It’s one thing to drive a beater close to home, but would you risk driving one across the entire continental United States from coast to coast? Our own David Saunders has shared his own Great Beater Challenge experiences before, but how about doing so through snow, oppressive heat, and torrential rain in a 150,000 plus mile, soft top Mazda MX5 Miata?
Last spring, my own good friends, Tom, Maddox, and David, did just that in the Miata that Maddox had bought for $1,400, using his 2014 Audi A4 as the support vehicle for the journey. If you have the time, I urge you to check out the entire day-by-day series of the journey on Tom’s YouTube channel, Tedward, along with many of his other driving impressions/reviews. On a related note, he recently filmed a POV video from behind the wheel of my latest edition, featured on his channel as well as Winding Road Magazine, if you care to get a taste of it before I write up a full article on it.
Absolutely. Although the support vehicle is cheating as there is zero risk of being literally stranded and having to deal with it.
A Miata is a simple enough machine built in sufficient quantities and sold in enough places that I’d imagine almost anything could be fixed within a day or so, worst case. But the likelihood of something serious going wrong is low to begin with. The first 300 miles would be fun, then there’d be about 1500 miles of tediousness, followed by another 200-300 miles of so of fun through the Rockies either on I70 or I80, followed by another 500 miles of tedium, culminating in about 200 miles of excitement and pleasure at almost being done and being able to stretch out again.
You supply the Miata, I’m your huckleberry.
Afterthought – If the Miata is an automatic, then hell no.
I’ll go with Jim. I’ve never so much as sat in a Miata, so I’m overdue for this. 1500 miles of rock paper scissors sounds like fun, and we could visit Paul and Stephanie at Joshua tree along the way.
Support vehicle – pfft!! Should have called it a camera car.
Well, support/camera/cargo/additional passenger car haha.
If you want to replace the rest of the cooling system hoses for me you can take mine. 🙂
If you want to replace the rest of the cooling system hoses for me you can take mine.
I thought you replaced them all. Seems you posted a pic of the fistfull of hoses you replaced.
Being of a slightly older generation, I am particularly paranoid about cooing hoses, having the upper radiator hose blow on two successive 5 year old Fords, and a hose in a 15 year old Mazda blow, just as I drove it into the shop for an oil change, 12 hours after I had been slamming that car down I-94 for 120 miles, in the dark, late in the evening.
No, I did the easy part and bought them. I replaced the leaker but have not gotten back to the rest.
That’s what I did on my old Focus, bought everything but the heater core hoses were diabolically routed and I thought, “they’re not leaking, I am not doing this” so they were in the box that got passed to the next owner.
I’d be willing to consider doing this for you, but it’s a bit chilly outside for car work this week. Also I have heard your country takes a dim view of foreigners arriving for the purpose of performing untaxed work, but if I had a good lawyer?? 😛
You must be luckier than I. Decades in the stock market, and as a car owner, have made me a firm believer in the cockroach theory. If you see one problem, there are plenty more hiding.
Maybe 3 months after replacing the top radiator hose in my 70 Cougar, in 75, I noticed how iffy the short hose between the water pump and the intake manifold or block, memory fails, looked and had that replaced.
The rest looked pretty good and I am betting some of them had been changed within recent years. However, the thick folder of service records got dropped on the ground on the high winds/heavy snow day we brought the car home and about 1/3 of said service records went blowing across a field in Delaware County, Indiana during a fuel stop. (It wasn’t me who dropped them and any further explanation will just make my life hard at home.) I would still like to replace them all just for piece of mind but so far everything looks pretty decent. Driving this past week has convinced me that it is thermostat time, so I may have some incentive to roll up my sleeves and tackle these this year.
JP – it’s a Miata, there shouldn’t have been a thick stack of service records anyway. Just tell yourself that the part of the stack that blew away was from the prior owner’s Seville instead and left in the folder by mistake. It fits the overall narrative better 🙂
Sounds like a fun video- I’ll check it out tonight. I do find it interesting that road trip adventures often focus on the length of the trip and the vehicle purchase price. In my view, once you’re 100 miles from home, distance no longer matters- You’re adrift on the open road with no ready support system. Also, a car that can 100 miles without issues is equally likely to travel 1,000 miles.
