Looks like the Miata crapped the floor
 

Have you ever had a dog in the house and you bring a second dog home? Sometimes dog #1, in an effort to express his disatisfaction, starts releaving himself where he shouldn't. Well, I think my Miata is responding the same way.

The Miata started making a funny noise over the weekend. I dropped it of at my mechanic on the my to get my FR-S Tuesday night. Wednesday, while I'm out seeking some curvy roads, I get a call telling me the differential is bad. I'm trying to figure the best way to fix it, but I know this won't be cheap.

You need the appliance whisperer, he also is trained in auto healing. Ive seen him fix diffs before. ''Hey, TSSSSSS, you are not broken, ill tell you when you are broken, this is clearly a dominance thing arising from insecurity manifesting as a broken diff. Take it out to a couple track days and its confidence will come back but only when it learns it place in the pack, as it is no longer the alpha.'' Couple sessions with him and that diff is good as new.

Give the 5 finger poke behind the door in front of the back wheel.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/ass...-story-top.jpg

Yes. On the way back from the airport after the Long Beach 1st86 event, my daily driver (Chevy Astro) that had never been in the shop for anything other than standard maintenance and some minor repairs decided to eat its motor bearings. I'm pretty sure that was its way of showing its displeasure with me "fooling around" on her.

Full story here.

Painful story, but I think you made the right choice. I bought a GMC Safari (panel van) with about 60,000 miles on it for $11,000 a few years ago. I think for $7K, you can find something that suits your needs if you have to. Mazda wants $2,400 just for the parts on my car, so I’m getting a diff out of a junk yard for half that. I hope it has the longevity your Astro had.

Get a hold of either Flyin' Miata and/or The Parts Group. They both have salvage Miata specific operations that'll get your Miata back on the road for not much money. I've purchased from them both in the past when I had a '95 NA.

craiglist a rear end it would be to bad... maybe 150 for open diff, 350 for visc, and 600 for torsen. I did a full swap diff, axle, and hub with hand tools and that was not fun.

Thanks for the advice guys. It seems like a limited-slip diff for an NB is a little harder to find. I don't have the time or skill to do the work myself, so I'll need to suck it up on this one. I've been telling people for the last 22 years of Miata ownership that these things are bullet-proof. So much for that idea....