2015 Mazda MX5 2.0 Sport
Discussion
I’ve been heavily inspired by a couple on here to create my own thread which I aim to keep updated fairly regularly. Mainly for my own personal record and I hope to do some reasonably interesting things with it so fingers crossed it won’t be a waste of internet storage. I also know that you lot are far more knowledgable than me so you can give me plenty of pointers along the way.
Last month I purchased a 2015 MX5 ND1 2.0 Sport. In the past I have owned various vehicles which mainly consisted of hot hatches (my garage on here is far from up to date so I’ll try and sort that at some point). I think for an all rounder they can’t really be beaten, however my most recent hot hatch was a BMW M140i. It was incredibly fast and very capable however I always felt I was just a long for the ride rather than being fully engaged. Cars are getting faster and faster, contain more and more technology and are getting heavier all the time. I felt it was time to go back to basics and get a two seater sports car for once.
I spent a few months checking the internet for a toy. I didn’t have any particular spec I was after, initially I hadn’t even narrowed it down to an MX5. All I knew was that I had to get approval form the wife, that was the biggest hurdle. We are saving for a new house and I also have a camper van project soaking up all my money but that’s another story.
I toyed with getting an F-Type, a V8 Vantage, Boxster etc but they were all too expensive, both to buy, but especially to run. On the other hand something like a Caterham would be too much of a compromise for me. I kept returning to the MX5 as a nice middle ground. I have never driven an MX5 and it's certainly a rather hyped up car. A few years ago I test drove an S2 Elise and I always regret not buying it. My wife wasn’t that fussed about it and I also kept worrying about the reliability of them. It drove incredibly though, so involving and felt like a race car for the road. A reasonably priced MX5 came up for sale nearby so I thought I’d test drive it. If it could provide just 50% of the involvement of the Elise we’d be on the right track.
The MX5 I found was for sale at an Alpine dealership, it had been traded in for a lovely A110 in dark blue so rightly or wrongly I assumed it had been owned by an enthusiast. It looked like a very honest car, 2 owners over the 8 years of it’s life so far. The first had it for the first year and then the second owned it for 7 years. That was good sign to me. It had full Mazda service history and plenty of receipts. It's covered 42,000 miles so it has been used enough to keep things working. I took it for a test drive with the roof down and fell in love. The gearbox was a joy to use and it sounded much nicer than I was expecting. I drove it for about half an hour and knew I had to have it. I tried negotiating a bit but it was already fairly priced in my eyes at £12,995 and the salesman told me they had others booked in to test drive it tomorrow. May have been sales patter but he wasn’t budging on price. Anyway I bought it.
I saw on the log book it had been owned by somebody who lives round the corner from me so controversially, in between agreeing to buy it and collecting it, I knocked on the door and asked if I was making a huge mistake. He was a little surprised but happily told me that he had loved it and looked after it. He did warn me that the rear brakes were getting low (I had seen that from the MOT history as well) and he also told me to come back if I did buy it has he had more receipts for it.
A few days later it was back home and I kept finding myself looking through the lounge window at it. That's always a good sign.
I gave it a good wash as I always find this a good way to really check the car over more closely. I love how deep the red paint is. There's a few stone chips on the front but it's not bad considering the mileage and the relatively low nose. I also bought a soft top cleaner, never had to buy that before. It looked like I had washed it’s hair
Anyway this is already becoming War And Peace so I’ll leave there for now. I have done a couple of tiny things to it already and have other stuff planned so I’ll update on those in a bit.
Oh and the main inspiration has been from other MX5 owners on hear, both Accelebrate and geraintthomas have greta threads that I’ve spent many hours reading so thank you to them.
Last month I purchased a 2015 MX5 ND1 2.0 Sport. In the past I have owned various vehicles which mainly consisted of hot hatches (my garage on here is far from up to date so I’ll try and sort that at some point). I think for an all rounder they can’t really be beaten, however my most recent hot hatch was a BMW M140i. It was incredibly fast and very capable however I always felt I was just a long for the ride rather than being fully engaged. Cars are getting faster and faster, contain more and more technology and are getting heavier all the time. I felt it was time to go back to basics and get a two seater sports car for once.
I spent a few months checking the internet for a toy. I didn’t have any particular spec I was after, initially I hadn’t even narrowed it down to an MX5. All I knew was that I had to get approval form the wife, that was the biggest hurdle. We are saving for a new house and I also have a camper van project soaking up all my money but that’s another story.
