Miata Lessons

I learned basically two things from having owned the Miata over the years:

1. With a high mileage car, you can run through a long list of tests, but you can't really tell what's going on inside an engine. You have to be suspicious and look for weaker signs of proper care or abuse. You want maintenance records, you don't want a dirty engine bay or sooty exhaust pipe. Even a compression test and leak-down test wouldn't reveal the mis-mounted and scratched cam caps on this car. If you could know the oil and filter had been run for 3000 miles (and not just 30 since last Saturday), you might crack open the filter and check for bits of metal. In the end, it is a bit of luck. You have read tea leaves, be suspicious, and choose a false negative over a false positive. Better to let a dirty good one go, than take a bad engine that left a sign of it's state.
2. A suspension can make a big difference, not just power. I hadn't written about it much, but I enjoyed driving the car this summer much more after I put the new suspension on it. I didn't drop it to get the "slammed" look, I wanted bette cornering and I got it.  The stock suspension is pretty soft on that car.
3. I also learned about the 90-10 rule for cars. I've long thought that all you really need from a car is reliable transportation to work, so buy whatever is fun. That worked when I bought the Integra. It wasn't tested too hard because the Integra was front-wheel drive and decent in snow. It also had a decent sized hatch for hauling things. The Miata doesn't have either and flips the rule around: Anything, even a motorcycle will get you to work, it's the 10% that matters. With rear wheel drive and no hatch, it's useless for anything else. The soft-top means it needs to be babied or kept inside to be protected from thieves and vandals, so it's high-maintenance on top of the other issues. I saw this over the years and would have predicted a Fall or Winter sale. I loved the car in Spring and Summer, but once the snow was flying, it was just a nuisance.  
4. Finally, you can't always trust a mechanic not to take your good money to throw at/after a bad engine. After I was already in for most of replacing the timing belt, and only because I asked him to look at the shims, did he discover the scratches and mis-mounted cam caps. I was curious that he didn't reveal the results of a compression or leak-down test until I did my own: there was nothing unusual. The only thing beyond the tea-leaves of a dirty engine bay, sooty exhaust would have been to try changing the oil filter and cutting it open. A leaky rear main seal is obvious enough and not indicative of a bad problem, but it might have lead to a low-oil situation. He managed to bill some 4-figure jobs from me, but I won't be back.