So where did you ever find the patience to deal with the top on your '96 model? Did you ever use a boot or unzip the window when you had a plastic one? It seems like that would have driven you nuts.
Like I said in the snipped part of my post, differing opinions are good. That hardtop could take twice as long to raise and lower as it does and I would still take it over the ragtop.
Pat
That's EX-Mother in Law, thank you, and you just don't know what terrors you have wished upon me. Please play nice, I need to be able to sleep tonight without too many nightmares. :-)
Pat
I'm going to place a full length nude picture of her over your bed..
OK, I got along very well with my ex-mother in law (and ex father in law also), better than I did with my ex wife! I was sorry when she passed away, she was a nice lady and I always thought well of her. Sorry you didn't have one like mine...
You owe me one dinner now. I had no idea you were so cruel. There are some things that you can not "un-think". That may be one of them. I hope not.....
Well, they obviously did not teach you any compassion for others like myself. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go worship the porcelain God again. ;-)
Pat
My Belle has been my daily driver for nearly 12 years now. Nothing makes me smile more than coming out of work and seeing her sitting there waiting for me - almost makes it worthwhile going to work.
By the way, it was so beautiful (and warm!) here in Eastern PA on Saturday that a bunch of us went out for a 2-1/2 hour topless ride.
Iva & Belle.) '90B Classic Red.) #3 winkin' Miata
Hang on Iva, We have some crap weather we are sending you guys ( girls ) for next week ! We just had another wind and rain/snow storm blow thru the Pacific Northwest an we would be happy to send it on to the nice people in the Midwest and Northeast! :-) We had 2 inches of rain and 50 MPH wind with 2 feet of snow in th mountains, (over night) We are the ones the the weather guessers said would have the "mild winter" !! :-) Top down here just ain't make'n it this year !
Bruce Bing '03 LS (with the hard top still on! )
Thanks, okay, you can keep it. I'd be just as happy to not have to put the hard top on at all this year. Nor the snow tires!
Hmmm, that reminds me I need to change the oil again. Before the weather gets cold.
Iva & Belle.) '90B Classic red.) #3 winkin' Miata
No. I was lowering the top and putting the boot on, not just sitting there waiting for some stupid piece of machinery to slowpoke its way down.
You know how much dentists cost when you have to replace all your teeth?
Leon
"Iva" wrote
It ain't gonna get cold this winter, Iva. El Nino at work until May or so. Bruce and others suffer but we Mid-Atlantic/Northeasterners are going to have really low heating bills this year.
The power hardtop is the only reason that I am considering the NC over the NB. I have more patience than you in this area, 12 seconds is nothing to me for this and I enjoy watching the hardtop in action. If I absolutely have to tear out of there faster than that, then the top will just have to stay up for a while. As I keep saying, differing opinions are good, otherwise we would all be in the same type of car. NC hardtop sales figures will be high, I will put up money at decent odds if you want to challenge that statement. Since it is something that a lot of people want, and it affects you in no way whatsoever, how does that make it stupid? It is simply something that you don't want, yet. ;-)
For me, roughly $19,000. What's your point? :-)
Pat
going to
We can only hope - however it's down around 42 this morning and they've actually mentioned the "S" word in the forecast for tonight.
But, yeah, you definitely have to love the lack of heating bills this winter so far. And I really don't miss having to get the hard top out of the garage rafters.
Iva & Belle.) '90B Classic Red.) #3 winkin' Miata
Also, just listening to ALL those little plastic gears and motors and lids and flaps that ALL have to work together just perfectly ...
After driving a PRHT for 3 weeks (another car, but still a PRHT) all of that plastic, electronic synchronicity made me ... nervous about owning a PRHT. I mean, what happens when a plastic tooth breaks off one of those plastic gear wheels and the cover-lid goes out-of-sync with the top.
Yeeesh.
If I end up going Miata again, it will definitely be a no-hassle, quick up/down (very important foe CA Freeway traffic) Soft-Top.
-- Steve McMahon currently Miata-less
I am already leaning towards the M2 based on value and looks, especially the interior, so it is not likely to be an issue with me anyway.
