Quick question Veeky Forums, Is this the most reliable mid-engine car ever made? If not, what is?

Nope, even if you removed the pre cats the piston rings were not indexed properly from factory, causing oil to reach the combustion chamber.
T. Mr2 spooder owner

What? Fieros don't really rust if you undercoat them. I had an 84 and frame wise it was solid and I live in Canada and they salt the roads to hell here. fiberglass body as well.

Barring those two issues, is there any other problem? Both of those seem pretty low cost / easy to be aware of and fix in the grand scheme of things. I've heard after those are remedied the engine will pretty much never die if you take care of it.

stop talking about them. theyre still cheap

Oil burning is caused by precats degrading and fucking up the piston rings. It doesn't just disappear when you get rid of them.

T H I S

DON'T FUCKING HYPE IT

Basically if you let the precats degrade long enough it kills the engine. Aside from that, reliable as fuck

Yeah I'm actually on the fence between a MR-S and an NB Miata, though I'm learning more towards the NB because of familiarity and just the door height not being weirdly high.

What do you think of the MR-S? Do you daily it? (If you're the guy that said he owned one earlier in the thread.)

I'm buying one soon

Pantera was famous for being unreliable.
Elvis shot his after it wouldn't start.

>Do you daily it?
Yeah, but it's not for everyone. If you need to carry anything on a regular basis, I would not reccomend it. Also if you do alot of driving at freeway speeds (70-80 mph) the gearing makes it not super comfortable or economic. Other than that, it's super fun and easy to drive. Most of the time, it's pretty comfy. Unless you drive for over 1 1/2 hours, then it could becomes uncomfortable fairly quickly. Overall 10/10 would reccomend to a lonely wageslave.

The Miata handles better and actually has storage space. The meme factor is the only advantage of going with the MR2. Be sure to Lotus swap it for maximum memery.

no. The 1ZZ-FE loved its oiling issues.

If they're taken care of, Pontiac Fieros and first gen MR2's are very reliable. Plus both have more trunk space.

This sounds like it fits the bill for me really well actually. How's the interior and general "car noises" (creaks, etc)? Looks cheaply made but I've heard everything you can't see is actually well put together, unlike a Miata where creaks and groans are normal.

I don't actually take anything with me really anywhere. The only thing I can think of is for LAN parties where I'd bring a console or my PC. In which case I'd have to tell one of my friends to fuck off so I could actually transport it. I'm not sure a mid tower would fit in the spare tire hole.

I'll consider driving one at least, there's a guy that's asking $4500 for his on CL and that would leave enough extra to fix the precat issue and I'd ideally have a nicely running MR-S.

My one question is, how tall are you and can you rest your arm on the door sill? I was so comfy in my NA Miata with the top / windows down cruising with one arm hanging off the door. From what I've seen the meme safety regulations put the door up to about shoulder height, making it awkward in comparison.

Thoughts?

Also: what could I do to make it more aggressive? The styling is very unique but very soft. Softer than an NB Miata even. I wish the front was more angular like the rear is.

anything with a porsche badge with the engine at the back or old vw beetle.

Yeah the interior of mine makes no noises that I could notice. My micro atx pc, monitor, and keyboard fit well in the passenger seat and footwell, but I'm not sure about a full tower. I'm 6'2 240lbs and it is a little akward at first to get my arm on the sill, but you get used to it. As for the styling, you could install a front lip, but I think it's a little cheesy.

>If not, what is?

Wow cool, thanks a lot. These are the kinds of replies you can't find searching forum posts from 2005, ya know? I think the most I would do is a front lip., maybe a wing because I like ricey garbage but also maybe not.

Anyways, cool. Thanks my man.

the precats are super easy to do by yourself.
main issue is finding a car that LOOKS ok but already has damage done

From what I've read, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you can either remove the heat shield and check for damage or remove the O2 (?) sensor and see if the pre-cat is still in tact. Other than that I think the engine will just make generally bad noises saying it's already pretty fucked.

Did I say anything about rust?

its hard to tell if they're completely intact without removing the exhaust header and checking, and at that point you might as well just remove them

How big is this forum's reach? Normies don't come here, worst case scenario is DeMuro writes an article about this car.
Wait, that fucker actually could

He already did

autotrader.com/car-news/why-dont-we-see-toyota-mr2-spyders-anymore-261251

What else would cause the car to fall apart? If you do regular maintenance, it should be fine?

Oh wow. Another reason I kind of want one is the rarity of them. There's NB Miatas fucking everywhere but clean MR-S's seem few and far between. If Demuro's article is accurate, 30k sounds like ridiculously low sales numbers. Then you think about how many might have been totaled / turned into garage queens and that's even less on the road.

I'm definitely leaning towards an MR-S over an NB Miata at this point I think.

kek

Must... 2zz...

Typical doug demuro dogshit blogposting.

>Using Autotrader as a measure of how many cars exist
>pulling reasons literally out of his ass

Fuck DeMuro

precats have a small chance to detonate the enigne, burning oil can be annoying but just burning oil isn't really a reliabilty problem if the engine still runs.

I guess it is.
Researched it since I wanted a midengined car.
Don't know about nsx
but the only problem with zzw30 is precat and its quite serious.
For boxter there's like 20 pages of issues you need to look out for.
If I had to pick one car for reliability I'd stay away from porsche.

getting one but 6 speed manual.
Thanks for info.
Not the user you responded to.

nsx basically has no issues like that afaik
but it's also multiple times as expensive as the best 986 boxster

They literally fall apart, AC stops working, lines randomly leak, plastic bits that hold the windows in place break

I love my MR2. Even before all the aftermarket parts, I'd get looks since you don't see MR2s that often. I wanna say they corrected the pre-cat and piston issues in the 2003+ models. You can find out more about it though on boards like spyderchat.

>pic related, my MR2

I love the look but the front end is so bubble shaped. Not aggressive enough?

Agreed. I originally wanted a C-One front end, but sourcing an original is next to impossible and only other place I've found them is through a company in Thailand. I ordered the wong through them and it was cracked in 3 places when it arrived. Pic is an MR2 with the C-One body

Wing **

Racist-ass phone...

Or you can go full ham with a wide body conversion

That just screams a lot of money on a not so expensive car.

Wonder how this would be in automatic.

The "automatic" in the MR2 is just a manual without a clutch. You have to shift the gears yourself. The computer wont do it for you.
Its unreliable as fuck, and due to its special-snowflake status as a cheap SMG transmission, its also expensive as fuck to fix

It is, but these can be one of those cars that you hold onto and build over time.

And yeah... go manual if you have a choice. I've heard plenty of horror stories of the auto transmissions locking up, getting stuck in gear, not responding, etc. Sure, it can happen to manual, but repairing it isn't as costly

it has a computer controlled clutch

Yeah.
I meant clutch pedal.