Mid-Engined Decision

I'm looking to buy either an sw20 MR2 or a later model Pontiac Fiero and I'd like some insight as to which the better choice is. My budget is $10k, and I'm mainly looking for reliability, but I'd consider all aspects of both cars.

Don't get a Fiero, I had a '87 GT and it was a huge piece of shit.

Riot to drive tho

Don't. That's the only advice you need.

Also, are you actually looking at MR cars with any expectation of reliability, or are you baiting the shit out of me?

Is there something inherently unreliable about MR cars?

I'm just looking for a fun and unique car that wont break my bank account or punish me for being generally inexperienced.

...

Do not buy a MR car unless you can either pay someone to do all of your maintenance, or are very experienced in auto repair. Pic related.

Are there big issues with the Fiero? I know they have roomy engine bays and I'd assume they follow the theme of 80's v6s of being pretty solid engines.

Roomy?

No.

My water pump failed while driving at around 60k miles, in the time it took me to pull over from 65mph and get out the bay got so hot the inside of the luggage compartment started to burn.

At 67k my clutch master broke, at 73k the clutch cable went. The gear box was an irredeemable heap from the minute I bought it, the snap over steer memes are real, if you turned the AC on it shorted the ignition fucking somehow, the brake pistons jammed in normal commute driving more than once. By the time I sold it at around 87k the hubs were shit.

When it worked it was fucking awesome, but that was maybe 15% of the total time I owned the car.

Meant shifter cable @ 73k miles, not clutch

I suppose roomy was an overstatement, but that doesn't appear too awful.

Similar experience with my MR2. The vast majority of the time I owned it, it was on jack stands.

That sucks. Did you buy it in good condition or more on the low end? Given the current market I reckon I could get a pretty decent one, do you think the issues would be as bad?

Yeah, they were never meant to be long lasting. They were marginal vehicles form the factory.

I bought the cleanest one I could find back in '06, I lived in Kansas at the time and fucking drove to Toronto to get the one I wanted, a Black GT with about 28k miles on it. I'll see if I can find any pics, it was fucking mint.

The only real saving grace is that because they're cool, there's a lot of fan/forum/parts remanufactured support. Still a garage queen.

>decades old cheap sports cars are unreliable
What a surprise. Op if you're buying either one you gotta be prepared to fix the hell out of it. If you enjoy working on cars you'll have a blast, but it's not for the faint of heart. I spent the first 4 months of owning my firebird working on it nonstop. It's a lot better than it was, but it's still a pile of shit and will be for a long time

Yeah, I suppose the idea was far fetched, if only I had the time to fix one.

Not that far fetched if you have another car to DD

if you mainly want reliability get MRS.
If you want to choose between those two pick an sw20 and make sure you get the one that has the hoses and shit done otherwise you're gonna explode all fluids out

My MRS never broken down.
Our sw20's here in +30c summers and -30c winters run all year long fine, most broken one is is that it burns oil

Honestly with that budget you should buy a clean sw20 shell and 3sgte swap it, or buy an MR2 spyder. 2zz swaps for them can be done for around 3k including the 6 speed, if im not mistaken.

Despite it's odd looks it really is the best MR car a poorfag gearhead can own, and at least in my area decent zzw30's sell for as much or less than sw20's.

This desu. MR2 spyder is my realistic dream, in that it will be the dream car I own before any other

>What a surprise. Op if you're buying either one you gotta be prepared to fix the hell out of it. If you enjoy working on cars you'll have a blast, but it's not for the faint of heart. I spent the first 4 months of owning my firebird working on it nonstop. It's a lot better than it was, but it's still a pile of shit and will be for a long time
I would expect to spend 4500 for 2ZZ + 6MT

Just get the 3rd gen MR2.

>deeply wish to drive the AW11 MR2
>hear all this shit
>not rich enough to handle all the replacement and maintenance on top of getting the bloody thing
Feels. Bad.