Still, I find it hard to believe that Mazda made this top cheap and fragile, though I would like to tear one open and see what the mechanisms look like.
It certainly is not noisy at all and I have heard a number of people comment on how quiet the operation is, I wouldn't compare it to another PRHT unless I had experienced both of them.
Also, the softtop will wear out, and it is expensive to replace. I am weighing any problems that the hardtop may have, (after warranty), to the issue of dealing with a vinyl top that can be easily damaged by something like a cigarette, (happened to a guy I knew, someone threw it on his top and it burned through), or cut by a thief or vandal.
We'll see how well the NC PRHT is holding up in five or six years, maybe the NC looks will have grown on me by then. :-)
Pat
Concur. A thief-cut soft-top is ... very depressing. Didn't happen on my Miata, but did on previous ragtops. No F'ing fun at all.
There's the rub, for me Pat. What do you do when the gear synchronicity goes haywire - you know, the lid-hitting-backside-of-top deal ("WHY is it DOING THAT!!"). Methinks that mechanics, even at mazda dealership, are not going to ...
Just comparing digging into ragtop replacement (even w/dreaded rainrail) and digging into the PRHT Chilton's (hopefully?) diagram and replacement procedure???...
little scary to me.
-- SM
I have still never experienced that, yet, but I have replaced one softtop and I am about to replace another one. Not something I am looking forward to.
I am not disagreeing entirely, I am generally against new gadgedtry that may/will have problems, but this is just one feature that I really like and may be willing to pay the price for in terms of complexity.
I can fully understand someone wanting the ragtop NC, it is a great design and a huge improvement over the two previous top designs, but I wouldn't call either design "stupid" as Leon declared the PRHT to be.
If the thing turns out to be a nightmare, I will eat my words, but that just isn't common with miatas for the past 18 years now. I am guessing that Mazda went to great lengths to make sure the thing doesn't break down easily, we'll see.
I am not trying to sell the PRHT for Mazda, they don't need me for that, but yet another advantage of this hardtop over previous versions is that it can not be stolen easily unless you take the entire car.
I still remember the post here about a miata owner who had their hardtop stolen at night in a semi-blizzard, leaving the car packed to the roof with snow.
Pat
If I were going to buy one I'd included an extended warranty that covered the top and mechanism for the maximum number of years and miles and then I wouldn't worry about it.
What is Mazda's standard warranty now? Is it still the crap 3 years/50,000 miles?
Pat
Dunno, my Miata was 14 years old and almost 140,000 miles when I bought it, I'm guessing the warranty had expired but I never checked??????
I think their extended warranty is the same as other Fords, should be able to get about 7 years and 100,000 miles maybe?
Of course I don't know what you drove. However those retractable hard top cars I looked at (SLK, Peugeot 206, Renault Mégane, Opel Astra) seem quite well engineered, and for those that have been on the road for several years, they seem to hold up rather well. I know of a 206 - first generation roof - that does very well since about 6 years, even though it's been modified to operate with the car in motion.
Frankly, with a japanese car, I wouldn't worry at all.
Miatas should be basic and simple in my eyes, too. But if it's the only car you drive, and weather isn't always perfect, and the car sleeps outside, the hard top seems a very reasonable option.
cu .\\arc
I had a Renault Megane; very solid car. Liked it. Reasonably quick w/1.6L and 5-speed. Handled pretty good. BTW, it's an exact copy of the VW Eos PRHT selling in USA now. I know this, having parked right next to the VW at a Carrefour (French Target). I couldn't believe it, they're the same car save for slight differences in grille/taillights - otherwise identical. Guess VW & Renault are sharing platforms now? Who woulda ever thunk it.
There were issues with 'shared' trunk space which the Miata doesn't have. But, again, there was a lot of motors and synchronicity and flaps and lids and little whining gears that just ... didn't sound like you'd want to go in there to fix 'something'.
I saw some older Peugeot 206 PRHT's and they seem to be aging - gracefully?
Think the extended warranty would be a good idea. the convenience of a hardtop on a non-garaged car would be nice.
Yeah, and esp. a Miata. They are bulletproof. Best build-quality of any car i've ever owned, bar none.
-- SM
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