I toyed with getting an F-Type, a V8 Vantage, Boxster etc but they were all too expensive, both to buy, but especially to run. On the other hand something like a Caterham would be too much of a compromise for me. I kept returning to the MX5 as a nice middle ground. I have never driven an MX5 and it's certainly a rather hyped up car. A few years ago I test drove an S2 Elise and I always regret not buying it. My wife wasn’t that fussed about it and I also kept worrying about the reliability of them. It drove incredibly though, so involving and felt like a race car for the road. A reasonably priced MX5 came up for sale nearby so I thought I’d test drive it. If it could provide just 50% of the involvement of the Elise we’d be on the right track.
The MX5 I found was for sale at an Alpine dealership, it had been traded in for a lovely A110 in dark blue so rightly or wrongly I assumed it had been owned by an enthusiast. It looked like a very honest car, 2 owners over the 8 years of it’s life so far. The first had it for the first year and then the second owned it for 7 years. That was good sign to me. It had full Mazda service history and plenty of receipts. It's covered 42,000 miles so it has been used enough to keep things working. I took it for a test drive with the roof down and fell in love. The gearbox was a joy to use and it sounded much nicer than I was expecting. I drove it for about half an hour and knew I had to have it. I tried negotiating a bit but it was already fairly priced in my eyes at £12,995 and the salesman told me they had others booked in to test drive it tomorrow. May have been sales patter but he wasn’t budging on price. Anyway I bought it.
I saw on the log book it had been owned by somebody who lives round the corner from me so controversially, in between agreeing to buy it and collecting it, I knocked on the door and asked if I was making a huge mistake. He was a little surprised but happily told me that he had loved it and looked after it. He did warn me that the rear brakes were getting low (I had seen that from the MOT history as well) and he also told me to come back if I did buy it has he had more receipts for it.
A few days later it was back home and I kept finding myself looking through the lounge window at it. That's always a good sign.
I gave it a good wash as I always find this a good way to really check the car over more closely. I love how deep the red paint is. There's a few stone chips on the front but it's not bad considering the mileage and the relatively low nose. I also bought a soft top cleaner, never had to buy that before. It looked like I had washed it’s hair
Anyway this is already becoming War And Peace so I’ll leave there for now. I have done a couple of tiny things to it already and have other stuff planned so I’ll update on those in a bit.
Oh and the main inspiration has been from other MX5 owners on hear, both Accelebrate and geraintthomas have greta threads that I’ve spent many hours reading so thank you to them.
Edited by sgreeneggsandham on Monday 20th November 18:01
I owned a Civic Type R EP3 for a very short amount of time. It had had one “careful” owner who must’ve starved it with oil at some point as it had big end bearing failure with me after only a couple of weeks of ownership. Anyway, throughout those couple of weeks I became obsessed with the gearbox. It felt so direct and “bolt like” and the gear knob was a joy to engage with.
When I took ownership of the MX5 I got a similar feel from the gearbox but I just didn’t love the gear knob. Nothing really wrong with it, it’s weighty and in a pretty good position
But I longed for the solid aluminium feel of the EP3 one to compliment an amazing box.
I went for a gear knob from Likewise. They are predominately marketed at boy racers, drifters and the like but I found the interestingly named “Thick Boi” seemed to appear to be similar to the knob that was fitted to EP3. It’s not cheap at about £80 with the correct adaptor but I like the the look and the fact it is even heavier than the stock gear knob. Their website makes it very easy to get the correct adaptor too.
I love the feel of the new knob and I think it still looks in keeping with the interior. I suppose the logo makes it look a bit fast and furious but I’ll take that as a compromise for the quality of the shifter and adaptor. I do like how it is slightly higher than stock, not by much but makes it a little more comfortable for us right hand drive owners who have a handbrake in between us and the gear knob
You have to park next to other 5s when out and about. By the way the carpark gets full once the office staff turn up, I'm not deliberately making life difficult for the owner honest
When I took ownership of the MX5 I got a similar feel from the gearbox but I just didn’t love the gear knob. Nothing really wrong with it, it’s weighty and in a pretty good position
But I longed for the solid aluminium feel of the EP3 one to compliment an amazing box.
I went for a gear knob from Likewise. They are predominately marketed at boy racers, drifters and the like but I found the interestingly named “Thick Boi” seemed to appear to be similar to the knob that was fitted to EP3. It’s not cheap at about £80 with the correct adaptor but I like the the look and the fact it is even heavier than the stock gear knob. Their website makes it very easy to get the correct adaptor too.
