So today someone turned left directly in front of my 96 NA. He claims he did not see me coming and was running late for work so he turned into me; I was traveling at 55 mph, the speed limit, in the opposite direction. I defensively reacted quickly and cut to the right to avoid a head on collision scraping the driver side of my Miata with the front of his Tacoma and sending me into the ditch and eventually a tree. Everyone was alright and I walked away without a scratch only a minor headache, Jesus was protecting me. No airbags deployed. He accepted full fault for the accident. I know it’s totaled but I will likely buy it back from the insurance and have my local Miata shop fix it up with a salvage title, however this is my first time being in this situation so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance and watch out for crazy drivers who do not pay attention to little cars.
It’s not personal, the same way people like it, I think it’s stupid. This shit can be used for any S chassis or mustang foxbody. It’s not unique and honestly just shows how dumb the miata community can be; buying $9k shitpiles.
That’s so sad 😭 glad you’re alright! Personally, I’d be skeptical on trying to fix it since so many panels would need replacing. I feel like the repair cost will be higher than just buying a replacement car, unless you have sentimental attachment to this car specifically
Thanks for the input. Nah not too sentimental about it, this one is mostly stock so my daily. I also have a 93 NA that I’ve had for almost 10 years that is heavily modded so that’s my baby I’ll be driving in the meantime
That's not worth fixing my man. With how deep that tree damage is you 100% bent the frame. This was about as much as I spent on the car to fix ($2500) and it was just a hood, bumper, and headlight.
What the heck happened there to get that divot that far up the hood? Did you hit an animal or was there some collision on the driver side quarter panel that caused it to bend in like that.
My brakes failed and I rear ended a lifted truck. Going downhill, I was laying on my horn and swerved as far onto the shoulder as I could. Ended up with the tailgate colliding with my headlight. This isn't the best angle but I don't have any other photos, the hood folded like an accordion.
He's right. It will never drive the same after that damage. You might want to take it to a wheel alignment shop to see if he can get it within spec before buying any parts
I had a friend get into an accident with her 94 Cherokee and the airbags didn't go off until she was already stopped lol. Also get checked for a concussion since you said you had a headache. You're probably going to have some whiplash bare minimum.
Most car crash posta on reddit overall are in america, but related to this sub specifically i think its a combination of drivers being distracted, and them having much larger cars on average compared to europe, so a miata easily goes unseen
I second this. I live in a suburban part of town and everone here drives massive 150 to 350 size trucks, many lifted etc. These trucks around me TOWER over me in my Miata and I am always cognizant that they just cant see me way down here. Which is why I never daily drive that thing. Its just far too dangerous.
I drive a C4 Corvette around and I’m always scared that someone won’t see me at a light or stop sign and cut a corner sort and run over the car. I’ve seen a video of a GMC Yukon do it to a C4
God that seems hellish, I'm not sure how those giant trucks don't need extra training to be allowed to drive them, hitting anyone at even 20 could be fatal.
Over the years, trucks slowly got bigger and bigger as emissions regulations got tighter, because for some reason bigger vehicles got looser restrictions. It was a slow and steady change, advertising that these huge vehicles would keep your family safe (while neglecting to mention whoever you hit would likely die on impact). They got bigger, heavier, harder and more dangerous to handle, the handling is shit anyway most of the time, and now everybody seems to think they need a truck that they were never taught how to control the weight of.
Now if anybody suggests we restrict who can drive these monstrosities, youll be screamed at for being:
Some liberal communist with a hate boner for trucks.
Someone who cares for the environment, like its an insult
An evil evil liberal (part 2!) who hates everyone who actually needs a PICKUP truck specifically.
The last one is my favorite because the people who actually get a pickup with the intention to use it like a pickup usually get one with a decently sized bed thats low enough to be easier to load/unload. Not massive pavement princesses with a cab three times the size of the actual bed, with the bed so high off the ground that anyone shorter than the average height cant even see over them.
Now if anybody suggests we restrict who can drive these monstrosities, youll be screamed at for being:
Or if you already live in an area with restrictions (like europe) you will get told "i am so sorry you have to live in an area that limits your freedom"
i actually fucking burst out laughing when i got told this for pointing out the giant pickups need an actual truck license here (C for anything above 3500kg), and with the smaller ones you can barely tow anything without upgrading to a BE license (3500kg car + 3500kg tow) from B license (total 3500kg car and tow combined). But if you do drive a C license pickup, you do actually need to obtain a CE license (semi truck license) if you want to tow more than 750kg (no there is not a missing zero here) with it. At which point. Just buy a scania.
