Mazda MX-5 (NC) | Shed of the Week
A good NC MX-5 makes a great Shed buy at the usual £2k threshold - even more so at half that...
US founding father Benjamin Franklin once said that nothing was certain apart from death and taxes. If he’d managed to stay alive for another 230 years or so he would very likely have added ‘rusty MX-5 sills’ to that quote.
As far as Shed is concerned, however, a rotting underside is the titchy Mazda’s only flaw. He’s had four MX-5s in his time, all of them NBs, and he’s been all over the shop in them with no issues other than the odd seized brake caliper, the odd twittering alternator belt and naturally the odd country and western sensation (rusty sill). He still has an NB Arctic to this day, a replacement for an identical Arctic that through no fault of its own was written off while stationary by a young farmer in an old Peugeot that wasn’t stationary enough.
Shed paid buttons for his latest NB and he will probably keep it for a few years before embarking on a hunt for the next one. That’s because for him the MX-5 is the perfect little car: fast enough to be fun, super reliable, easy to fix on the rare occasions that it needs any fixing, and a regular source of innocent pleasure on a sunny day with the top down to accompany the guilty pleasure he gets when the postmistress is sitting alongside him with her top down. Plus he’s fairly sure they’ll be making replacement body parts for a while yet. For the Mazda that is.
The only real downside of MX-5 ownership for Shed is that Mrs Shed has a frying pan for every occasion. At the extreme end of her pan rack is one marked ‘MX-5’ which is heavy enough to make contact with Shed’s noggin even when he’s cowering inside the Mazda with the hood up. He does have the hardtop but nowadays it’s too heavy for him to fit it on his own and Mrs Shed won’t help him for obvious reasons.
He’s never considered upgrading to an NC, as the elevated driving position always makes him think ‘coracle’, but the example you’re looking at here might change his mind. It’s a March ’07 car in the sort of visual condition you’d expect from a 79,000-mile car, which is fair because that’s exactly what it is. ‘Visual’ being the key word there, but the MOT history is as reassuring as it can be about the solidity of this car. It tells us that the last test in July was a clean pass (after an initial fail for a blown sidelight bulb and a leaking rear shock) and also that the corrosion in the rear suspension mounting area that was mentioned for the first time in Sept ’22 was put right on the very same day. There will be more to attend to in the future of course but it’s all manageable and probably economic too given the ongoing rise in used car prices. Otherwise the vast majority of the advisories in the string of MOTs from 2010 have been for insignificant issues like perishing tyres and split balljoint dust covers.
This NC has the 1.8 rather than the 2.0 engine, which means 125hp instead of 160hp. Doesn’t sound a lot but in a car weighing well under 1,100kg it’s enough to rustle your undergarments. The 1.8’s CO2 rating is 174g/km so your annual tax will be £305 instead of the £335 that a 2.0 would cost. NCs have timing chains that should last for the lifetime of the car rather than the cambelts that need (inexpensively) changing every 60,000 miles or 5 years in the NB.
What else? Well, NCs are known for developing a whining noise from the back end that isn’t the noise of a worn wheel bearing. It can be a sign of wear in the diff gearwheels, or if you’re lucky nothing more than a hint that it might be time to change the diff fluid. Sometimes though it’s simply road noise coming up through the drain tubes. Engine-wise, contaminants can build up in the throttle body causing stuttering/surging at idle or when slowing down. Dodgy crankcase ventilation hoses can create hesitations when getting on the power.
So apart from that lot, all of it fixable, why is this pre-facelift NC so cheap at £995? Because there’s a ‘ticking sound coming from the engine’. That sounds a bit more problematic but again the chances are it’s not a major worry. Just tap ‘MX-5 hydraulic lash adjusters (HLAs)’ into your browser of choice and follow the instructions on there from the most sensible-sounding contributor. In a nutshell, it involves changing the oil and chucking some Wynn’s HLA treatment additive in. This should free off any jammed-up HLAs in there. If it doesn’t, try the same thing again and maybe think about an engine flush. If that doesn’t work just turn the stereo up and continue to proceed about the borough in your normal manner.
Obviously Shed accepts no responsibility whatsoever for this ‘advice’. Don’t bother looking for contact details on his website because you won’t find any. In fact, you won’t find a website.
Dont pump loads of money into it. Maybe try the cheap fix for the ticking.
Dump it if it gets expensive, stick it on eBay no reserve and get what you can back.
Approach it like that, will likely be fine for ages and it’s £995, if that’s all the money you can afford, don’t go buying elderly sports cars ?
Bet that will turn out to be the best £995 you have ever spent.
Own & be responsible for the maintenance of one - no
I'm the late 90s I had a J reg 1.8 absolute brilliant car traded it in for my 1st Saab 900 T convertible. Wouldn't mind an NC but not this car, this would be a cheap motor for a mechanic but not the average punter.
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