Once I exceed that 100 mile threshold, I want a relatively reliable car with good service and parts support, regardless of the purchase price. For example, a $1,000 Chevy Impala is far preferable to a $5,000 Range Rover.
Based on that criteria, a Miata is a good choice- I drove my daughter’s 1991 from LA to Albuquerque last summer, and lost an alternator outside of Flagstaff Arizona. The local Autozone had a replacement on the shelf, and I swapped the parts in a hotel parking lot. Had it been a rare or exotic 2-seater, I would have been held up two days or more waiting for a replacement part.
It’s a really enjoyable series of videos! And that is the benefit of the Miata being a Mazda and not say, a Maserati. Being held up for 2 days waiting for a replacement part on one of those sounds almost surprisingly little time. I’d expect closer to a week!
I drove my 15 year old Triumph TR3 from north Florida to northeastern Pennsylvania with few tools, no spare parts, and no AAA card.
My 97 Civic was a real beater, too. That car made several trips from Memphis to upstate Pennsylvania. Before I got rid of it that car had nearly 300,000 miles on it.
Support vehicle and a low mileage Miata? Where’s the risk?
As Jim commented on above, the Miata is simple and a very robust and reliable platform. Check craigslist if you want more proof, many NA examples have 200,000 miles plus and are still ticking.
I would think the trip in a Miata that has been well-maintained would be pretty low-risk, especially with cell phones and another vehicle going on the trip just in case.
Nearly 25 years ago a friend of mine moved from the East Coast to the Left Coast, and did so driving a 1964 Rambler, with no support vehicle following him and no cell phone. Now that was a bit of a risk. (He did make it OK.)
Don’t they mean the adventure of driving an Audi A4 coast to coast with a beater Miata as a support vehicle? This seems more true to life to me, but then I am a Miata partisan.
I would not hesitate to give my 97 Miata a try on such a trip (163K on mine). My main hesitation would be fatigue caused by a lack of cruise control and the high road noise (caused mainly by the high revs on the interstate, even in OD.) I would consider a AAA Plus membership more crucial for a road trip in a middle-aged Audi than in a NA Miata in a reasonable state of repair.
On that note, how is your Miata doing?
It is humming along. I put it into service for a few days over the holiday when we needed another car. It was very cold and I notice how the heater’s performance has degraded in the 3 years I have owned the car. I think it’s time for a thermostat because the warmup was very slow. Otherwise, it is still great minimalist fun whenever I get behind the wheel.
Ha, you beat me to the Audi vs Miata comparison! I’d be more comfortable with the Mazda. Though in my opinion, the best vehicle to take coast-to-coast would be a 4wd or at least a Subaru and spent a lot of the miles off pavement.
My daily driver has more miles on it, comes from a manufacturer with a terrible reputation for reliability, and has several major components known to be disastrously failure-prone and pants-fillingly expensive to repair when they do.
You want a real “drive a beater across the country” challenge? Come to Michigan, find a $1,500 work truck, then run THAT across the country!
**after a quick look at Craigslist, it seems the economy’s definitely doing better than even a couple years ago when I bought my F-150. Much better looking selection (at least at first blush) for the money.
Just so long as they can stay clear of Pennsylvania, should be a walk in the park. Poor PA–the Keystone to coast to coast truck traffic–experiences inevitable drawn out traffic jams that can go on for 50 or 100 miles.
High mileage vehicles inevitably overheat.
This has happened to me twice. Both times I was able to make it on to FL with roadside repairs, but it is a bummer!
I routinely drive one of my 25-30 year old high mileage vehicles from VT to FL, and, IF I HAVE SENSE ENOUGH TO AVOID PA (and Charlotte, NC, another disabler), these trips (about 20 so far) go without missing a beat.
So, its not the car, it is the place that is likely to do you in.
The Miata, no doubt will make it across the continent. For me, the more interesting question is whether any of these dorks will get laid in the process.
In all seriousness though, I don’t see an across-the country jaunt in one of these as being any big deal. I have a Miata of similar vintage (which is cosmetically nicer, of course) with similar miles. I don’t hesitate in driving it on long trips in the summer months.
I wouldn’t recommend such a trip until this miserable f#%king arctic weather that is gripping half of the country subsides. Old cars are vulnerable to extreme cold and heat which bring out problems that you wouldn’t have otherwise. In the last week, I’ve seen cars broken down and stranded on a scale like you’d have seen 40 years ago. Even with a support vehicle, roadside repairs would totally blow. Around here today’s high is 3°F.