I love the feel of the new knob and I think it still looks in keeping with the interior. I suppose the logo makes it look a bit fast and furious but I’ll take that as a compromise for the quality of the shifter and adaptor. I do like how it is slightly higher than stock, not by much but makes it a little more comfortable for us right hand drive owners who have a handbrake in between us and the gear knob
You have to park next to other 5s when out and about. By the way the carpark gets full once the office staff turn up, I'm not deliberately making life difficult for the owner honest
Edited by sgreeneggsandham on Monday 20th November 18:02
Lovely car I have a 2016 Recaro Sport - nearly the same as yours but Recaro seats BOSE stereo, full Aero pack, Bilsten dampers and WEobach lowering springs. I've had it 5 years now as my only car and love it.
1 comment you've cleaned the roof now re-proof it as well - you need to do both ideally to keep it in as good as condition as possible. Enjoy your new car.
1 comment you've cleaned the roof now re-proof it as well - you need to do both ideally to keep it in as good as condition as possible. Enjoy your new car.
dapper said:
Welcome to the club. Do love the red on the NDs, looks lovely.
Thank you very much. I know there are loads of red ones around but they still look lovely to me too. It’s a lovely deep red.Cylon2007 said:
1 comment you've cleaned the roof now re-proof it as well - you need to do both ideally to keep it in as good as condition as possible. Enjoy your new car.
Ah right, I’ll get on to that asap. Do people normally only wash the roof occasionally or does it need washing and sealing everytime the car is cleaned?JFReturns said:
I’ve just bought an ND MX-5 coming from a CUPRA 290 and echo your thoughts entirely.
I bloody love the little MX-5 already, it’s a joy to drive even at 30mph.
I completely agree, it’s a real occasion. Congratulations on yours.I bloody love the little MX-5 already, it’s a joy to drive even at 30mph.
When I drive along with the roof up over small bumps usually at slow speed I can hear what I think is the rear suspension. I wouldn’t necessarily call it knocking or clunking, but it’s definitely noticeable. The rear hub spherical bearings are a common weakness on the ND and the noise points to that I think. I’ve never driven another MX5 so I’m not sure if it’s just normal but I doubt it. Also as I spend more time driving it on twisty roads I’m not convinced that the rear is doing exactly what it should, again pointing to a failure or worn part somewhere.
Now the obvious answer would be to return it to the Alpine dealer and get them to fix it under warranty but we all know exactly what the process would be there. I drive it up, leave it with them, they don’t find anything, I try again, and the process goes on forever. During these processes you inevitably fall out of love with the car so I’m not going down that route. The warranty is useful if there’s a catastrophic failure but I don’t think this is.
After researching the rear hub bearings it appears there’s a few approaches I can take with it. The first option is to take it to Mazda and if it is the rear hub bearings they would replace the whole rear hubs at about £500 per side before labour. No thank you.
The second option that came up was to take it to Roddisons up in Sheffield. I spoke to Paul Roddison on the phone and he was extremely helpful. They offer a drive in drive out process where they replace the spherical bearings for poly bushes and carry out an alignment for about £500 in total. Sounds good but Sheffield is a 4 hour journey each way for me and my concern is that if that isn’t the fault then its a wasted journey. He did inform me of a way I could check for play so more on that shortly.
The originals are spherical bearings rather than bushes so they are designed to rotate a bit within the housing. Roddison’s actually race MX5s so I have no doubt at all they know what they’re talking about but there are other options too.
Another method is via the MX5 Facebook forum where there is somebody on there that produces replacement spherical bearings and a matching tool to fit them. The feedback on them is great and they cost £525 delivered.
I really fancy trying to fit them myself so I thought this would probably be the best way to go. However, I then found that Whiteline Performance UK now sell replacement spherical bearings for £88 on a Black Friday sale. Leaving a lot of money for a bearing/bush removal tool so I thought these would be the best option to try so I ordered them.
I also wanted to try Paul Roddison’s method of checking if they’re worn at all which required jacking up the car and checking for play on the rear wheels. The first problem was that my jack wouldn’t lift the car. It’s been a while since it’s been used to lift anything heavy having recently been used to lift plastic water tanks and plastic fuel tanks under our camper conversion so I needed to sort that out first.
