MX5 Owners in here....bring your curling tongs

Housey said:
Most of the direction issues you speak of are in the set up. I had Chris Franklin at Centre Gravity work on my wife's car 2 weeks after delivery. It fixed the tendency to wonder but what it transformed was the steering which was better weighted and better feel. They do roll a bit and they can wobble too but once you are use to that its a really good road setup. Very adjustable and great fun. I think if you are used to really powerful card you miss a lot of that as you focus on the lack of power. However since ditching my quick stuff I've felt the car is much more fun, though the engine gets loser with miles and is sweeter today than it's ever been. 140mph with the roof down too once though I struggle to remember the last time we were in Germany :)
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I had all kinds of issues with setup on mine, it had been adjusted before (previous owner had lowering springs put on by wheels in motion, and I had it done again when I went for coilovers), but I took it to A-line to get it tweaked and it ended up a right mess. They discovered some of the adjusters were seized and I don't think they wanted to spend the time fiddling with them, and they also left it with the nearside camber adjustment bolt loose - it was seized into the crush tube so I think they'd have had a game to adjust it right, but the overall impression was they'd done half a job and still hadn't got it set up. As they get older the mk3/3.5 will be like the Honda S2000, loads of cars out there that feel a bit funny due to seized adjusters and wonky alignment, but where people don't want to spend the money required to sort it properly.

Ended up taking it to Blink Motorsport to get it properly sorted, remove and replace/grease most of the alignment bolts front and rear, about £300 odd in labour and parts :(, but it was transformed as you say once aligned properly.

I agree with you on some of the weaknesses - slight lack of chassis stiffness, suspension, and lack of power, I have spent a lot of money on these things and its improved it loads (chassis bracing, coilovers/ARBs and geo, and engine mods to ~200bhp inc lightened flywheel + other bits), definitely the most fun car I've had. Can't see me changing it for a while given running costs and reliability vs fun.
 
I need a bit of advice on a price, calling on the experience of more experienced MX-5 owners.

I need to sell my 2008 1.8 S model. Metallic racing green with heated tan leather seats and manual fabric roof. I'm having difficulties working out what the price would be as it has fewer than 4,000 miles. It simply doesn't get used, and I spent the last 12 months pondering whether or not I should keep it, and during that time it did fewer than 40 miles.

Needless to say, the condition is really rather good. Not quite showroom, as it has been used, but not far off.

There are no similar examples out there with such low mileage that I could find. Any ideas on what price I should be looking for?

Thanks!
 
There's one on pistonheads which is similar to yours for £6,100. I'd probably go in at around 7,200 ish with a view to drop it after a while if you aren't in a rush to sell. Maybe even 7,500 if you want to chance your arm - you can always reduce it after a while.

In other news, this was me on Monday night after locking the keys in the boot after tennis. Idiot.

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At least it's not just me with that worry - I've got a NC2/mk3.5 and I'm paranoid about coming back to my car, blipping unlock and the boot open button on my fob, slinging my stuff into the boot only to find my keys are now in the boot and the doors have auto-locked... I even posted on mx5nutz if there's a way to increase the auto-lock time on the doors, but nobody else seemed to think it was a problem.

At least it looks like you managed to prize open the roof - guessing there's no chance on my hard top.

(yes, I know you don't need to unlock the car to open the boot, I've just got into a habit of it)
 
I'm guilty of locking my keys in the bolt as well. Opened boot, chucked keys and phone in to grab something else, picked up my phone and forgot my keys, ended up waiting for someone to bring me a spare key as I was in the town centre
 
With an old car which had a "fancy" aftermarket paging alarm system, I'd driven to a parcel depot place. Parked, got out, locked the car and then dropped the keys (not on purpose, I'll add). The little lcd screen on the keyfob went "wonky" and you can guess, I could no longer lock/unlock the alarm system. I had my key, so I could unlock the door and get into the car, which tripped the alarm. But, I couldn't start the car or stop the siren as I couldn't disable the alarm (or immobilizer). So, stood in the middle of an industrial estate, swearing at my car, which was bleeping away and holding the flipping keys... Luckily it was a weekend so my gf wasn't working, she found the spare alarm fob and drove over to rescue, otherwise I would have been scratching my head even longer. Cars (and alarms), don't you just love them.

I'm willing to bet that the time I'll lock my mx5 key in the boot will be when I'm across the country... Thinking about it - a generic key cut to my car key, won't have the immobilizer chip, so it won't start the car or disable the alarm, but at least open the boot... So, it could be hidden under the car somewhere for such a Homer moment...
 
