1500 cash for it. :D So, I own it outright and now I'm going to go cruisin'.

I'll post some pictures later.

yahoo! you baited and switched yourself?!

It only cost you $1500... and it is capable of not just movement, but "cruisin'?" You got yourself a deal!

Yeah, apparently the last owner used to race the thing so it's in pretty good condition. I had some friends look at the motor and any damage to the car is purely cosmetic, it hauls ass, too. :D

So, now that it's winter I finally get it in a picture by accident. It's not a great picture, but it shows it fairly well.

http://a647.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...1de0a89e96.jpg

How'd it handle in the winter conditions?

Better than I thought, you just have to pay attention to everything.

It's so cuuute! *squeee*