2005 Miata 5speed with 102k miles. Owner is an older woman. She has agreed to sell it to me for $6,500. Car is stock as far as I can tell and it drives great. These are the issues I noticed: Oil is seeping from the valve cover and the soft top is falling apart with the rear window pretty much just hanging there. Is the valve cover leak a bigger problem than it seems on the surface? Location is Northern California where these are generally going for over 10k. Is this a decent deal or should I walk away? I’m looking to buy this as my second “fun” car.
Hey, I may own a few miatas.
Soft top swap is a objectively the worst job you can do on a miata. Worst than dropping in a new engine. Just to be clear, you cannot repair a bad window soft top, it just doesn’t work.
A Robbins soft top, the only quality brand, will net you close to 1k shipped to your door. A must if you plan on keeping your miata for a long time. Buy once cry once.
Did the car live close to the beach? Look for surface rust in the underbody, just to be sure.
5speed means non Sport Package, if you give me a picture of the doorjam stickers I can give you exact suspension/brake/ABS/diff config but I’m going to assume open diff.
Valve cover job is a 15 minute non issue. These cars are truly dummy simple to wrench on.
For 6500$ as stated you’re getting a fair deal. Mostly because not a well optioned car. She could’ve have had a 6spd LSD car and sold it for the same price.
But those performance parts mean nothing for street use, and frankly 5spd > 6spd. (6spd sucks)
Miata is truly always the answer. I’ve driven countless sports cars yet never really felt the need to buy into those chassis, yet everyone that drives my miata wants a miata.