If I had no other option I'd just put the quarter light through, which would allow me to manually open the doorr from the inside and open the boot.

£25 for a brand new one through a mix of work and insurance would be cheaper than having a lock smith come out
 
Yeah, it was the old auto lock that caught me out - just had played a couple of hours tennis and had all my gear in my hands and threw it all in the boot including the keys and slammed it as it auto locked. A lucky combination of chubby roof to window seals, a now-wrecked wiper blade and a worn roof latch meant I could get in. Good job as I was an hour from home.

The small window was the next option although one I really didn't want to entertain as although I could get the part cheap, I need the car to get to work and it is stored in a public car park an hour away from me all day.
 
Really struggling to sell the mk2.5 Arctic.
Got it listed at £2k and nothing is happening. It's all fine bar a bit of rust bubbling on the rear arches and I'm getting nothing.

Got one guy pestering me for it with £1400 but its too low imho.
I guess hes counting on the cat being for sale for so long but he's bidding half the market rate from what I can see. He can't be the only person looking at mx5s this time of year?

What's going on with the market right now?
 
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(this image isn't from my car)

Could some one tell me what is behind this switch?

On my car the left is the heated window and the right is for the fog lights with the center one blank. I pulled the blank one out to discover a wire which plugs into the bracket that has a metal strip on the inside. The strip looks like it connects the two pins on the plug together.

I'm trying to install a switch for my horn there but I'm not sure what the deal is with this cable.
 
rjk said:
Really struggling to sell the mk2.5 Arctic.
Got it listed at £2k and nothing is happening. It's all fine bar a bit of rust bubbling on the rear arches and I'm getting nothing.

Got one guy pestering me for it with £1400 but its too low imho.
I guess hes counting on the cat being for sale for so long but he's bidding half the market rate from what I can see. He can't be the only person looking at mx5s this time of year?

What's going on with the market right now?
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Chassis rail rust scare mongering has made the mk2.5 more unpopular than it otherwise might be, even though some cars are fine. If you advertised offering chassis rail inspection or even take off the liners and take some pictures of solid chassis rails you may sell it easier too,

There is a hardcore of mk1 owners on mx5nutz who own recently imported JDM mk1s which have very little rust, these people like to harp on about how poor quality and rusty UK spec mk2 and mk3 cars are and how they won't last 25 years like the 'best original version' ...ignoring the road and climatic conditions and the usage profiles of their vehicles vs your average daily driven mk2/3 (theirs get polished and garaged more than they get driven in some cases it seems). The same people are also talking up an original condition mk1 as a bona fide classic, safe investment potential, the next car to explode in value etc...if they say it often enough it might come true seems to be the thought process for how some post. Its worked to make the mk2.5 unpopular.

The Arctic is not seen as desirable as some of the other models either even when the differences are largely cosmetic (euphonic looks better with nicer colours and wheels, Rs drives a bit better etc).
 
I've made damn sure the adverts mention the rail restoration too. It's the first thing that would draw me to the car if I was looking to buy personally.
 
rjk said:
I've made damn sure the adverts mention the rail restoration too. It's the first thing that would draw me to the car if I was looking to buy personally.
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Rust bubbling on the rear arches is going to push people away again though
 
If you are struggling to sell it might just be pricing related, with the Arctic it might be a tougher sell as it has no LSD, when I was looking at MX5s earlier in the year prices were all over the place and I definitely wanted one with LSD, which would automatically rule that out.

It seems that for what I was after, a nice, non rusty sports model with LSD people were asking ~3k and more whether it was a Mk1 or Mk2 in the end I picked up a less than perfect non sport Mk3 2.0 for that and decided I didn't care about what it lacked as I would replace suspension etc. anyway and would have a better engine going forward for sprints etc.
 
hmm, i think then that 1800 would probably be the way to go then. I just want it off the drive in honesty, but thought there would have been at least a bit of interest.
 
I've found that the best way to get interest on ebay is a 99p start auction with no reserve. Ive had cars up on classifieds with no interest, i put the same car up an action and I have had it sell for 1k more than what the classified ad was.

gumtree is probably a waste of time.
 
Sometimes you can't beat just having it priced up nice and shiny in a prime location on a busy road when the sun is out, shame our summers are not reliable.

If you can find same year, mileage and condition as yours for little more in the sports models in Autotrader, you might be asking too much, but on a road some one might see it on and go yup I want it and not care about what it lacks or even know.
 
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