Total cost of soft top vs HT
 

Hey peeps, I have been on the search for the right OEM ht top. I really don't care about the defroster or headliner, i just want a reasonably priced top. With that being said I have been looking at just replacing the soft top, due to lovely individuals whom slashed my back window and stab the soft top. After compiling prices, I see that for a good glass soft top i would spend $350, plus possibly $120 on new weather seals and rain rail, and about $200 to install. totaling around $720, a used HT could be had at around that price.

Is this somewhat accurate? I'm reaching out to the owners whom made the choice of making their miata a permanent coupe, or anyone who went through this same scenario.

Thanks
Frank

Not sure if I'm much help, but I'm one of those people with only a hardtop. I still go topless for summer evening drives and whatnot with the lady friend, i just pop it off and leave it in my driveway while I go hit some boosts.

90% of the time i'm rocking the HT though. No regrets on the softop delete, because i don't have anywhere to store my hardtop anyways other than on the car. Plus weight reduction, yo.

Hardtops vary depending on location and the amenities instilled... a stock NA hardtop w/o defroster will vary from 400 to 700 depending on condition/paint.

IMO, fix your soft top. If you have an opportunity to get some local help try and install it yourself and save some money... I own a hardtop and use it occasionally, but if it was an awesome spring/summer/fall/winter day or I was making a fun road trip to Tennessee, I'd be real salty as soon as I saw another convertible car pass me by.

It's pretty easy to install a new soft top. I've done a couple. Rain rails are a crapshoot. I've parted out seven and maybe 2-3 have been usable so you will likely need one.

I've been sans soft top on my current car and the HT has never been off. The soft top and frame is 37 lbs complete FWIW.

I'd like to know where. Shitty hardtops in odd colors go for $700 in California. Perfect black tops are $1200+.

Damn I feel lucky then, I paid $650 for a black NA HT with no defroster that was repainted just before I bought it.

OP your question really depends on where you live. I like top down driving when it's warm enough, so I would say if you're in a place where it will be warm enough ~30-50% of the time, go with a soft top.

The HT really does cut down on road and wind noise though.

I sold a mediocre black top for $1250 in under 12 hours on Craigslist a few years ago. Posted at midnight, had ~12 offers before 8am the following morning. Even faded red tops with no defrost/headliner will fetch $700 pretty consistently.

This.

A hardtop is between $700 and $1200. Most are sold right around $900 here in PA.

A soft-top, with rear glass (buying plastic is pointless for most buyers), rain-rail, and install is about $900. This is for professional installation, and an OEM quality top which will last a decade.

Easy... California doesn't count :giggle: drift/flush tax I presume.

I got mine for 650, there's an nb one for 850 with def for sale now in Hillsboro. I've seen them as low as 400 with some work needed though.

Damn I haven't had any luck Finding a black hardtop for under $1k in chicagoland.

Come to ohio. Why does it have to be black?

I think I've seen one hardtop in 2 years below $800 in any color.

Still can't believe how lucky I was to buy a running car with a hardtop for $1200 before those BTDT guys could get it. :giggle:

I don't think I've ever seen a hardtop for under a grand in any condition in the Chicago area. They only made so many and loads of them have been destroyed over the years.

I had to buy a whole car to get mine lol

I actually use both my ht and soft top, I'd just get a cheap zippered vinyl window top and look for a ht.

I bought my HT 2 years ago for $950, and that was a good deal. It was a repaint, and not even a very good one at that.

But your price comparison is a bit off, in my opinion. You shouldn't have to replace seals when putting in a new soft top, unless they're in terrible shape. I got new ones because I found a bargain I couldn't pass up. However, you probably should replace the cables with a new top, as they tend to break by the time the top is shot. Rain rail is a good idea as well, but that can be had for less than $100. So, top for 320, rail for 75, cables for 35. That's well under half the cost of a HT.

That's for non-zippered glass window. Factory style plastic (zippered or not) are under $300, easy.

Oh, and if you're paying someone to replace the top, you're just throwing money away. It's not that difficult, just a bit of a pain-in-the-ass.

Hesus... Have you guys ever heard of craigslist?

I've bought 3 hard tops. All of them came with cars attached to them.

The first was a white hard top that I picked up on a beater car. Paid $1700 for the car then ended up scrapping it after I realized what a PITA it was. Sold the HT for $700.

