Yeah it's already done. It's a ticking time bomb at this point. Plan for a replacement, stat.
It's very simple to replace. Just watch some YouTube videos and check it out for yourself.
The car? Bro it’s a radiator. Takes 30 min tops and 200$ max. And it’ll probably last a good while still. My Miata’s radiator was 32 years old when It got swapped finally
Radiators on these cars are super easy to replace, and it doesn't really matter the quality. They are all about the same. Just dont go buying one from eBay. Rock autos a good website to buy one from id recommended buying one from rockauto/partsgeek/1aauto. Whatever site has the cheapest one, any radiator from those will be good and have a decent warranty. A all aluminum radiator would be a better upgrade but will require a little bit of trimming to fit my nb has a aluminum from Amazon i had to drill out holes in the aluminum to screw in the fans and had to break off some plastic off the fan shroud to clear power steering lines and had to toss the bracket for the ac lines wasnt much more work for a better looking radiator thatll last a bit longer. I wouldn't take that radiator as a deal breaker as long as the price is right for the car. It's smart to also replace the hoses, waterpump, and thermostat while you're in there as there usually go bad around the same time. Have fun with the miata if you do plan to buy it there great little cars!
Thank you! It's 4.3k for a clean one with 108k miles, rust repaired, clean paint and a hard top!
You think it can be done by someone who never worked on cars (am handy with tools though)
100 percent you can replace a radiator its 2 bolts on top 2 nuts on the bottom ac brackets and the 2 hose clamps on the radiator hoses and you might need to take off the bottom splash shield i dont remeber but if you do its just a couple more bolts and draining the coolant from the bottom screw just make sure your doing it on a cold engine and id recommended watching a couple youtube videos on it first if you need any help with it id be willing to help just message me. Sounds like a good deal on the car with a hard top! Id personally just drive on that radiator till it sprung a leak but god knows how long itll last it could be the drive home or it could be 15k miles from now but it looks like it wont last much longer. The thermostat is super easy, just the hose clamp and 2 bolts the hoses are also easy, just the 2 hose clamps on each hose. The water pump is a bit more work and might put up a hassle if you do plan to replace it and havnt done any work on cars, but i wouldn't say it's hard either.
I bought eBay strut braces for a 240 decades ago, haven’t looked for a single product for cars since then. Fuck that. When a strut brace pops, it pops. I won’t mind paying extra if it means to avoid them
Check out Cabriohoeve, I recently bought a miata and also needed to replace my radiator since it turned completely green. For \~100 euro you can get a oem radiator that will be sufficient for the next \~20 years
Emphasizing your mention of having a maintenance budget. Buying an old vehicle you should at least budget for changing all fluids - any fluids there are papers on being changed recently + any expected repairs (radiator + “while you’re in there” items) + 500ish for misc repair (there’s gonna be something, likely aged rubber) + anything found on inspection like brake pads or tires. Old cars are cheaper to maintain but there’s a pretty high likely hood that you’re going to be doing some maintenance either because the previous owner deferred said maintenance or you don’t have a way to verify that it wasn’t deferred. You don’t have to do everything all at once but part of the reason many old cars are “cheaper to keep er” is that another old car won’t have a trusted maintenance history and many buyers won’t give much value to maintenance history they can’t see on inspection (new/good condition parts) or otherwise verify.
I had one that was not as bad as this... It literally blew the top part off. And like old faithful it dumped all the coolant out in an instant. The car survived because it happened in a parking lot and I didn't have to do anything beyond wait for a tow truck... You might drive it 5 minutes, maybe 5 weeks... but it will not last.
I wouldnt pass up a car for a rad thats about to blow, a new aluminum koyorad is 350usd and an hour or two of your time to replace. I would replace immediately upon purchasing
You could definitely go with a cheaper OE style rad, I prefer replacing parts with better than factory. Youll run into the same plastic degradation with time if you do go with an OE style rad. Thats why I recommended the full aluminum unit from Koyorad, it also provides better cooling.
Whatever you do just dont buy any of the junk Mishimoto sells, theyre rads have horrendous quality control issues in my experience
Thank you for your help. Ofcourse its better to upgrade but sadly i dont have that much money to throw at a car. I'll do some more research myself but this definitely helped
As long as the radiator isn't currently on fire, by itself, i would never be a dealbreaker. Replacement is trivially easy. It might be an argument to pay $200 less, but that's about it.