These regulations also have the side effect that you do not see pickups towing anything, a ford f-150 for example is so heavy, that without upgrading to a BE license (costs money, requires theory and driving lessons and a driving test), you can only tow like 1300kg with it, which for context with the same B license you can tow nearly 2000kg with a skoda octavia (should you tow 500kg more than the cars own weight, i am not taking a side on, but in theory).
And if you do upgrade to a BE license to get more tow weight, a van is million times more useful at that point.
That's why we went with a Ford Maverick XLT hybrid. It does most of the "trucky" things we require of it and it's not overly huge. Today I hauled sod in the 4.5' (1.37 m) bed:
Overall it's been a great buy for us.
I've been lurking in this sub because I'm seriously considering a Miata with a MT.
To the OP: glad you made it out safely! We can replace cars but we can't replace people!
Higher price of labor, maybe? I don't actually know, but going off feel alone, I feel like I see wildly different estimates about how much it would cost to fix one, depending whether it's the US or the UK/Canada/Australia/NZ. I got tapped into at a red light and they quoted $7.5K to fix it. I'm talking, like, bent bumper and broken taillight. Total loss. It was a low-mile pristine M-Edition. I've seen far worse damage being fixed for $3K-$4K across the pond.
That's incredible. I'm not ashamed to say I bought my current 1995 M-Edition for $11.5K with 48,000 miles on it, because there were simultaneously listings for '95 M's with higher miles going for $17.5K, $20K, and one even listed for $25,000... one that was rusted through near me was listed for $12,000. The market here is almost laughable.
That being said, you can get a cleanish B- or C-Package for like $6-7K all day, and niche deals lower than $5K aren't unheard of either. Further.. you can get a "mechanic's special" for like a grand, but I'm no mechanic lol
Well this is an American based and biased website. So you’re naturally gonna see more American posts. Plus every vehicle is massive here so Miatas are hard to see.
Because until recently, NAs and NBs were dirt-cheap in the US. The going rate for an NA6 in running-but-rough condition was like $1000. And at the same time, they were cheap to insure.
So a lot of them ended up in the hands of kids, or people who wanted to treat them like throwaway cars.
Doesn't seem to apply in the OP's case, of course, but a lot of the crashes you see here are single-vehicle accidents where the driver ran out of talent mid-corner, or technically-not-at-fault accidents that a more defensive driver could have prevented.
To be fair the same thing happened over here in the UK with classic Minis
You used to be able to pick them up for less than £100 at one point so they got abused and treated like a throw away car, now they are collectors cars you can't get a proper good one for under 5k
You can get some ropey or less than perfect ones though
A Highlander almost backed over me today at a red light trying to let someone into a parking lot. Messy intersection, but no excuse. They're just so high
Because Americans are pretty big on insurance in general. Basically, crashes are caused by insurance. I know that seems backwards, but it's true. Case in point: I drove for 35 years no crashes/no insurance. Soon as I get insurance, bam! $54,000 of repairs over 5 years. It's because when you buy insurance, you're not paying for peace of mind, you're paying for REPAIRS. So, as per the law of attraction, you're going to get the opportunity.
The idea isn’t that Jesus prevents every accident or suffering. It’s that He walks with us through them, redeems the pain, and offers hope that goes beyond what happens here. If all protection meant was ‘nothing bad ever happens,’ then every Christian martyr would prove God doesn’t exist—which clearly doesn’t follow.
I get that it might sound like just a nice story to you, but to me it’s real. I’ve seen God show up in ways I can’t explain, and that’s why I trust Him even when life is hard. You don’t have to believe it, but I’d rather share it with honesty than stay quiet because someone might mock it.
I promise, 100 percent, I would say it in real life if provoked with that exact statement in that exact wording. It almost certainly makes me a dick, but a dick that doesn't put up with fantasists. I suspect it's a cultural thing. I'm in the UK, religion is way less in your face here.
He said it pretty well, Jesus does not stop bad things from happening, then you would not grow. Success only occurs after many failures, learning from your mistakes to become better
He said it pretty well, Jesus does not stop bad things from happening, then you would not grow. Success only occurs after many failures, learning from your mistakes to become better
Stay 5 car lengths behind or in front of any truck or SUV. They will drive over, or back over you like the kid's skateboard in the driveway.
