Enter Grace, the brains behind my good friend Chris. In January of 1998, Grace picked up a clean Phredd '92. By March I had convinced her for a ride (the rib eye steaks I brought over sealed the deal) and I was dazzled. Sure the car had no power compared to the Teg, but the feel of the car was pure joy. Light weight steering response, balanced chassis, and lines that were ageless. I will own one someday, I declared.

Fast forward to the fall of 98. I had received a nice raise, and was also job hunting, knowing well that the market had adjusted but my company still was behind the times. 92 miatas can easily be found for under 10K without looking very hard. My Integra was fully paid off. Then the rationalization happened: so many people I know have 30K SUVs, cars, etc. I was thinking of buying a 30K Z back in 96 (the price of a new one I had negotiated at a dealership). The fact that Nissan of america would only loan my 25K and made me walk away was a blessing: now I could own *two* cars for the price of what many people pay for one. All I had to do was go out and find my miata. Sure, people I know would make fun of me. "What do you need another car for?" they mock. OK...you just keep filling that Ford Exploder and live with 15 MPG I say. I enjoy redline back road driving to the tune of 25 MPG, and I would have 2 cars that gave me that for the same price as your 2 ton hunk of overpriced sheet metal. So in October, I decided I was going to become a miata owner. I already had the financial rational out of the way. Time to be reasonable: plot out a course of action to find a good one. The story unfolded as such:

• Fall is a great time to buy a convertible. Even into winter as I was looking for a used not a new car, and dealer availability was not an issue.
• I am pretty net.savvy, and let my mouse do the walking. Trader On-Line pumped out simple lists for me based on the greater PA region of who was selling 90-93 miata within my budget.
• Many banks will give you loans for used cars up to 7 years old. You just have to shop around. Used car rates are not to bad. Hell, 9% was 2 points lower then I had on my new car loan back in 1995. I wanted to finance part of the car as my other investments are making more then 9%. That economics class paid off I suppose.
• I finished my research on the car and came up to speed on what to look for. Miata.net was invaluable for this, as well as other folks I began to meet from Chris's own contact list.
• I took Chris along to see cars with me. Having an impartial pain in the ass with you is what everyone should do when buying any vehicle. I have played the PITA role several times myself, but this was the first time I needed one along. Frankly, I could not think of a bigger pain in the ass then Chris. I am sure he would concur.

  My wish list was pretty simple. I would look at all packages, but most of all I wanted a fairly clean car. B package would be nice. I prefer not to have leather. Color was a bit of an issue: I wanted Mariner Blue (herein referred to as Smurf since Mazda was too chicken to call it what it is). Smurf is to me the rarest of the early M1 colors that were not limited editions. Smurf also looks excellent with 2 white shelby style racing stripes. My hit list from Trader Online had several within 50 miles, along with this one hit on a Yellow with a hardtop. The hardtop was what caught my eye as that was one feature I had on my wish list but though I would have a difficult time finding. I feel the miata looks very natural with its hard top, unlike other roadsters where the hard top looks like an after thought (think ZZZ).

  Now yellow is a pretty tough color for a car. It works on some, not on others. NSX and Ferrari: yes. Mustang: sort of. Geo Storm: no way. You get the idea. I had only seen a yellow miata once and it was not at time I was interested in getting the car. Pictures on miata.net showed that it did not look that bad. Grace was the one who convinced me to see it first: Its yellow, go look at it. To my surprise, the owner said it was still up for sale, and I politely asked him to not sell it before the weekend (I worked out of town back then) as I was extremely interested in it. He agreed. The next day someone from NC called asking for directions to his place. To the owners credit: he told the gent that someone was looking at the car this weekend and he honored that agreement.

  I arrived on a saturday morning to look at the car. Natural light is a must. Chris brought some simple tools, such as a compression gauge. I brought my jack to look under the car if need be. I arrived at the driveway in a housing complex and was greeted by Sunburst: pure and simple. The color really caught my eye. I had no idea it would stand out that much. But enough gawking, I had to focus on looking at the mechanics of the car. Chris went to work checking things out as I spoke with the owner. It was actually his wife's car, but they were beginning a family and she grudgingly was willing to part with it. I could tell it was a tough decision: it was always her car and she probably was pretty attached to it. She simply said hello and went off to work, and I dealt with her husband.

  The car was in very good condition inside and out. Its a 7 year old car mind you, so a bit of dings and chips was to be expected. The hardtop had some flaking paint, and was well oxidized. A little TLC with 3M glaze products would take care of that. No oil visible in the engine bay, brand new all season tires (well, that was a drawback IMHO, but oh well :) Chris gave me the nod: the car was a keeper. We did take off the bra on the front to examine how the paint was as it seemed the owner did not let it breathe very often (the bra was pretty beat up). I am glad we did this as we noticed a little cracking from what appeared to be a minor bump. This was a New Jersey car, and the ugly front plate had pushed back into the nose creating a noticeable dimple. Paint in the surrounding area was cracking. Upon further examination, the front bumper cover was damaged on the lower passenger side. My guess was something like a concrete parking spot marker had hooked under it at one time. This simply meant a bit of bargaining power.

  A common question on miata.net is "How much is this miata worth". The answer is "As much as you can get for it". There is no right or wrong price. Different areas command different premiums. I believe I paid a fair price for Tatjana. Perhaps they could have held out for a bit more considering it is a Sunburst and there is sometimes a premium for rare colors. But other then the color, its simply an A package miata with a hardtop, and that was how I approached the deal. I simply asked to split the difference of what I estimated a new nose to be, and made my offer. He thought for a second, and agreed. I offered to give him a check to secure the transaction as I had to then get a cashier's check from the bank who agreed to loan me most of the money for the car. He did not even bother. We seemed to impress him with our overall knowledge about cars and the miata in general. I think it was important to them that this car go to a good loving home, which can be expected from any miata owner who must depart with their car for one reason or another.

  I took possession of Tatjana with a bit over 50K on the odometer. I began simple maintenance work immediately by dumping all fluids, and throwing in synthetics where appropriate. I noticed that the right rear caliper was leaking brake fluid. I contacted the previous owner and he told me about replacing it recently when he had problems with changing the brake pads (he stripped the allen nut that adjusts the caliper position). Its something we missed on our inspection of the car: remember to check everything, even if a majority of the major systems of the car look fine. Eventually, he was able to locate a receipt for the part and I exchanged it for a new one at the autoparts store in NJ where he bought it. It was either that or cough up $120 or so for a Mazda part. The aftermarket rebuild unit seemed to work, but it was not really what you want to do IMHO: screws and adjusters are different sizes and it just does not work as well as my left Mazda caliper when it comes to adjusting the parking brake. Good thing Chris is upgrading Grace's car to 1.8L brakes: he will have some OEM parts to get rid of :)