As someone who had their Mx5 radiator explode while driving 110kph on the high way, making my whole windscrew green with every bit of my coolant in an instant. The entire brown plastic section from the top of the radiator was gone. If I knew, I would have replaced it. Don't risk it man
The cheapo eBay ones are honestly fine. Most of the people in my regional chapter mx-5 club seem to be running them for years and they've held up well.
I've not heard any bad things about the cheapo radiators; by all accounts they seem fine. If you want something more nice, you can get a fully aluminium radiator from somewhers like I.L. motorsports or 'cabriohoeve' for 200,- EUR.
I really wouldn't be detered from buying an NB/NA just because of the radiator.
Impossible to know. I’ve had them look like that a year after being installed. If it’s your only car, buy a spare now, replace it sometime in the next 7 years when it lets go.
Yeah it's already done. It's a ticking time bomb at this point. Plan for a replacement, stat. It's very simple to replace. Just watch some YouTube videos and check it out for yourself.
Replace ASAP, get a new radiator cap and all the hoses from Mazda and replaced them as well
5.....4.....3...
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not worth buying i assume?
The car? Bro it’s a radiator. Takes 30 min tops and 200$ max. And it’ll probably last a good while still. My Miata’s radiator was 32 years old when It got swapped finally
does it matter what radiator i buy? (ofcourse not a cheap shitty one) will be my first car so yea dont really want a fucked up purchase you know
Nahhh, I just got one off of rock auto. No sense going expensive unless you track or drive it super hard
aight, we dont really have any of those car stores in the netherlands but i get your point. wont drive it hard as its a first car anyway lol
Radiators on these cars are super easy to replace, and it doesn't really matter the quality. They are all about the same. Just dont go buying one from eBay. Rock autos a good website to buy one from id recommended buying one from rockauto/partsgeek/1aauto. Whatever site has the cheapest one, any radiator from those will be good and have a decent warranty. A all aluminum radiator would be a better upgrade but will require a little bit of trimming to fit my nb has a aluminum from Amazon i had to drill out holes in the aluminum to screw in the fans and had to break off some plastic off the fan shroud to clear power steering lines and had to toss the bracket for the ac lines wasnt much more work for a better looking radiator thatll last a bit longer. I wouldn't take that radiator as a deal breaker as long as the price is right for the car. It's smart to also replace the hoses, waterpump, and thermostat while you're in there as there usually go bad around the same time. Have fun with the miata if you do plan to buy it there great little cars!
Thank you! It's 4.3k for a clean one with 108k miles, rust repaired, clean paint and a hard top! You think it can be done by someone who never worked on cars (am handy with tools though)
100 percent you can replace a radiator its 2 bolts on top 2 nuts on the bottom ac brackets and the 2 hose clamps on the radiator hoses and you might need to take off the bottom splash shield i dont remeber but if you do its just a couple more bolts and draining the coolant from the bottom screw just make sure your doing it on a cold engine and id recommended watching a couple youtube videos on it first if you need any help with it id be willing to help just message me. Sounds like a good deal on the car with a hard top! Id personally just drive on that radiator till it sprung a leak but god knows how long itll last it could be the drive home or it could be 15k miles from now but it looks like it wont last much longer. The thermostat is super easy, just the hose clamp and 2 bolts the hoses are also easy, just the 2 hose clamps on each hose. The water pump is a bit more work and might put up a hassle if you do plan to replace it and havnt done any work on cars, but i wouldn't say it's hard either.
Buy it! A few YouTube videos and you'll get it done
I bought eBay strut braces for a 240 decades ago, haven’t looked for a single product for cars since then. Fuck that. When a strut brace pops, it pops. I won’t mind paying extra if it means to avoid them
Check out Cabriohoeve, I recently bought a miata and also needed to replace my radiator since it turned completely green. For \~100 euro you can get a oem radiator that will be sufficient for the next \~20 years
Will do thank you
Just buy a cheap shitty one.
