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

Rusty arches :P

Rusty A pillars, rust underneath sills. Wet boot carpet and wet carpet on self behind seats.

There is a good buyers guide on the owners club should be viewable to non members.

Here
 
Just look out for rust, rust and er... Rust! Seriously though, anything else is a cheap fix.

Also encourage her to have a good long test drive. If she will be driving through traffic day to day then try and incorporate that as this is the situation where I hate my one.

Finally if it is to be a daily get her to really think it through. Even with the recent weather I hate my one as a 60 mile per day daily. My boss is trying to convince his other half to get one as a daily because she "doesn't do many miles" which I think is crazy, you either want one or you don't. I love my one as a toy to take out on a sunny day on open roads but I'd sell it tomorrow if I had to use it daily long term.
 
Awesome info. That's pretty much confirmed what I had found myself. The car was a JDM eunos roadster. One owner since import. I thought it was a charming little car. Engine pulled very hard and it had Mazda speed suspension. The paint had a lot of lacquer peel and no two panels matched. On the plus side the roof was in good condition. Whole car just needed a bloody good clean and to be a good £200 than they were asking for it.

To me, brakes needed replacing, two new tyres required, driver window needed fixing, paint needed a lot of TLC.
Plus points is that there was zero rust on the car and it seemed that a new underseal had been recently carried out

She commutes around 10 miles a day so I wouldn't imagine it would become tiresome to live with.

I think she is still considering her options, ideally I would like her to try a mk2 as well.
 
rjkoneill said:
Awesome info. That's pretty much confirmed what I had found myself. The car was a JDM eunos roadster. One owner since import. I thought it was a charming little car. Engine pulled very hard and it had Mazda speed suspension. The paint had a lot of lacquer peel and no two panels matched. On the plus side the roof was in good condition. Whole car just needed a bloody good clean and to be a good £200 than they were asking for it.

To me, brakes needed replacing, two new tyres required, driver window needed fixing, paint needed a lot of TLC.
Plus points is that there was zero rust on the car and it seemed that a new underseal had been recently carried out

She commutes around 10 miles a day so I wouldn't imagine it would become tiresome to live with.

I think she is still considering her options, ideally I would like her to try a mk2 as well.
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I know many do but I wouldn't want to use one for any length of commute. It is great when you want to go out with the wind in your wig and really 'drive' a car. When you just need to get to work it just gets on my wick TBH.

Horses for courses though. I'd probably be happier in a mk2 but even then...
 
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So what do people suggest for removing steering wobble from a Mk3.5? I have always felt the Mk3's in their various forms, suffer from too much steering wheel wobble on bumpy roads and it is a result of a car without a roof and not enough rigidity. Hit a bump and the entire column vibrates and this doesn't effect my race car at all with its full cage. So has anyone experience fixing this and if so what have you done as I think it is a flaw on the standard car. I've had the alignment done by Chris Franklin at Centre Gravity and that did improve things, most noticeably the steering which was significantly more fealsome and its handling was much more sorted, with the following of cambers removed quite a but but the car still suffers from far too much wheel vibration and general wobble on rough roads.

Thoughts?
 
Housey said:
Thoughts?
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I get a lot of feedback through my wheel, but I'd always thought it was just a characteristic of a light car with firm suspension and lower profile tyres. I do know what you mean though - sometimes it can feel a little disconcerting and I'd be more confident with a bit of damping between the road and the steering wheel.
 
Conscript said:
I get a lot of feedback through my wheel, but I'd always thought it was just a characteristic of a light car with firm suspension and lower profile tyres. I do know what you mean though - sometimes it can feel a little disconcerting and I'd be more confident with a bit of damping between the road and the steering wheel.
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There is a distinct difference between feedback and vibration and I fear there is too much of the latter on the current generation MX5. From the factory the steering on the Mk3.5 MX5 is a little lacking in feel, a bit light and vague. This was significantly improved after I had the set up sorted, without question this was the single biggest improvement and I noticed it as I reversed the car out of the parking space at Centre Gravity. The weighting was much better and generally it had much improved feedback. It also improved the way the car dealt with cambers and bumps as well, but not night and day, the big improvement was that steering feel.

However, take the car for a rapid cross country run or even when I drive it out of my property with the roof down and the steering sort of wobbles and vibrates, the entire column not simply steering moving around with cambers. My GT3 was a bugger on bumpy roads, Gibbo will confirm this but that was all feedback and feel, the MX5 has aspects of this but I find the 'wobble' annoying and to me it impacts the car. I suspect a lower brace might address this significantly, it really feels like a rigidity issue, something I believe the Mk1 and Mk2 suffered less from and something my race car does not have, though this is braced and caged so much more rigid and 300kg's lighter too.

I am going to get this sorted so will report back :D
 
Ahh. Not sure that's what I'm feeling but I don't have the experience to comment fully. This is only the second car I've owned, and certainly the only sporty car.
 
Housey said:
So what do people suggest for removing steering wobble from a Mk3.5? I have always felt the Mk3's in their various forms, suffer from too much steering wheel wobble on bumpy roads and it is a result of a car without a roof and not enough rigidity. Hit a bump and the entire column vibrates
Click to expand...

What wheel size and tyre size? when I had heavy standard 16's with 45 depth tyres it resulted in a more "trashy" ride. Once i swapped to light 15's and 195 50 15 tyres my road feel was vastly improved and I Didn't tramline nearly as much.
 
What tyres do people recommend for the 2.0L Sportech 205/45/17?
I am currently looking at replacing 2 or possibly all 4 with the factory fit RE050A but wonder if there are any better options?

Best price so far is mytyres £129.40 per Tyre fitted.
 
I recently fitted Nitto NT555 and I am very happy with them, both on cost, noise and handling. I only need tires for a dry climate though so no idea how they are in the wet. Oh, and I paid around 250 quid for 4. (205/45R16s I think they are)
 
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