The great thing about craigs is that it's local. Ebay runs the lot on reliability, some great cars there, but generally anyone should be able to sell locally. You also can't go look at cars in other states, and then have to go pick it up or worse, ship it.

I've never messed with carfax. I prefer to just go look in person. If you haven't bought used cars before, bring someone knowledgeable, or find a shop that will check it out for you.

Look locally or next town over, be patient, keep saving.

 

ugg cancel out the last post im retarded....

 

Here is what I would do. You have 3000 dollars.

GET the most dependable cool car you can. You DO NOT WANT TO ALWAYS BE TINKERING WITH JUNK!

If you want cheap power, get a clean camero or mustang. Even the V6 camero with the 3.8 is pretty fast. But try to get a clean V8.

If your heart is set on a miata. Get the cleanest one you can find for your money. Don't buy the first thing you see.

Then you have a good dependable base. And you can get dates in it. Girls hate junkers..... Throw on a k&n air filter, and mabe a 2 1/2 inch exhaust. A 2 1/4 would be beter for na. But since you want turbo, I would go 2 1/2. Then you will be good for turbo when it comes.

Your car will be faster, and fun as can be. and you won't be working on it. Then you can save and buy parts as you go. Before long you will have enought to turbo it.

But BUY THE NICEST CAR YOU CAN GET!

And by the way, you can pick up turbo'ed miatas for 2500-5000. I just had to fly to florida on a buddy pass and drive it back. Dang good car, just a cracked ebay mani. But the welding shop can fix that. We spent $6000 and bought 2 FI miatas in one trip to florida.

And then we got to drive 2 red FI miatas with tops down, along highway 10 on the Gulf coast. It was cool.

Good Luck!

 

We were lucky though. atleast the guys were honest about the cars shape. And we new the clutch was going out in one of them.

But I am also good at picking up on cues of what is really wronge with the car.

ALWAYS CARRY A GOOD MECHANICAL FRIEND, when you are looking at cars. that way you don't get screwed.

 

No it isn't. It's bad. Stay away. No one over buys cars off of CL. Especially Miatas.

I bought 8 Miatas off of CL in the last year. Three in Iowa and five in MO. Never bought one in NE. Good luck beating me to one.

Seriously, there are some nice Miatas in that price range, but you won't find too many right now in our area, unless they are a fixer-upper and people just want them out of the garage or driveway. If they are decent, they have been stashed until spring.

IMO, the cars on Cars.com or Autotrader always seem to be priced too high. CL pricing has been much better. I'd look there.

 

lol


or you could just learn to talk, and get any girl you want. I've landed some super hot, trashy ******, and even a few respectable ones, in my 5-color 1994 with 14's and blown out interior. lol

 

if i were you i'd keep searching for a decent 3-4k NA over the course of a year or so and work a **** ton and save all the while. that way when you actually get a good buy, you have a good amount of money to dump into it to fix it up and make it as nice as possible.
(don't forget to read a **** ton in your free time)

if you're bent on getting a turbo, from one newb to another the best advice i can give you is that you must ABSOLUTELY BUY 'Maximum Boost' by Corky Bell.
best 32 dollars i've spent in a while.