It needed some more oil putting in the ram which was far messier than I expected. I filled it up and bled it of air and eventually got it working.
Once the rear wheel was off the ground you need to place your hands at the 8 and 2 o’clock positions, try and wiggle the wheel and then again at 10 and 4 o’clock positions. There was tiny amount of play in one direction on the off side wheel and then a little more on the near side. We are only talking a millimetre or two of movement and I’m not sure if that’s normal or not.
I had a look at the bearings and they look fairly normal to me but again this is all very new to me and the parts are on the way so I’ll try and change them anyway.
Edited by sgreeneggsandham on Monday 20th November 18:02
A very small change, swapped out the interior lights for LEDs. The standard filament bulbs are really yellow and just make the car feel older than it is in the car. Minor change but much better. And it’s much brighter in the boot too.
So I can take my son out with me I had been using a car seat that just uses the seat belt to secure it in the car.
He certainly looks the part, but we also use it in the family car so I wanted to get a seat that can stay in the MX5 more permanently.
He is now tall enough to use a seat belt so I opted for one that was recommended to the YouTuber ‘Remove Before Race’ for the back seats of his 911. I thought the narrow fitting would be ideal for the MX5 and its a huge bonus being isofix. Its a Maxi-Cosi RodiFix AirProtect and is really easy to fit and spot on for our boy. Our 6 month old girl will have to wait a bit.
So I can take my son out with me I had been using a car seat that just uses the seat belt to secure it in the car.
He certainly looks the part, but we also use it in the family car so I wanted to get a seat that can stay in the MX5 more permanently.
He is now tall enough to use a seat belt so I opted for one that was recommended to the YouTuber ‘Remove Before Race’ for the back seats of his 911. I thought the narrow fitting would be ideal for the MX5 and its a huge bonus being isofix. Its a Maxi-Cosi RodiFix AirProtect and is really easy to fit and spot on for our boy. Our 6 month old girl will have to wait a bit.
Kev_Mk3 said:
Brilliant read so far
Thank you Kev.I’m very average height at 5ft 11in but with the roof up I can feel my hair rubbing on the roof, it’s not much of an issue but I’d like to take the car on track soon and if the weather is a bit rubbish I’m not convinced I’d fit very well with a helmet on.
I’m going to look at lowered seat rails. There’s a few different options but it looks like the vast majority of them do away with the ability to slide the seat easily. This isn’t too much of an issue as my wife is nearly as tall as me and has the seat in the same position as me. There is the option of the Aurora seat rails that do allow the seat to slide but they are nearly £500 per side which is just too much.
I’ll probably go for the Jass Performance ones at £177 a side. They lower the seat by 2.2in which should make quite a difference. I’ll keep the passenger seat at standard height as my lad can only just see over the dash anyway.
An enjoyable thread and welcome to MX5 ownership!
You’ve got the colour I wanted for my RF and I do get a pang of regret whenever I see a ND in this gorgeous colour as at the time of purchase I couldn’t find one in this spec.
How are you finding the tyres? I only ask as I had Kumho tyres on a previously owned NC and found them more than enough for my driving ability.
You’ve got the colour I wanted for my RF and I do get a pang of regret whenever I see a ND in this gorgeous colour as at the time of purchase I couldn’t find one in this spec.
How are you finding the tyres? I only ask as I had Kumho tyres on a previously owned NC and found them more than enough for my driving ability.
JFReturns said:
Very interested on how you get on with the seat lowering rails. I’m the same height and like my seat relatively upright which doesn’t work in the MX5! Lowering by 2” would very much help I think.
I'll report back once I get to the install. It should make quite a differenceScotter said:
An enjoyable thread and welcome to MX5 ownership!
How are you finding the tyres? I only ask as I had Kumho tyres on a previously owned NC and found them more than enough for my driving ability.
Thanks, I've only done a couple of hundred miles on them so far and they seem great. If I had to replace them right now I'd get the same, no complaints. Although I don't really have much to compare to and not a huge amount of experience. I'll try them on track once I've replaced the hub bearings and that'll be the main test I suppose.How are you finding the tyres? I only ask as I had Kumho tyres on a previously owned NC and found them more than enough for my driving ability.
Took the MX5 for a little trip locally yesterday, nothing special but it was nice to get out for an afternoon.