This morning:
Remember, I drive an Australian car (which is why the pic is upside-down… that, or Apple *still* can’t figure out how to post a pic off an iPhone without editing it first).
I thought maybe you’d rolled into a ditch in the snow.
Those rural ditches can be pretty deep.
With my Samsung I can never get them right side up, I have to make a new JPG using the snipping tool.
It is the right way up when you click on it – maybe it is just the thumbnail in the southern hemisphere.
The Finnish exchange student we had told us about riding pushbikes to school in -20°C.
On the trip, why not? On the proviso that I’d done some maintenance (eg hoses), local driving and a decent trip to check for issues beforehand.
If you click on the thumbnail to see the full size photo, it‘s in correct orientation.
I notice that if I post the photos from my iPad or iPhone, the thumbnail looks upside-down. If I do the same from Mac computers, the thumbnail looks correct.
Glad to know I wasn’t only one scratching my head at this technical glitch. I‘ve reported it to Paul a while ago, but nothing ventured…
It has to do with the way your phone assigns “up” when you take the pic. For whatever reason, transferring to your computer or editing fixes it.
I’m thinking it’s something to do with the site itself; when you click the attachment, it opens right-side-up.
I bought a 1994 Citroen Xantia around 2008 and 2 hours after I signed the papers I was on my way to a meeting 900 kilometers away.
When I told the seller were I was going he thought I was insane.
I made it there and back with zero issues…
Why not, I drove a then 25 yr/old Dustbin 180 right across mainland Australia which is further with only one puncture and the alternator died mid Nullabor, it got there MX5s arent any worse than those for reliability in fact theyre better.
There was a time when I would have liked to drive cross-country, but not alone.
Now? Absolutely not. I’ll either fly or take a train to my destination and rent a car!
What I forgot to include in my comment was: I wouldn’t drive cross-country in a new car, let alone a beater, although doing something like that when you are young can be quite an adventure, as I experienced with a buddy in his 1964 Chevy van from STL-St. Jo, MO in 1974!
We still laugh about that trip today.
As long as the engine doesn’t clang, the exhaust doesn’t blow anything but clear, the transmission silent, wheels balanced, and the oil a nice honey colour, then yeah. I’d do it. It’s a Mazda. Toyota’s vastly underrated spiritual twin as far as I’m concerned.
I had no qualms about driving my ‘64 Beetle round trip from ATL to PIA back in the ‘90s (700-ish miles one-way).
Great way to spend a Tuesday morning!
+1
I would totally do that. Likely without a support vehicle. I definitely need to add a “fly and drive” to the bucket list.
That was a fun series to watch. I would have no trouble going cross country in a 150K mile Miata. Mine has 174K on it and it still doesn’t use oil between 5,000 mile oil change intervals, and I’m not always the nicest to it.
You should call Flyin Miata and ask them to connect you with the person/s that drove the white 1990 Miata to their summer camp last year. From what I understand, they live on the East Coast and drove it out there to do some track work with it, then were going to drive it back home via Alaska. Oh, and it has been turbocharged since 1991 and had around 470,000 miles on it. The original engine had around 70,000 on it when it had the SNC failure and the engine was replaced with a new factory one, but the “new” engine and turbo system have not been rebuilt since. I think that would be a cool Curb Side Classic feature.
Hi, Eric!
In that direction, yes. By the time you’re past the Pennsylvania Turnpike you know the car, by the time you hit Chicago everything that might’ve been about to break has, and has been fixed.
Going the other way might be a different matter, the Mojave Desert in a beater I don’t already *know well* is a bit of a scary prospect.
If I could take my beater sure I would. Mines a Focus Coupe with a stick and no cruise
And it’s over the 150K barrier
At this point in my life no to the Miata, especially in the winter, though as Jim noted having a support vehicle is cheating a bit.
I would however do it in a beater that wouldn’t punish my body as much, your basic boring mid-size sedan, CUV, or SUV, at least long as I checked it out and it was in decent enough condition, ie tires that aren’t bald, brakes that aren’t down to their last 32nd” ect.
“This car is way too new for such a challenge; get back with me in another 35 to 40 years,” said he who has no qualms about driving a 50-odd year old Ford long distances and with no shadowing support.
Seriously, it would depend upon its history. Having driven JPC’s Miata, I wouldn’t think twice about driving his such a distance.
A Miata? No. I’m 6’2″/280. A comfy, well-maintained big American classic? Sure, but without a ‘support vehicle’ I drive 40+ year old cars on a 114 mile daily commute so no big deal, in the end they are just cars.
I’m sure the trip was fun and interesting, but the adventure factor is kind of negated by the umbilical vehicle following. Reminds me of a story that makes this trip pale in comparison though…
Many years ago, I was travelling BC’s Pine Pass in a winter storm. This the mountain pass that connects southern BC with the start of the Alaska Highway. Remote and sparsely travelled even today, it’s no place for a vehicle problem. Just as it was getting dark I encountered an old MG with California plates gamely plowing along through the accumulating snow. We were maybe 100km from the nearest town. It was well into the minus temperatures. I was in a Highways Department 4 wheel drive with 2 full tanks of gas, a 2 way radio, people who knew where I was and plenty of weight and it wasn’t a trip I undertook lightly.
I went around the guy to try and at least open up a path and slowed down enough to keep him in my rear view mirror, stopping a couple of times until he caught up, until he pulled off at the only gas station about half way along. He flashed his high beams as he pulled in and away I went. In those days the only Americans you saw up there in winter were servicemen heading for a posting in Alaska so I’m assuming that’s what this guy was doing. I never heard about an MG popsicle turning up in the spring so I guess he must have made it to the Yukon border at least.
I’ve always wondered if the guy realized what he was getting into. If so he had a lot more guts than good judgement. Hope he made it to wherever he was going.
Well, keep in mind that there were three people and their luggage for a weeks long journey. The Miata fits two and has very little trunk space.
Apologies, didn’t mean it as a put down, just reminded me of seeing that wayward MG.
I do still wonder what the hell the guy was doing out there…..
He was a British Leyland employee who’d complained about management once too often and been exiled to do some “road testing.” 😉
I did Vancouver BC to Sydney NS in an 18-year old Crown Vic in April with no issues. The next 400 KM trip, it split its intake manifold cooling passage, stopping it dead.
I had a 91 Miata (that was 10 years old at the time, with almost 200k on it) and I regularly drove it from St Paul to Milwaukee (roughly 300 miles) and from St Paul to Duluth and up the North Shore (about 300 if I went all the way to Canada) I never once had a problem, other than wishing the car had another gear after 5th (or an overdrive) I can’t imagine cross country listening to the engine turning 3k rpms the whole way… Miatas have fantastic heaters, I drove mine year round in Minnesota and never had a problem staying warm, and adding the hard top made it even more comfortable.
I (and a friend) drove a 64 Malibu from LA to Milwaukee way back in the 90’s, after putting in junkyard engine and trans (from a different yard!) We had multiple problems the whole way (and the car got 7-10 mpg so we spent a ridiculous amount on gas) The trip was fun enough still that we did it again the next year!
The most adventurous road trip I’ve ever taken was in a friend’s brand new Vega back in 1972. That car was the worst POS I’ve ever experienced – pieces of it were literally flying off, including one of the windshield wipers in a heavy rainstorm. The carpet came unglued and obstructed the pedals. And the engine was pinging and missing all the way home. A heavily used Miata would be a far better bet than that Vega, a result of all that cost cutting at GM and hard partying in Lordstown.
A Miata is a little smaller than I would choose for a long trip, but other than that sure.
I don’t know about cross country, but I have taken multiple 1000 mile trips in my Chrysler convertible. Those of you who have seen the car will either be impressed or horrified. 😉
Impressed. ?
Does putting 25,000 miles in a year, including more 3-400 mile runs than I want to remember on a $300 Cutlass Cierra that was bought as scrap for the motor count?
$300 to buy
$ 50 to put on road
Only breakdown 2 wiper motors
$200 finally scrapped 17 months after being taken off the road for scrap the first time!
Given the chance I’d have driven it cross country and not blinked.
Meh, with a support vehicle there is no fun in this.
I wouldn’t have a problem trying this, even without a support vehicle. For many years I had daily drivers that were older, had more miles and likely not as reliable as this Miata. I did fine, never had any major issues.
