The Answer to Everything (?) 2015 MX5 ND 1.5
Discussion
Following on from here..https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=47&t=2064033
I recently bought an ND 1.5 MX5 to cater for commuting and general duties to stop me using my 2008 CRV as much when it's just me and/or one of the kids which incidentally is a car I really shouldn't like as much as I do! But back to the MX5...
I went round the loop of hot hatch, bangernomics, modern classics but kept coming round to MX5's.. I previously owned a 1990 NA in Mariner Blue which was great and more recently an MR2 (https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1850579&mid=467117) I enjoy running a small 2-seater, when it's going to spend 95%+ of it's life on the B-roads of Suffolk and Norfolk they're perfectly fit for purpose so I started looking at NCs - a couple of great threads in RR for inspiration but they do rust, are starting to get a bit leggy and more than £300/yr (?) for rfl I moved onto the NDs and specifically the 1.5 which I thought should be a perfect spec car, in my opinion its got a great interior which, for daily duties does make a difference i've not had a particularly modern car for a while, its Euro 6..not sure on relevance but it feels like a bit of future proofing for the thing and there aren't many bad things written about them plus I can live with the image 'problem' if you don't get it, you don't get it! Strangely, given i'm 6ft 2 I seem to like smaller cars, also owning a 1978 1275GT and a motorbike (890 Duke R) for duties when its nice out!
The car in question is a 2015, Sport Nav spec so it has the heated leather (a must) and the integrated nav/infotainment which doesn't feel out of date particularly. I didn't want white or red or black which pretty much left me with the dark grey- enter WF65VUE! It was advertised in Tewkesbury, i'm in Norfolk so I requested a video, and all the documentation to be sent over from the dealer (Cotswold Group Select- Would recommend) and was pleased to see 8 serivces over it's 30,000 miles. Price was good - market starts at ~£9k+ for 80k miles I was happy with £11k with a 3month warranty, 12months breakdown and the spec/mileage I was after.
Car was prepared well, feels like its been looked after and a 185mile drive home with the roof down put a smile on my face! Mission accomplished! It felt fine on the motorway and I think the engine really suits the car, its lovely to have a NA petrol engine with such little inertia in.
I've lived with it for a week of commuting and general duties, and over a full tank managed 45mpg which i''m chuffed with considering I wasn't going for all out economy. First impressions are that it won't take many modifications- i'm going to fit one of the seat lowering brackets available at the expense of the wife being practicably able to use the car.. and some of the eibach lowering springs in conjunction with an alignment (By all accounts..all the camber, all the caster the thing will give you and 1/16 toe in front and back) and some braided lines and new pads (possibly yellow stuff- rated them on the Mr2). I think that'll be about enough. I have read some reports on the hoods suffering from wear against the rear of the roll hoops - there is slight evidence of this so i'll see what I can do to stop this getting any worse.
In the meantime i'm going to try and keep it clean and use as intended. There aren't many RR threads on this car so i'll aim to keep it updated with musings as and when.Hopefully it will encourage me to get out and about in the car whatever the weather - i''ve sadly become a bit precious of my mini and riding the bike in the wet, cold mucky isn't much fun.
Thanks for reading, i'll get some more pictures up for references sake...
Day of collection
Interior
I recently bought an ND 1.5 MX5 to cater for commuting and general duties to stop me using my 2008 CRV as much when it's just me and/or one of the kids which incidentally is a car I really shouldn't like as much as I do! But back to the MX5...
I went round the loop of hot hatch, bangernomics, modern classics but kept coming round to MX5's.. I previously owned a 1990 NA in Mariner Blue which was great and more recently an MR2 (https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1850579&mid=467117) I enjoy running a small 2-seater, when it's going to spend 95%+ of it's life on the B-roads of Suffolk and Norfolk they're perfectly fit for purpose so I started looking at NCs - a couple of great threads in RR for inspiration but they do rust, are starting to get a bit leggy and more than £300/yr (?) for rfl I moved onto the NDs and specifically the 1.5 which I thought should be a perfect spec car, in my opinion its got a great interior which, for daily duties does make a difference i've not had a particularly modern car for a while, its Euro 6..not sure on relevance but it feels like a bit of future proofing for the thing and there aren't many bad things written about them plus I can live with the image 'problem' if you don't get it, you don't get it! Strangely, given i'm 6ft 2 I seem to like smaller cars, also owning a 1978 1275GT and a motorbike (890 Duke R) for duties when its nice out!