Second HT I bought was on a black '99. Paid $3500 for the car, sold the car 3 years and 20k miles later (sans hardtop) for $4200. That HT is still on my car.

Third HT I bought came on a very nice red car. The guy bought the car brand new in '93 with the factory HT option, then stashed the HT in his basement. I paid $1300 for the car and the guy accepted my $400 offer for the mint red hardtop. Replaced the driveshaft in the car and gave the car to my mother for her 50th birthday. Made mom and dad fork out $400 to keep the hardtop though.

Black Hardtop - $900 - Dallas
2001 Miata Part Out! Please read first!!

I never tried to ship a hardtop, but I did get a roll bar shipped. About the same size.

I got a custom color hardtop, sans defrost, in very good condition for $300. It was my lucky day, I guess.

My plan is to remove the soft top, it's a piece of garbage anyway.

Those $45 cheapie rain rails on eBay work fine. It's still more expensive than it needs to be, but at least you aren't paying $100 for a bit of molded plastic and rubber.

Your soft top price sounds too high.

I paid about $350 for my top with the rain rail already attached plus like $40 for new tension cables/springs. Miatatopsource.com they're actually running a sale right now, you can get the non-zippered top I got with the rain rail already attached for $288, and like another $40 for the tension cables.

Hardtop only here...in sunny south Florida.

Will never go back to a softy.

Yeah, soft tops can be had quite cheaply. And I was really quite surprised by how easy it was to install when I did my first one. I generally consider myself to bee damn near incompetent when it comes to body work and related issues, but this is something that genuinely is pretty hard to screw up.

Rain rails...

Avoid buying the cheap ones- trust me, they're just utter garbage. And forget this myth about the being to be pre-attached. The rail doesn't need to be attached to the top at all- the body molding holds them together.

On both of my cars, the old rail was a bit cracked, and I opted to repair it with some bicycle inner tube and rubber cement. Worked like a charm.


As for hardtop vs softtop, I sometimes hear weight mentioned. A complete soft top assembly including frame, especially if you use one with a plastic window, is extremely light as compared to an OEM hardtop.

Someone here mentioned the soft top being 37 lbs and I remember a few others claim the hard top weighing 45 lbs. That's not that big of a difference, IMO.

I did enjoy going top down when I first got my NA, but cowl shake was nearly a deal breaker for me. If I couldn't fix it I would have had to get an NB. A hard top fixed it. Then, the only time the HT came off was when a friend's wife borrowed the car to go joy riding with her friends.

Bolted down the HT top with these. Now NVH is further improved and nobody ever asks to borrow the cute little convertible. And I don't miss the sun in my eyes at all.

Have to agree 100%. The hardtop transformed the composure of my NA and I value that way more than having the top down occasionally. Dave, did you keep the interior plastic panels when you installed the side brackets?

I had to cut away a little of the plastic around the side brackets. In the front I made spacers from 3/16" plate. The spacers made the brackets fit better but also made it unnecessary to remove any plastic.

OTOH, I never weighed a soft-top, but I find it hard to believe that it weighs 37 lbs, especially the plastic-window version on the NA. It really is extremely easy to lift the whole assembly out of the car all by yourself.


OTOH, the HT is quite beefy. I could easily see 45 lbs or more- that big ole' piece of glass is a monster.


OTGH, I find it hard to take weight-based arguments seriously, esp. when we're talking about differences of 20-30 lbs on a street-driven car. This seems like an excuse that people use to justify eccentric behavior.




Interesting...

Both of my NAs ('90 and '92) have been rattly, flimsy beasts. This was never a deal-killer, though I'll admit that I have mostly only owned old, rattly cars.

I did own a hardtop at one point. I bought it years ago, shortly before moving to North Carolina into an environment where the car was going to be parked, unused, most of the time, outdoors, in a moderately high-crime area. With the top on, the level of squeak / rattle was greatly increased.

I was glad to be rid of it after I left that town. Moved to FL and then CA, and the only time it was ever back on the car was when I needed to transport it from one home to another. Finally sold it for beer money a few years later.


Given the option, I would probably elect to buy a car with a PRHT as opposed to a conventional soft-top, simply from a standpoint of durability and quietness on those days when it's raining / snowing sufficiently much for me to have raised the top while driving. But as to having a rigid, detachable HT again? Probably not. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I didn't care for it at all.

