There has been discussion of reliability on the list, and Kenneth Streeter
asked about fuel-injected TR7s specifically, so I thought I'd tell my story.
First, to my knowledge, fuel-injected TR7s are only the "California Specifi-
cation" cars, as opposed to the other types (I don't remember for sure--
U.S.A. specification/Federal specification/European?). The '80 and '81
TR7s and TR8s had to be fuel-injected to pass the more rigorous California
emissions requirements. I expected this to mean that only California TR7s
were fuel injected, but when I bought my car (Summer, 1983), I found a new
1981 TR7 was available from a dealer in Portland, OR that was fuel injected.
Now about reliability. I have owned my car from 15 months past new, with
15k miles, for ten years and 28k miles. I usually have it serviced by a
local shop called "British European Motors" where everyone speaks with the
appropriate accent. I also work on it myself when the problems are too
intermittent for anyone else, or I have the skills without much risk of
mistakes causing failures, or when it is easier to work on than to take in.
The car is not reliable. Only occasionally is that my fault. In the first
20-odd thousand miles I owned it, it experienced seven (!) different won't-
start problems. Most of these were electrical and intermittent. One took
me three years to debug, which involved not starting in the garage a dozen
times, but only once on the road (50 miles from home when my wife was alone
with it -- but that's when it finally failed well enough to truly debug).
In addition to the won't-start problems, I have had numerous expensive must-
repair problems. I paid $7k for the car and spent $8k on parts and repairs
for the 28k miles I have traveled. Had I done less of the work myself, I
would have spent even more. I also have fixed four different water-leaks-in
problems, and other appearance and functionality problems. My list of things
left to be concerned about include two problems that were intermittent for
quite a while (months, anyhow) but went away (I know they'll be back) and
an oil leak out the control shaft of the transmission that is just too
expensive to fix right. It, like many of my problems, is a "day-one"
problem -- it left the factory that way.
The fuel injection specifically is just a part of the overall non-reliability.
It is central to one of my went-away problems. It is also the cause of my
major engine rework (many burned valves, and then a stuck piston): There are
four hoses from the air plenum to the cylinders. To quote a now-disappeared
supplier, "Oh, those crack all the time." When one first cracked, my mechanic
covered the crack with silicone rubber and advised me to get a new one. I
couldn't find one. TRF, Victoria British, all the others; no one had it.
I finally called a junk yard and he had new ones. (I thought I read that
TRF carried everything you could get, but this has been an exception for at
least four years.) But by then, it was too late. (I didn't know the problem
was important, and searched for more than a year; after all, it was only a
few thousand miles.) The extra air leakage caused one of the cylinders to
run too lean, and burned the valves. It failed its smog inspection and was
diagnosed by my mechanic in the period between when I located and received
my new hose.
This spring I found another hose cracking, and immediately ordered all new
hoses (the price declined from $45/ in '91 to $35/ in '93) from Michael's
British Car Parts, which, I read here, bought its inventory from Triumph
Specialty, from whom I bought in '91. Attempting to reduce my risk, I
encircled all the hoses with duct tape. The new hoses are a different
design from the old ones, and may not be subject to cracking.
So, why do I still have my car? I think I have decided that I worked so
hard to fix it that I now have an emotional attachment to it. At one time,
because my use is so low (I commute by bicycle, and also ride for
recreation and exercise) I couldn't justify the capital cost of a Miata.
But, with capital costs (interest rates so low) and my more recent
computation of my repair costs, a new Miata is economically justified.
But I finally have it running really, really well for the first time ever,
so I am irrationally keeping it.
But, if I were Kenneth Streeter, I wouldn't buy one.
--Joe Gorin joeg@sr.hp.com
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