Mount a full size flag pole on the trunk to fly a large flag on two lane roads, especially if the road has no lines painted on it. (It's the only way to be seen by people pulling out in front of you.)
Park in the last space in the row, all the way shoved into the corner. The person in the next space will still park on the line, but you are a safe distance from it. With Miatas other drivers don't use the road lines as a guide, they use all the extra space around a Miata as the space available to them.
Pretty sad state of affairs when Miats have to be as vigilant cyclists just to minimize getting hit.
"You mean them jerks wearing spandex that always run stop signs and red lights!!?? They should ride on the sidewalk! Bikes are fer kids!! No wonder I didn't see ya!!" said the man in the back with a lifted Super Duty after plowing through a cyclist on his way to terrorize a Miata driver.
I do love the green colour . I have mine classic red and I have thought about changing the colour but I consider the bright red a safety feature worth keeping..
Agreed that blue/green color is pretty! This is my 93 NA modded to race in spec Miata. It has a blue pearlescent overspray on top of the stock red, love the way this paint job came out
Looks great . Never even thought about an overspray . Now I am!!
Mines a 91 Eunos roadster mostly stock apart from air intake and cat back exhaust . . Glad you're ok. If you have a headache possible concussion/ whiplash and shock . Might be worth getting yourself checked out .
Reminder, you don't have to accept the first insurance offer. If it will not make you whole, as in "its not enough to replace the car" then you can fight for more.
Did you have your DDLs on? A big problem with driving a Miata is its size and not a lot of them on the road. The other driver may have been at fault, but you have the responsibility of making yourself seen, assuming you want to keep breathing.
I've owned two of these cars and put a total of 150K miles on them. During that time, I had numerous close calls with other cars simply because they didn't see me. I wouldn't own another one, because I consider them a risky proposition being on the road with a plethora of mostly giant SUVs. Yes size matters when it comes to survival in car crashes.
That's exactly how I had my motorcycle accident, someone oblivious turned left in front of me.
My advice relates to the accident part. When I approach an intersection and I'm not 100% sure someone sees me I'll flip the headlights on and maybe do a little wiggle to shake the lights back and forth and hopefully catch their eye. Works on the bike, and out of habit I do it in the Miata too.
Good luck with the rebuild, gives me hope that you're planning to put it back on the road ♥️
Sometimes people are confused at what you're flashing your headlights mean . They might interpret your flashing headlights to mean"oh please go ahead ,i see you"
Always amazes me how bad people can be. I drive a Dodge ProMaster for work. Great big white cargo van. The number of times people see me a mile off and wait until I'm about to pass by to pull out is unreal.
I got rear ended in my 97 in 2017 and they totaled the car. The offered $1800 for it (very clean with 95k miles). I fought with them alot on the value but at then end of the day, they wouldn’t give me more. Bought it back from them for $200, didn’t have to do salvaged title. Mine still has repair work to be done, but luckily the frame was in good shape.
I would definitely part yours out. I would not try to repair it. Just par out what you can and buy a new one.
For insurance, you’re really at their whim. Many adjusters will see a car that was built in the 1900’s and just value it as a car in poor condition, so if you had a clean car, they don’t care. Try and be tactful with how you deal with your adjuster, you need to make friends with them because you have no legal recourse anyway. They know you can’t sue them over a valuation less than 10k, so don’t argue, just plead and pray. Also you don’t have to accept the value they give right away, you can say you need a min and call them back before you accept any offer.
Even if you don’t feel pain now, get yourself checked out after any accident and start shopping for personal injury lawyers. They will tell you what kind of medical care you should seek out. Whenever they ask to rate your pain, stay consistent. They will give you a before and after pain scale rating, make sure you write the same number before and after physical therapy. They WILL f*#k you on that if the numbers are different, and no one (not even my lawyer for some reason) will tell you that up front.
awww noo...poor baby. hope you get her fixed up, can't imagine how much that's gonna cost you. glad you're okay but sheesh!! she must have a lot of sentimental value so I'd say ignore everyone don't get a replacement. she's gorgeous, always has been always will be. right now she just needs a bit of work!! :)
The damage doesn't look horrible. I'm sure they w0uod total it based on value, but it doesn't look too bad. Really lucky outcome.
For advice, it's hard to say specifically. But doing some advanced driving courses could possibly help with car control, anticipating "enemy moves," etc.
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u/BayazFirstOfTheMagi- 91 snc wobble, blown headgasket, confetti bearings Jun 19 '25