There was a nice Mazdaspeed version in the showroom where I bought my 8. I liked it a lot. But there was no tilt steering. I am average height, but I could not find a position where I would have been comfortable driving for very long -- the steering wheel seemed right down on my legs.

It seems like not having tilt was a big mistake. Is there a design reason for this?

 

Miata's never had tilt steering since its inception....

 

hmmm, interesting. I can't say I have ever been in a miata, nor have any desire to do so, but I hope they add that in the next rendition. If I can't find a good driving position in a car, it takes some of the fun out of it.

 

Yes.

Miata was introduced in 1989 in the US as a 1990 model - the first year that a drivers airbag was mandatory, IIRC. Mazda, like all auto manufacturers, was new to airbags, and wasn't familiar yet with how to design the steering column structure for crash requirements in conjunction with the airbag inflation - managing forces on the driver in an impact was substantially changed. With their limited engineering budget, Mazda had to simplify the process and leave the tilt option out of the picture - they couldn't afford to do the engineering and testing to develop an airbag-compatible tilt mechanism at the time. A tilt steering system would have required multiple crash test programs, which would have cost millions of dollars extra!

In 1996, when they began the redesign for the NB model (introduced in 1998 as a 1999 model), Mazda was bleeding red ink profusely and was in danger of bankruptcy - Ford rescued Mazda in 1996, but budgets were still severely constrained. The NB redesign was mostly a cosmetic update of the NA Miata, and included a few minor suspension revisions, chassis revisions, interior revisions, and the exterior sheet metal changes (minor as well, from an engineering perspective). Once again, they did not have any budget for designing a tilt mechanism for the car at that time.

So, that's why there is no tilt mechanism in the NA or NB Miatas.

Regards,
Gordon

 

I am 6'0. No problems with my 99 Miata not having a tilt steering wheel. Long trips are not comfortable though.

 

Your loss. Miatas rock.

 

Thanks, Gord96BRG. I figured there must be a reason behind it.

(Aside: One interesting feature I saw on the 350Z was that the instruments tilt up and down with the steering wheel. Nice.)

 

6'3" here. Had a '97 (1st-gen) Miata for about 2 1/2 years. Steering position never caused a problem for me.

 

That is a neat feature - and Nissan stole the idea from Porsche, who used it on the 928 model introduced in 1978!

Regards,
Gordon

 

On my third Miata ('91, '99, '04); the wheel's always been exactly where I'd position it, if I could. (I'm 5'7", 140 lbs.)

 

If the wheel is in the wrong position on a Miata for you when you get in, you have a bad concept of where the wheel is supposed to be (provided you are between 5'5" and 6' 1").

Mightily.

There is also a weight and precision deficit on adjustable steering mechanisms.
The RX-8 gets around this somewhat electronically, but it is still a compromise.