My first Hardtop I scored on craigslist for 250... Matching my first red car as well.
2nd I traded a good soft top and install for... Matching my second black car. Sometimes you get lucky.

I have a soft top assy. behind my shop I'll weigh it today and let you know

Edit: Yup 37.4 minus plastic window

Mine would rattle and squeak if the latches weren't adjusted tight enough. Eventually I ran out of adjustment. I'm not sure what changed, but I just couldn't get one of the latches tight anymore, which is why I went to the bolt-on brackets. Now I own a coupe.

But, even when loose the top still killed cowl shake. Rattles and squeaks I can live with (my Subaru is worse than my Miata!) The cowl shake I couldn't cope with. I have experience with only this one Miata; maybe it's worse than others, I dunno...

I will add that after removing the soft top the rear shelf is actually useful. Stuff slides around a lot... I don't put anything that'll kill me back there.

Iono. I bought a Miata so I could have a convertible. I fully intend to store my hard top from april/may ish until at least October or November.

If I ever daily drive a miata again I would really consider doing a soft top delete, using a hard top in the winter, and running a full tonneau cover to zip up when parking it outside in the rain.

I can't imagine not having a soft top. What happens if you're in the middle of a drive and it starts raining?

I guess it depends on the purpose of your car. Mine is a "fun car" but I still use it plenty for commuting and other non-sunny-weekend trips.

When I had a hardtop, I really, really liked it, except I rarely wanted to stop and remove it, so I rarely drove with the top down.

Speed up until you stop getting wet.

^ This.

Even when I lived in SoCal, and "never" put the top up, there were still rare occasions when it was nice to have. (eg: for the few days a year that it did, in fact, rain.) I'd never have wanted it gone altogether.

I can't fathom wanting a permanently (or semi-permanently) attached hardtop, though. I've only ever owned two hardtop cars in my life, and I hated both of them. No reason at all to deny yourself the experience of open-air motoring.

X1000. Yet another reason I wanted to get out of the GTO.

The Miata is, for me, a motorcycle replacement. Gotta have the open air feeling!

Haartz Mazda Miata 1990 2005 Convertible Soft Top Plastic Window Black Cabrio | eBay

Mazda Miata 1990 2005 Convertible Top Economy Rain Rail | eBay

[NA] Ebay Soft Top Question - MX-5 Miata Forum

Installed the eBay $159 top today... Come inside for pic and walkthrough... - Page 3 - ClubRoadster.net

Update: I installed the $158 ebay soft top. Looks great and didn't break the bank. Took my 6hrs in the rain/hail to install. Could do it in 3 now if it was dry.

Yup. I've done the soft-top install enough times that it's straightforward, if not exactly easy.

I know people think they are being smart by getting a $600 top that will last 10 years, but so what? I've never owned a car for more than 3 or 4 years anyway.

^This.

In fact, it's been my experience that the expensive tops can actually fail sooner than the cheap ones. The first top which I put on my '92 was a nice Robbins top with a glass window. After two years, the window started to de-laminate and fall out. I made the mistake of thinking I was buying something that was built like an NB top, but no- it was just a cheap top with a piece of glass literally glued into the fabric.

On the '90, I installed the cheapest no-zip plastic window top I could find. It was still in near-perfect condition when I abandoned the car in a parking lot in Santa Clara 3 years later.

I get what you're saying, but it also depends on the usage of the car. By your own admission, you rarely put your top up living in So Cal. By contrast, those of us living in places with weather will put ours up and down much more frequently, and I think that's where most of the wear and tear on a top comes from. The OEM top on my '99 looked near-perfect when I bought the car in 2011 because the previous owner used it as a fair-weather car and rarely raised or lowered the top. Within a few months after my daily-using it, it was developing tears where the rear bow slides across the vinyl, and it's not because I wasn't gentle with it.

That said, I'm not convinced that you necessarily get what you pay for with the pricier non-OEM tops. I took a gamble and bought the pricier OEM-style NB Robbins one. We'll have to see how it holds up if the weather ever turns nice enough to install it. If it survives its 6 year warranty without any issues I'll consider it money well spent.

My hardtop was $750 in my paint color with a few paint chips.

I've got a receipt from the PO for replacing the soft top. She spent $950 for a sub-quality glass window top and a poor installation. I had to replace a bunch of the soft top parts like the rests on the floor, the rests on the top, rubber bits, the guy didn't even reinstall her rain rail, so I had to cut out my rusted through package tray....