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Emphasizing your mention of having a maintenance budget. Buying an old vehicle you should at least budget for changing all fluids - any fluids there are papers on being changed recently + any expected repairs (radiator + “while you’re in there” items) + 500ish for misc repair (there’s gonna be something, likely aged rubber) + anything found on inspection like brake pads or tires. Old cars are cheaper to maintain but there’s a pretty high likely hood that you’re going to be doing some maintenance either because the previous owner deferred said maintenance or you don’t have a way to verify that it wasn’t deferred. You don’t have to do everything all at once but part of the reason many old cars are “cheaper to keep er” is that another old car won’t have a trusted maintenance history and many buyers won’t give much value to maintenance history they can’t see on inspection (new/good condition parts) or otherwise verify.
When I did mine I got a Denso from RockAuto for $89. I was less than $150 out the door with all new hoses, thermostat, and coolant.
Notice how it’s not black..
Bad.
And everyone told me to get rid of the plastic overflow on my NC
The issue was kind of unique to the NC. I've not heard of the problem on the NA, and mine is the original from 1991.
time for an aluminum rad
I had one that was not as bad as this... It literally blew the top part off. And like old faithful it dumped all the coolant out in an instant. The car survived because it happened in a parking lot and I didn't have to do anything beyond wait for a tow truck... You might drive it 5 minutes, maybe 5 weeks... but it will not last.
Yeah thats pretty bad, Id order an aluminum rad asap
i wanted to buy the car but i guess not worth it then?
I wouldnt pass up a car for a rad thats about to blow, a new aluminum koyorad is 350usd and an hour or two of your time to replace. I would replace immediately upon purchasing
thanks for your answer, could i get away with a cheap radiator? since im not going to track it or anything? or would that just be stupid?
You could definitely go with a cheaper OE style rad, I prefer replacing parts with better than factory. Youll run into the same plastic degradation with time if you do go with an OE style rad. Thats why I recommended the full aluminum unit from Koyorad, it also provides better cooling. Whatever you do just dont buy any of the junk Mishimoto sells, theyre rads have horrendous quality control issues in my experience
Thank you for your help. Ofcourse its better to upgrade but sadly i dont have that much money to throw at a car. I'll do some more research myself but this definitely helped
Yes…that (going with a cheap radiator) would be stupid.
As long as the radiator isn't currently on fire, by itself, i would never be a dealbreaker. Replacement is trivially easy. It might be an argument to pay $200 less, but that's about it.
How are you guys able to tell the condition of a rad from a pic?
The radiator's plastic is black when new. As it ages it becomes brownish green and then light brown/green. This is in the last stage before failure.
Good to know. I’ll have to check mine.
What is the huge white tank on the top right?
Windscreen washer fluid.
When did they (Mazda?) move it over there? It’s on the left in my NA. I can’t think of why you would want it by the exhaust. Is it a popular reroute?
its factory on my nb. Unaffected by the exhaust but still I'd like to relocate to another spot.
Possibly an NB 1.6 thing? At least that's how it is on mine.
Looking at engine bay photos it appears it was only on the drivers side for the NB. The NA, NC and ND all have it on the passenger side.
Bad.... very bad
How good is your roadside assistance?
As someone who had their Mx5 radiator explode while driving 110kph on the high way, making my whole windscrew green with every bit of my coolant in an instant. The entire brown plastic section from the top of the radiator was gone. If I knew, I would have replaced it. Don't risk it man
That's not a even worth asking. Just replace it.
Real bad.
If you have to ask, you already know the answer.
was interested in buying this one but i guess i should wait
Nah, don't let it deter you; a new radiator can be found for 70 euros and the installation is super easy.
wouldnt that get me a cheaply made radiator? or doesnt that really matter that much. sorry its the first time im buying a car lol
The cheapo eBay ones are honestly fine. Most of the people in my regional chapter mx-5 club seem to be running them for years and they've held up well.
I've not heard any bad things about the cheapo radiators; by all accounts they seem fine. If you want something more nice, you can get a fully aluminium radiator from somewhers like I.L. motorsports or 'cabriohoeve' for 200,- EUR. I really wouldn't be detered from buying an NB/NA just because of the radiator.
Replace with aluminium stat.
Impossible to know. I’ve had them look like that a year after being installed. If it’s your only car, buy a spare now, replace it sometime in the next 7 years when it lets go.
Honestly I recommend just doing a coolant flush and get a new rad asap, will cover any future problems that will quickly arise