Looking for value open-top. Advice please.

Look on ebay...you will be amazed at what $8000 will get you. And you can't go wrong with a Miata. Tom

$7k will get you a very nice miata, even the M2's are plummeting in price.

This one has 107K miles, no idea of the condition, but it is the lowest cost/newest miata combination that I have seen so far.

Obviously you won't be traveling to Austin to get it, but you can check Craigslist, Autotrader and do an Ebay search of miatas within a specified range of your location to see what is out there.

It's a great car, but they made a lot of them. It is worth shopping until you find exactly the right one.

Good luck!

Pat

Ditto that. If you are in the Seattle area, a couple other websites to check out are leejohnsonmazda.com and seattletimes.com (link to Auto on the front page). I ended up getting my '03 Shinsen CGGW on eBay a couple months ago. It's not for everyone, but I ended up happy.

Thanks for the replies. Looking thru the ads in the Seattle area I'm seeing prices waaayy above recommended prices (edmunds.com).

if you want a bargain on any convertible then you need to shop in the fall/winter. they trade at a premium in the spring for obvious reasons.

I bought my '96 for under that with ~42k miles (Minneapolis). The Miata is a surprisingly practical car with the exception of space - while I can get a small setup of musical gear in there, most of my equipment simply won't fit. And people will stop asking you to pick them up at the airport.

I drive mine thru our winters, you will need some proper winter tires. I can vouch for the slipperyness of the stockers.

miker

"miker" you will need some proper winter tires. I can

LOL, kind of hard to "overvouch" (nw) that one, as I found out in Massachusetts, come December..

"Massachusetts, come December"? Lol, try Seattle come March! Two inches of snow - maybe - and I made it all of 15 feet to the edge of the driveway. Now granted, these were aftermarket tires. Maybe the stock summer tires would have gotten me into the middle of the street before leaving me stranded ;-)

So yeah, if you want to drive it in winter, get winter tires (or all- season at the very least).