The car in question is a 2015, Sport Nav spec so it has the heated leather (a must) and the integrated nav/infotainment which doesn't feel out of date particularly. I didn't want white or red or black which pretty much left me with the dark grey- enter WF65VUE! It was advertised in Tewkesbury, i'm in Norfolk so I requested a video, and all the documentation to be sent over from the dealer (Cotswold Group Select- Would recommend) and was pleased to see 8 serivces over it's 30,000 miles. Price was good - market starts at ~£9k+ for 80k miles I was happy with £11k with a 3month warranty, 12months breakdown and the spec/mileage I was after.
Car was prepared well, feels like its been looked after and a 185mile drive home with the roof down put a smile on my face! Mission accomplished! It felt fine on the motorway and I think the engine really suits the car, its lovely to have a NA petrol engine with such little inertia in.
I've lived with it for a week of commuting and general duties, and over a full tank managed 45mpg which i''m chuffed with considering I wasn't going for all out economy. First impressions are that it won't take many modifications- i'm going to fit one of the seat lowering brackets available at the expense of the wife being practicably able to use the car.. and some of the eibach lowering springs in conjunction with an alignment (By all accounts..all the camber, all the caster the thing will give you and 1/16 toe in front and back) and some braided lines and new pads (possibly yellow stuff- rated them on the Mr2). I think that'll be about enough. I have read some reports on the hoods suffering from wear against the rear of the roll hoops - there is slight evidence of this so i'll see what I can do to stop this getting any worse.
In the meantime i'm going to try and keep it clean and use as intended. There aren't many RR threads on this car so i'll aim to keep it updated with musings as and when.Hopefully it will encourage me to get out and about in the car whatever the weather - i''ve sadly become a bit precious of my mini and riding the bike in the wet, cold mucky isn't much fun.
Thanks for reading, i'll get some more pictures up for references sake...
Day of collection
Interior
Nice! I’ve got a 66 plate white one in same spec. I too came from a Mariner blue NA, an NB and Mk3 MR2. I love the 1.5 ND after 6 months with it. I’ve only done the CarPlay mod (straightforward and cheap - £45 from AliExpress), and sanded and polished the roll hoops to mitigate roof rub. I’ve also put some self adhesive backed 3d printed spacers for the roof, now it’s got plenty of clearance!
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
I’ve been pondering on one of these for a while now. It has an appeal but I can’t see myself using it for longer trips or anything involving motorways, but that’s mainly based on trying the same engine in a less powerful form in a Mazda 2 which just feels lethargic whenever you want to accelerate
ChrisH79 said:
I’ve been pondering on one of these for a while now. It has an appeal but I can’t see myself using it for longer trips or anything involving motorways, but that’s mainly based on trying the same engine in a less powerful form in a Mazda 2 which just feels lethargic whenever you want to accelerate
Try an nd2 184bhp. I’ve taken mine to France and back and it was great (other than ac failure). It’s not massively fast but perfectly acceptable on a long trip. ChrisH79 said:
I’ve been pondering on one of these for a while now. It has an appeal but I can’t see myself using it for longer trips or anything involving motorways, but that’s mainly based on trying the same engine in a less powerful form in a Mazda 2 which just feels lethargic whenever you want to accelerate
I did have some concerns.. but the gearing is well judged for the engine and it feels willing right up to the redline. It doesn't have the in gear shove that anything with a turbo or with a bit more displacement has but if you drive it around it's power band you soon get used to it. On the motorway it's ~3k rpm at 75 or so which makes it a decent cruiser in my book.I didn't buy it for it to be a fast car, I think if you did you might be disappointed!
