My Car (1998-2004)
My car was a Mark 2 Mazda MX5, in Grace Green Mica with anthracite leather
interior and a hard top (not shown). The engine was a 1.8 litre fuel injected
unit. It did 0-60 in a smidgen under 8 seconds, and maxed out at around
125 mph with the hard top on, a l-o-n-g run at it and preferably a tail wind
as well. Fortunately the MX5 is not too expensive to insure, provided you're not
ludicrously young.... where ludicrous is defined as being under 25. Think
of it as an MG that doesn't leak or break down :-)
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One of the advantages of the
MX5 is that it uses a normally aspirated version of the old B-series turbo
engine from the 323 GTX Turbo (see below for tech links), so it's built to handle forced induction and
you can get aftermarket turbocharger and supercharger conversion kits. Alternatively, you can leave the engine as is and rest
assured that it is leading a very unstressed and potentially very long life : there are
M1-version MX5's pootling around the USA with well over 200K miles on them and still going
strong. |
However, if you want a car for carrying large
amounts of stuff around, look elsewhere. The Mx5 will carry you, a close friend, a change of
clothes and a shared toothbrush away for the weekend. Mazda's adverts show the boot full of
luggage, whilst carefully not telling you that said luggage is custom made to fit the
boot. Having said that, the boot is not entirely useless - it swallowed my weekly shopping
(NB: I do not have a family). Personally, I can't understand people who
purchase a car like this and then whine about the carrying capacity : if you want a
truck, buy a truck. Of course if you really want a car that can't carry anything,
you could always get an MR2 <snigger>.
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Here's a picture of me with the wee
beastie. Click on the little piccy for a big one. |
I made a few minor modifications, as is traditional for any MX-5 owner :
Problems during the five years I had with the car:
- The stock Clarion stereo was really rather rubbish - I tossed it and
got a decent Multi-CD player. There's plenty of space to mount the changer in the
top-right hand corner of the boot, i.e. NOT where my installer put it
<sigh>.
- The boot (trunk) lid
spring was weak. My first one couldn't hold the lid up after 6 months, and
it's replacement behaved the same way. I only found out after
JCT600 replaced the spring (with an unpainted one) that the tension bar can fit in
three different detents to give different "springiness". Good
grief. I later fitted extra sound-proofing to the boot to prevent drumming,
and then it wouldn't pop open at all :-(. Oh well, that counts as a
self-inflicted injury.
- The paintwork was rather prone to chipping. But
what manufacturers isn't these days ?
- It suffered from the known MX5
"idle-dip" problem. When the engine was cold and you came up
to a junction and applied the brakes, the idle speed would dip alarmingly and
idling became rough. The engine didn't stall, it was just a bit worrying. The problem
did seem to be worse when you
had extra load on the system (e.g. headlights, HRW). Interestingly, I was
told by a knowledgeable soul that having the fan on the 1 setting made
the problem worse, because the engine management system didn't take account
of the blower load until it was set to at least 2. The problem only lasted for
two or three minutes - once the engine warmed up, it went away.
Note - if the engine does stall, it's a different problem related to
an incorrect camshaft fitment, but I don't think that affected any of the cars which
came to the UK.
- The rear half of the window seals became detached from the
roof after a year or so. This was a common problem with the Mk2. Mine was fixed
twice, and the problem obviously recurrs.
- There are little foam inserts in the soft-top
seals where it meets the windows, to help keep the nasty water out. These
gradually get pushed out by the window. Moral of this story? Open the door,
put the window up, THEN close the door. Problem solved.
- The alloy wheel centre covers are made of a
plastic which doesn't respond well to UV light. They go yellow over the
space of about 18 months. Of course if your car is garaged they'll take a lot longer to go
yellow - probably just long enough for the warranty to expire.... Mine were
replaced twice.
- The alloy wheels... oh, don't get me started about the awful Mazda alloy
wheels on the 1.8 MX5. They will start pitting within a year no matter how
often you clean them, and can only be got back to a decent state with
regular applications of Wonder Wheels. If the the Mk2 MX5 had an achilles heel,
it was the alloy wheels.
- The MX5 engine doesn't have hydraulic tappets. This allows the rev limit
to be higher, but at the price of requiring manual adjustment every so
often, and making the engine rather sensitive to oil viscosity. Net effect ?
On a cold morning, it tended to sound like a bag of spanners. This engine is sweet
once it's warmed up, but that can take a long - and somewhat rough - time.
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