A couple of things I noticed. Firstly the day time running lights turn off when you put the handbrake on. I thought that was pretty unusual. I do wonder if people opposite you at a junction think you’ve stalled or broken down if you’re in the middle of a junction waiting to turn across the oncoming traffic and the lights all go out. Probably not but I do think it’s a bit odd.
Secondly, I absolutely love the look of this little car.
The proportions are just great. I really didn’t appreciate it for the first few years of it’s life. I think I was just attracted to more powerful cars, I naively couldn’t see past the relatively low power. I think a lot of us do this and then eventually something clicks into place and we long for engagement rather than 0-60 times.
We saw an interesting boat come into Portsmouth. Sea Cadets by the look of it.
But it was freezing. We had driven there with the roof down and when we got back into the car I asked my lad if he wanted to keep the roof up (he had mentioned he was cold when watching the boats) but he said “no, roof down Daddy!” It’s incredible how warm it is in the cabin with the roof down, even on the motorway.
Not sure he’s thrilled by the car though
The hub bearing change didn’t go smoothly today. The space on one side of the upper bearing is very tight. There is a lot of connections to the hub assembly and access is tricky. I loosened off both sides of the upper control arm which allowed me to swing the control up and out of the way. I borrowed a bush removal tool from a friend but the ‘cups(?)’ and the ‘pushers(?)’ are very big and I couldn’t fit one into the rear of the assembly.
I took a trip to Halfords to buy a couple of sockets and I eventually managed to remove the offside top bearing.
Comparing the two bearings, the old one looked fine but the rubber was easily moved with my fingers, it was very malleable. The new one moves internally but requires more force and feels more direct. Hard to explain but it definitely felt different.
It was also very tricky to position everything to get it back in. So yet another trip to Halfords to get something that could resemble the cup part but shallower. I bought a 41mm shallow impact driver socket.
Eventually, with lots of swearing, I got the new bearing in with only one slight casualty. I knicked the top of the calliper. I don’t think it’ll impact the use of it but a little annoying.
Not sure if this is necessary or not but I jacked up the hub before reconnecting the upper control arm in order to “index” the existing bush at one end of the control arm and new bearing at the other end. Torqued up the bolts and after lowering the car back down it looked the same as it did before so fingers crossed that’s done correctly.
I didn’t tackle the lower control arm bearing as access looks even harder, I think I'll need to remove the brake disc. They need replacing so I think I'll do both at the same time. I wasn’t going to get them all done today so thought I’d try the nearside upper bearing. I jacked the car up and did the same as before however the threaded rod I was using for the bush removal tool sheared in half. I had bought a length of threaded rod that I cut down to fit in but it wasn’t high tensile and I think that’s why it failed. I tried with another length of threaded rod and it failed again. It sure goes with a bang and I was surprised not to lose any knuckles on the calliper.
I think I need to use some heat on the assembly but by now it was sleeting and I’d been at it for hours. So I put it back together and will tackle it again another day. I also purchased another tool which I’m hoping will be more appropriate given the limited access.
The good news is that even after a very short test drive to check the wheel wasn't going to fall off, after just one of the bearings replaced it's apparent the clunking noise from the rear has gone. At least I'm replacing the correct parts.
I got the opposite side top bearing done today but it was another really tricky one. I really struggled to remove it. I think the issue was that, although the socket I was using was just slightly smaller than the diameter of the outer metal of the bearing, it was just that little bit too tight. Every time I started to tighten it to try and push it out, it slipped and was pushing on the metal work of the suspension part. Eventually I used a much smaller socket and it actually removed relatively easily. I also used a bit of heat to entice it out
I butchered the old bearing but at least it was out
I'd been working at it for so long that I was even seeing bearings in my dogs biscuits
Anyway the new bearing slid in quite nicely so that's the top two in, I just need to do the bottom two at some point. I'll tackle these when I come to replace the rear brake discs though.
Always keep your workplace nice and tidy
The Jass Performance seat lowering rails turned up the other day but the instructional video looks like it's a little more involved than I originally thought so I'll wait for a decent weather day before attacking that.
I butchered the old bearing but at least it was out
I'd been working at it for so long that I was even seeing bearings in my dogs biscuits
Anyway the new bearing slid in quite nicely so that's the top two in, I just need to do the bottom two at some point. I'll tackle these when I come to replace the rear brake discs though.
Always keep your workplace nice and tidy
The Jass Performance seat lowering rails turned up the other day but the instructional video looks like it's a little more involved than I originally thought so I'll wait for a decent weather day before attacking that.
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