I've also just bought a 2015 1.5 Sport Nav ND, picked it up on Friday. Have had an NB 1.8 and NC1.8 previously as well as a MK3 MR2 but got to say that the ND feels a much better car than any of those for me. Mine will be a bit more of a weekend and good weather car but will definitely get plenty of use over the next few months. It was a bit of an impulse buy, after selling my Mini Cooper a couple of weeks ago but when I saw it I knew I had to have it. 1 previous owner and full main dealer service history plus being from my local Mazda dealer so has a 12 month approved used warranty etc. I really regretted selling my NC as I'd owned that from new, so glad to be back in an MX5 finally.
Hope yours treats you well
Hope yours treats you well
A few months into ownership and i'm still really happy with the car. It's doing exactly what I need it to do, mostly used for commuting and for me to get around without the wife, kids and dog (when i'm not on the bike) and have also done a couple of longer trips which it's absolutely fine with - average MPG is hovering around 40 which I think is great, i'm totally convinced its met the brief I set out.
Still no modifications although I've started to plan a couple to bring it up to date and make it mine - seat lowering brackets have sat in the garage for 5 months (As the wife has only driven it once since February I can justify fitting the brackets I think) Android Auto module, lowering springs and alignment and maybe brake pad upgrade with some braided lines just to sharpen it up a touch and to give a bit more performance under braking as I've cooked the brakes a couple of times probably a bit too easily.
I gave it a service this month including gearbox and diff fluid, Japanese cars are always a pleasure to work on! I also gave the underside a good clean and treated with Bilt Hamber UB which is always a satisfying job to tick off the list..
I attended an event for work at Millbrook - the bowl was used as the car park - by the time I got back to the car it was all alone up on the banking! A fairly unique picture!!
A friend has recently recommissioned a mobile rolling road (WOT Power (https://www.instagram.com/wotpower1000/)) which a few of us volunteered to get our cars on to help him get it set up and have a play with.. it's a really cool thing and he's spent a lot of time in getting it working and most importantly accurate! The MX5 was used as the 'control' to set some of the correction factors as it is unmodified and only ~30k miles old. He has started taking it to car shows to do power runs and is doing events with car clubs.. if you see him please support him! Or give him a 'like and subscribe' on YT and Instagram (www.youtube.com/@WOTPower) Build of the rolling road is here :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1qAtnaV4GY&list=PLGxe6DyfHpNPBXjJnU68I9BjFQboG1-gO
A few of us with the cars we ran on the dyno during commissioning - MX5, Clio 182 race car, my Golf Mk2 16v (Eaton M45 supercharged), Triumph Spitfire 1500 and a 1380 mini on twin SU's..
Still no modifications although I've started to plan a couple to bring it up to date and make it mine - seat lowering brackets have sat in the garage for 5 months (As the wife has only driven it once since February I can justify fitting the brackets I think) Android Auto module, lowering springs and alignment and maybe brake pad upgrade with some braided lines just to sharpen it up a touch and to give a bit more performance under braking as I've cooked the brakes a couple of times probably a bit too easily.
I gave it a service this month including gearbox and diff fluid, Japanese cars are always a pleasure to work on! I also gave the underside a good clean and treated with Bilt Hamber UB which is always a satisfying job to tick off the list..
I attended an event for work at Millbrook - the bowl was used as the car park - by the time I got back to the car it was all alone up on the banking! A fairly unique picture!!
A friend has recently recommissioned a mobile rolling road (WOT Power (https://www.instagram.com/wotpower1000/)) which a few of us volunteered to get our cars on to help him get it set up and have a play with.. it's a really cool thing and he's spent a lot of time in getting it working and most importantly accurate! The MX5 was used as the 'control' to set some of the correction factors as it is unmodified and only ~30k miles old. He has started taking it to car shows to do power runs and is doing events with car clubs.. if you see him please support him! Or give him a 'like and subscribe' on YT and Instagram (www.youtube.com/@WOTPower) Build of the rolling road is here :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1qAtnaV4GY&list=PLGxe6DyfHpNPBXjJnU68I9BjFQboG1-gO
A few of us with the cars we ran on the dyno during commissioning - MX5, Clio 182 race car, my Golf Mk2 16v (Eaton M45 supercharged), Triumph Spitfire 1500 and a 1380 mini on twin SU's..
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