I love the hard top, but I do miss just getting the urge to have the wind in my face and dropping the top. One day when I get a garage.

Exactly, by which logic it should have taken far longer than average for the glue holding the rear window to the top fabric to fail and allow the window to de-laminate from the top.

Or, don't bother spending money on glass rear windows for NAs, unless you are doing a full NB conversion, frame and all. They are less durable than plastic, and also afford far poorer rearward visibility owing to their small size.

I think this is the answer. I have never seen a NA frame with a rear glass window not fall out within 2.5 yeas. On the other hand I have seen high end Robbins tops with zippered rear windows last longer then the cheap ebay tops. I use a mix of both types between my miatas. I have no problem recommending the cheap ebay tops as long as you don't want a rear zip down window.

<<--- must be anomaly

I've had a Robbins soft top with zippered glass window in my NA frame for about 3.5 years. Perhaps it will fail soon? No evidence yet that it's giving out.

I bought a ebay plastic window top and it has been good for over two years

My glass window lasted an easy 10 years. It was on the car before I bought it.

I'm not sure what you zoo animals are doing to your tops but take it easy.

Have anybody had an experience with Chinese HTs?

I've been considering the same route, deleting the soft-top and rocking the hardtop only. If I do it I'll most likely go with the Carbon hardtop because its an exact replica of the original design.

Where are you planning to get one?

^^^ Hardtop, I hope this helps.

My glass window was installed in 2009 in a NA frame, so it's been five years. The inner liner is a little messed up from having Robbins rests installed on a non-Robbins top, and the top bow delaminated from the top when I had the hard top on for almost a year. Other than that it's in great shape.

Be careful with the aftermarket hard tops. I haven't read anything about CarbonMiata's (and I want to buy their shorty bumper and his upcoming dual light conversion) but the other ones on the market don't fit like OE, and a lot of sealing and ingenuity is required. The aftermarket tops are also a no-go at any racing facility. It's OEM hard top or no top.

At least SCCA Time Trials allows non-OEM hard tops, as long as you are in a class that allows hard tops to not be factory (still required to be within an inch of the factory ones dimensionally). Some lower classes only allow factory ones to avoid the super lightweight ones.

Curiosity:

Are you planning to equip this top with a glass window and OEM-style weatherstripping and mounting hardware?

How much do you think the shipping is on that? Gotta be another 300$

EDIT: asked him $700 USD for just shipping. Comes from china.

Moss Miata has good selection of soft tops and great folks to do business with. Prices on HT go all over the place. dave

FYI. Consider selling a very Good to near mint (Black) Hardtop with electric defrost in glass back window - and which has a rolling HT carrier and cover which is new.. had on 92.. which garage trashed.. now own NC PRHT so don't need the removable one (from research, top fits all years,, just need hardware specific to your year and situation. Turned down $1k a couple of times as I liked having HT for the 92. Have a lot of NA parts which seem to be redundant. Don't have any idea about shipping , but it would need to be crated if you don't have transportation to Florida Territory's

The best way to ship a hard top across the country is bolted onto a miata, be that miata driven, on a trailer or in a trailer. Find someone near you going to a racing event near the buyer, and boom, hard top shipping service.

Thanks... for info.. I don't understand the part about watching me test compression.... haven't a clue what that is , much less test it. After 30-years in construction.. working to solve problems with buildings.. IF two people want to do a deal on a hardtop or anything else.. they will find a way.

ps: If I'm doing something wrong on this site, let me know.. I've gathered you need to do a lot of posts over a long time before selling anything on the site.. so I've left that alone until it's okay.

When I first got the NA ('92) which had both a new rag top and the hardtop... had to re-tighten EVERYTHING.. waxing the gaskets helps with squeaks.... and having everything aligned and tight,,, there were NO rattle, groans or other noises related to the hardtop. Hardtop had new gaskets which might have helped.

Lifted off the car by myself.. it may not weigh MORE than 50# but it's an awkward 50# or close to it.. long enough to get onto a wheeled car with a strap to keep in place when moving. Covered until needed again.

I'm still extremely curious as to the motivation behind purchasing an aftermarket top (such as from the CarbonMiata link which my97miata posted) as opposed to using an OEM top.

It seems like this introduces a lot of unknown variables, and increases the cost, without providing any immediately obvious benefit.