Fyrefli Hits 250,000!

It happened on Sunday, April 27 at 7:05 PM. On a street close to our home, Our 1990 Miata, (Base, Classic Red, nickname: Fyrefli) hit 250,000 miles. That's the equivalent of 10 trips around the world at the equator!

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Click here to see a similar page for the 200,000 mile celebration.

Click here to visit the "Guess the miles on the Miata" page.

When the subject of mileage comes up, questions about the repair history often follow.
  • At about 175,000 miles, we were hit with the dreaded "broken crank" problem which can occur on all 1990 and some early 1991 Miatas. The 175,000 mile mark is quite late for the problem; all other instances that we know of occured much earlier in the engine life. In our case, the best fix was a new engine installed by a dealer with a very good SOCALM discount. A new clutch was installed at the same time. The engines have been fed Mobile 1 10w-30 all their lives, with oil and filter changes every 3,000 to 4,000 miles. We do it ourselves.
  • The brakes lasted an incredibly long time. Pad changes were very infrequent. The original rotors lasted until about 235,000 miles, with the fronts having been turned twice and the rears once.
  • The first catalytic convertor lasted almost 200,000 miles. A second one only lasted about 20,000 miles but this was because a dirty throttle body caused an excessively rich fuel mixture, destroying the convertor. The exhaust system has otherwise not needed repair.
  • As the miles added up, a number of smaller things broke. These included the radiator, alternator, speedometer cable, rear hub bearings and the front hood cable release. Not an unreasonable list considering the miles.

Fuel Mileage

All during the life of our Miata, every gas fillup has been recorded. Here is the report at the 250,000 mile mark:
  • Overall fuel mileage: 29.8473 miles per gallon
  • Average fuel cost: $1.386 per gallon
  • The highest fuel cost was $2.398 per gallon on 3/22/2003.
  • The average fillup was 8.859 gallons.
  • The largest fillup quantity was 10.348 gallons on 12/3/00.
  • The average fillup cost was $12.2804.
  • The highest fillup cost was $22.57 on 4/16/2003
  • The lowest fillup cost was $3.50 on 11/7/96
  • The total number of fillups: 946.
  • The total number of gallons: 8,381.052.
  • The total fuel cost is $11,617.30.
It's worth noting that the speedometer cable was broken for about a week. We estimate (based on the fuel consumed during that time) that it was broken for 817 miles. This means that the car actually passed the 250,000 mile mark a few weeks earlier. The indicated mileage was the basis for this celebration. The fuel logs reflect the corrected mileage.

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