I’d do it but, predictably, I’d want it to be a bigger car. Within the past 6 years I’ve driven 70s cars from Manhattan to DC, Chicago, Vermont, and Wilmington NC. If a car has no fast fluid leaks (fuel obviously doesn’t count at any speed), stops properly, has working wipers and ventilation/heat, and there were no clunking noises from the engine or suspension, I’d wager it makes it. No pursuit car needed…5 quarts of oil, one quart of transmission fluid, and some coolant and v belts, just in case. AAA plus service a smart bonus.
Every car I owned up until the age of 30 was a beater or started out as a beater so, why not? Those were my peak road tripping years. Summer of 1987 at the foolish, ahem, fearless age of 22 I packed up my ’69 510 wagon and left Hamilton ON for a one horse town in Alberta making a side trip to Vancouver BC and naturally Vancouver Island. Can’t go west without seeing the ocean. Did the ceremonial tire dip in the Pacific Ocean. No hotels, just tent and sleeping bags and a couple of changes of clothes. Sleeping rough with the wildlife. Coyotes passing by late at night, bear tracks outside the tent first thing in the morning and whatever it was that ran away when I turned on the flashlight. It was huge.
Burned out a set of front wheel bearings half way across Saskatchewan on the way home. Early 510s had smaller diameter front end parts than later models so parts supply even back then was iffy. After I got home I upgraded everything to the larger ’70 and later bits.
This was just the inspiration for the next summer’s drive to the Atlantic Provinces with a failed attempt at crossing Newfoundland. Failed only because of lack of sleep, red eye ferry, and the constant torrential rain. ^$#@ this we’re going home.
The last epic road trip was the ’75 Datsun 710 all the way to Mexico City. This was in 1993. We got turned away at the US border because they said we weren’t carrying enough cash to buy a decent car when this one breaks down. Undeterred we came back with stacks of cash and were searched and interrogated like the criminals they thought we were before letting us pass. This trip was hotels at dusk and on the road at first light mostly. Spent a month running the gauntlet that is Mexico City traffic before heading home. Crossed the border into Canada on New Years eve.
These days it’s all airplanes, rental cars and hotels. Car camping is down to a week or less not more than a day’s drive from home. I do long for the days of freedom on the open road. Maybe I’ll drop a few pounds, load up the 510 wagon and head out again one day.
After finishing graduate school in 1996 I took a cross country (US and Canada) round trip in a 1990 VW Golf 2 door, bought a couple weeks before the trip with about 150,000 miles on it. The car was pretty rudimentary, but most functions worked and it was reasonably comfortable. The trip took me from Connecticut to Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and back, crossing the border several times.
The car had some minor issues along the way and tended to run poorly in cold weather for reasons I never figured out; the trip through sparsely populated regions of northern Montana and southern Alberta, bucking and chugging as though the engine was about to give out, were memorable.
A few years older now, and perhaps a little wiser, I would be less likely to make such a trip in an unproven, overloaded, high-mileage car with no tools and little money, but it was fun and the car performed admirably.
Now that I am thinking about it, the idea of a beater challenge has a certain appeal, though the practical and financial aspects of buying, registering and insuring a vehicle for that purpose would likely dissuade me from actually doing it.
I bought Miata in August. Still hasn’t arrived from Japan. It’s probably nice.
I’ll be taking my classic 1993 Chrysler Concorde on one of the road trips I’m taking this summer, that is if I don’t find a mint condition J-body LeBaron convertible between now and then.
I’m beyond confident that it will make the trip. It has less than 50,000 miles and was a garaged, one-owner vehicle with service and maintenance receipts from day one. I was in diapers when this car rolled off the assembly line.
My wife doesn’t feel comfortable taking an older car on a long trip (we have her 2015 Outback, my 2013 200 and my 2006 Ram 2500 to choose from as well). It had a clean bill of health from the Chrysler dealer right after I bought it, and all belts, hoses, fluids and tires were replaced and the car was inspected from edge to edge to keep it that way.
My wife never had any confidence in domestic cars (or Mopars)…”they break down a lot!” was her thinking when I suggested to her a Durango or Grand Cherokee when she wanted to replace her ’09 Jetta. Well, I have had two (now three) LH cars from both generations, and currently, both a 200 and a Ram and never had any ounce of trouble. My next DD will for sure be a 300 or a Grand Cherokee, but that’s years away. I love my 200.