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

I'm going to need new tyres for the 10AE soon - 195/50/15.

It's currently got Avon ZV3s on and they are ok, but I've got Conti Sport Contact 5s on my Mondeo and they are excellent.

I had a look for SC5s but only came up withe Premium Contact 5s.

Think these would be alright?
 
Irish_Tom said:
I'm going to need new tyres for the 10AE soon - 195/50/15.

It's currently got Avon ZV3s on and they are ok, but I've got Conti Sport Contact 5s on my Mondeo and they are excellent.

I had a look for SC5s but only came up withe Premium Contact 5s.

Think these would be alright?
Click to expand...

Michelin pilot exalto 2's have been good on my mx5, and were worth the price I paid for them imo. Thats if you can still get them, think they have been replaced pilot sport 3's
 
[TW]Taggart;24643621 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Im not sure to be honest, but they are the stock wheels the car came with. I am running Coni Sports all round, really good tyre and suit the car well I think.
 
Irish_Tom said:
I'm going to need new tyres for the 10AE soon - 195/50/15.

It's currently got Avon ZV3s on and they are ok, but I've got Conti Sport Contact 5s on my Mondeo and they are excellent.

I had a look for SC5s but only came up withe Premium Contact 5s.

Think these would be alright?
Click to expand...

I had a hell of a time picking a tyre, I went for the AD08 but it may be a bit extreme if your not into fast road driving and use the car more just as a daily thing.
 
Just had my 5 back from a rather large amount of work at the body shop! It had quite a serious case of rust around the wheel arch and sill on the passenger side, and the start of the same problem on the drivers side. I think the pictures do a good job of showing the amount of work thats gone into it and these only show a small number of the steps it's been through.

DSCF2725.jpg

DSCF2737.jpg

DSCF2755.jpg

DSCF2770.jpg

DSCF2783.jpg

DSCF2789.jpg

DSCF2796.jpg

DSCF2820.jpg

DSCF2823.jpg


And heres the finished result after I gave it another wash and a good couple of coats of wax to try and help protect all the work thats just been done. Unfortunately my DSLR had a flat battery and is currently on charge so I've took this pic on my phone which doesnt really do it justice. I'll update with some proper quality pics soon though :)

IMG_0534.jpg
 
Including the machine polish it was a little over £1500. Certainly on the high end, but the quality of work is fantastic.

Thought I'd also add a couple more pictures :)

DSC02022.jpg

DSC02019.jpg
 
Last edited:
Amps said:
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.
Click to expand...

I changed all 4 from the RE050As to Uniroyal RS2s.
Brilliant in the wet or dry and loads of tread to get through.
Had them fitted at the same time as getting a fast road geo done by WIM.

Never had an issue wet or dry and the car is so fun to chuck around my average MPG is slowly dropping :(
 
BinnsY said:
Just had my 5 back from a rather large amount of work at the body shop! It had quite a serious case of rust around the wheel arch and sill on the passenger side, and the start of the same problem on the drivers side. I think the pictures do a good job of showing the amount of work thats gone into it and these only show a small number of the steps it's been through.
Click to expand...

Pah, you call that rust? THIS is rust my boy :D You got off lightly! :p Looks like a top job too.
 
Pete19s said:
Pah, you call that rust? THIS is rust my boy :D You got off lightly! :p Looks like a top job too.
Click to expand...

Crikey that was rusty! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one mad enough to throw £1500+ at repairing one of these though. All my research across the various forums seemed to find there were only two styles of prices, those who realised it cost at least four figures with stories and pictures, or those who seemed to think sill repairs are only £300 and anyone spending more is mad. Yet trying to find someone who has actually had one of these cheap repairs done and posted any pictures seemed an impossible task.
 
BinnsY said:
All my research across the various forums seemed to find there were only two styles of prices, those who realised it cost at least four figures with stories and pictures, or those who seemed to think sill repairs are only £300 and anyone spending more is mad. Yet trying to find someone who has actually had one of these cheap repairs done and posted any pictures seemed an impossible task.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the internet where everyone is a managing director on £40k per year minimum and pays £3.50 per hour for bodywork to be done by master coach builders. It is a shame because it ruins an otherwise useful resource.

The end result looks good. One question though, on the drivers side was that whacking great hole (the one filled with black stuff) just filled over? I'd have thought that more metal would have been welded in there but I'm no expert on bodywork :p

My Mk1 is still completely rust free but I'm now at a bit of a loss as to what to do in the winter. To keep it that way I'm going to have to lay it up as soon as they start gritting which seems to be as soon as it gets a bit chilly round here or just drive it waiting for the inevitable rust repair :(
 
Last edited:
I had my sill replaced earlier this year for £200, only the one side though. That included getting the outer sill off, rebuilding the entire inner sill, as it wasn't really there, then etch priming the insides, putting the outer sill on, painting and filling the sill with cavity wax.
 
Arch work and paint work that requires blending (rather than black sills) puts the price into a different league though.

First MX5 I looked at had bubbly rear arches. The "expert" from Nutz who was selling it informed me that I didn't need to worry about that bit of the arch :rolleyes: It was at that point the fact he'd owned a dozen or so over the years became more of a worry and I promptly developed rust-a-fobia and bought one for three times as much :o
 
Gonna be putting mine up for sale in the next couple of months.... will be sad to see it go... but onward and upward!
 
Can see mine taking a while to sell because of the modifications on it. Hopefully it will go as one piece, breaking it and selling the modifications seems like I will be undoing a lot of work :(
 
I'm hoping mine will go relatively easily as it's very rust free, but I will need to either sell at a keen price or get the roof done before selling it.
 
Might find it easier to sell with the roof sorted, although I don't know whether you would get the money back from fixing it.

Has it got a fairly big/obvious hole in it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom