I’m scouting around looking for a Mk1 or Mk2 to replace my tired old Eunos, and I’ve not got a great deal of an idea what it’s worth, either for a private sale on Ebay, or to do a part-ex with a dealer.
My car is a black ‘92 K-reg Eunos 1.6, 115,000km on the clock.
Bought from Dandycars for £6k about 5 years ago… it looked really nice back then 
Good bits:
10 months MOT.
No visible rust
Rear spoiler
Style bar
Engine bay brace
Tyres still have plenty of tread
Gearbox, brakes, clutch all working as well as when I bought it
Still puts a smile on my face when I drive it 
Problems:
No service history, timing belt not done.
Engine occasionally stutters to the point of stalling (can be ameliorated by setting the Base Idle to 2,000rpm)
Needs a new hood and stereo … got nicked. My temporary hood repair ain’t pretty and doesn’t keep out all the rain (so slightly damp seats at the mo’)
Original Mazda wheels need a refurb? - no damage, but lots of baked-on brake dust
Window winder cable broken in passenger door (window motor still runs, but may need replacement too)
Boot paintwork faded compared to rest of car (had been resprayed at time of purchase)
Small (£1 coin size) but deep dent (3mm?) in drivers door
Usual tiny supermarket carpark derived indentations on the sides
The two front tyres are a bit crap, and make the car understeer.
Now I have been looking on Ebay and I’ve seen nice Mk1 cars going at £1000-£1500. I’ve also seen a pile parts leaning against a garage walll go for £800!
I’ve had dealers say (sight unseen) they’d offer £600, £750, and just now £400 (based on the fact he “doesn’t do imports” and would just send it straight to auction)
What sort of prices should I realistically expect?
One observation I’ve made is that there seems to be no ‘fixed’ price for MX5s. I mean, if you look at a focus (or indeed almost any car) that is a few years old, they will almost all be within 10-20% of each other price wise - however I was looking on autotrader the other day, and there were MK1s for more money than MK3s, with typical cars ranging from around £1.5K - £4.5K - which is a huge range.
I’d pay around about £1K if I was looking I think, but it would be a bit of a risk.
Are the running issues because of lack of servicing? If so, you might be as well servicing it yourself, and then trying to sell privately/through ebay. Even picking up a cheap stereo might be worthwhile - how much (if any) of the dash was damaged/removed?
Again, depending on the amount of damage, you might get more money getting the roof repaired (Although less likely).
If you are trading the car in though - there is probably very little worthwhile - if you spend £200 getting it looking better, you won’t get it back.
I’ve thought about a new hood, that’d definitely make it much smarter and easier to sell… but I don’t know of any cheap hood fitters in the Milton Keynes area, and although I’m tempted to buy a hood off ebay and fit it myself, I don’t have a full set of tools and would probably make a mess of it 
The stereo was nicked, along with the cable converter and the box that held it in the dash. I’ve been quoted £150 for a replacement mounting kit + cd player, but that seems awfully steep when cd players only cost £50, so I’ve never got around to it.
The engine stalling problem is tricky-ish - I’ve had a garage look at it, they thought it was a dodgy O2 sensor, so we changed it - no help. So that means thermister or TPS, I think, or maybe something else easy like a grounding problem, coil pack playing up… who knows. I don’t want to spend money I could be using on the next car, really.
I have had it serviced, it runs fine apart from that issue.
I guess I’d be happy if a dealer gave me £750 for it, but the £400 offer is a bit of mickey-take, isn’t it?
If it helps I can tell you what I was offered for my car as it is comparible on year.
I have black MK1 S-Special on a 93 K (original bits n bobs BBS alloys strutbrace etc etc) It is an Eunos import. Has done 59k miles - full service and cambelt change done recently. 9 months MOT 3 months tax
Tyres will need changing soon but paintwork, hood, interior all great with no damage (odd swirl mark on the paint) Car was only imported in Sept 08 I am 1st Uk owner.
I was looking at a Mk3 and considering trade in - I paid £1900 for the car and afurther £250 for service cambelt etc.
Worst I was offered (blind over the phone) was £1000 - best I was offered was £1500 ( I got the sneaky suspicion that one of the guys at the garage wanted it for himself LOL)
I agree with Ramsay… it is very up and down and what you get offered for trade in probably will depend on how badly the garage want to shift the car you are buying.
Hope this helps
Is it a V-spec or S-spec or plain 1.6? Air con? Leather seats? It all affects it. Obviously the biggest hindrance to getting decent price is the splutter/stalling: it may be worth paying to get that sorted if it means you can sell it for more. With so many MK1s around, it will be hard to sell one that isn’t running well privately.
It’s a plain Japanese 1.6, but with no air-con or headrest speakers… whcih I think makes it a bit of an odd-ball?
I wish I could fix the stutter, but as it’s an intermittent problem, garages don’t seem to have much luck finding the issue 
Mazda couldn’t, though it’s been a while and the problem has worsened since then. I’ll maybe take it back there.