The Miata is intended first and foremost as a fun car; as such, it’s geared for acceleration rather than fuel economy. Mine is okay on fuel, but not great, but it’s also been pretty cheap to maintain. Currently it has about 287K on the clock, still on its original engine and transmission and only its third clutch (it got 100K and 145K on the first two clutches).
I did end up replacing the ring and pinion on mine at around 115K (they broke during an open-track day), but this problem was addressed on ‘94 and later cars by changing to a larger R&P set.
>>The Miata is intended first and foremost as a fun car...<<
This and the number of miles you got out of yours are why I want one. My commute is almost all on two lane twisties. Every single day (central Kentucky). It’s a lot of fun in the Scion but parts of it would be a scream in the Miata. And because I put a LOT of miles on my car, I’d like something I could have fun commuting in for many years, not three or four.
And it would be fun for my wife and me to drive to Chicago to see the grand kids, not to mention the rest of the east coast and southern states.
Now that I think about it, I’m actually thinking of replacing our 2001 Chrysler 300M with the Miata. It’s got 170k miles, got its driver side wiped out by a deer a few months ago, and the AC permanently went out (too expensive to fix) late last summer. I’m thinking of burning through it’s last miles in my commute until the weather requires AC (the heat and humidity here make it a requirement!) and then trading it for a Miata. We’ve got the 4x4 Silverado for the big stuff now. My wife and I can switch back and forth between the Scion and the Miata.
But I ramble...