Living 3 Years With My Mazda MX-5 ND - The Definitive Long Term Review

this is a 2017 1.5 mazda mx5 nd we are the one lapidos we are at the nurburgring what's so special about all of this well what's so special about this very car is that it has been the one and only car i've been driving for the last three years over 80 000 kilometers traveling across europe going for bike ski trips i've moved apartment with it so we feel it's about time for us to share with you what's really like to leave for such a long time with an mx-5 as your only car this of course as long as the weather allows us it's deep into much probably in your house it's 20 degrees but here it's snowing i'm freezing i don't want to stand in front of this camera anymore i just want to go into the car and crank the heater on and start talking about what it's really like this is a 992 gt3 sounds cool [Music] all right let's start this beast and get cracking if i can find my belt ah okay so three years ago [Music] i needed a new car and i had quite a quite a few specific requirements uh some of them completely personal and some of them actual you know something that you actually needed so the car had to be a rear-wheel drive and it's completely personal and the car had to be relatively interesting the car had to be manual [Music] but also the car had to be affordable to buy affordable to ensure affordable to run and interesting so you can imagine that it's quite a difficult combination to to make work because how can you have something that is cool that is interesting that is real-wheel drive that is manual that is cheap well actually you can it's an mx-5 this of course would would not sound completely reasonable if you consider the case use which mostly is long distance trips across europe 600 700 kilometers at a time every other week going on racetracks mostly so you wouldn't immediately think of a petrol engine 1.5 two-seater convertible because you know there is no space it it's not the car that you want you know that as any sane person would have gone for whatever i have whatever whatever car would work best for that case use which is a diesel car automatic comfortable not a single worry which is exactly what i've been driving just before i bought this because at that time i was driving a diesel company car which did the job perfect but always left me a little bit cold like it you know i like driving uh so i i am a race driver but beside this i really like cars and i like driving so for me it's just just not going from a to b uh i wanted to i want to feel something when i do when i'm doing it so basically at that time the only reasonable option was an nd because one of the key features that i also needed was the car for the car reliability so the car must must be reliable because the last thing i want is to maybe start the trip late into the evening through the night and then break down somewhere so buying an alden a or keep on using the wing banana or whatever it might have been it's not really feasible would not have been really feasible because the danger of it breaking down although the car is reliable it's too big and in case something went wrong i also needed the car to be relatively new so that for it to have to be still under warranty and all this sort of stuff so the nd sort of sort of fit perfectly i thought at the time if it perfectly ticks most of the boxes and of course there are compromises and deep inside maybe at one stage or another i thought of going even crazier so going for something that is even more interesting to drive even more unique even more of an occasion sort of our race car for the road but while i would have enjoyed that site it would not have been realistic so i had it so i had the lotus s1 which is as close as you can get to a actual race car for the road and i i know for a fact that i ended up not driving it uh as much as i wanted it because it's it's not really viable it's not really usable it's too much of a compromise at least for me i'm not hardcore enough but i know many people that say that are hardcore but really when they are when they are there and having a race car for the road they also ended up ended up not driving it so what you think you want might not be what you will be able to actually do and i had this experience before so i managed not to fall into the strap [Music] again talking about what in real life what it turned out to be and how much it did end up costing the car was when i bought it was roughly 25 000 swiss francs which was a very good price i think the car now is over 30 if you want to buy new and uh what about actually running the car for uh for all this time so 82 000 kilometers in three years um average fuel consumption is around 6.5 liter for 100 kilometers so extremely and i i didn't drive it slow uh i didn't drive it flat out either but normal driving 6.5 liters per 100 kilometers it's almost diesel car consumption which exactly what i needed as far as the intervals and maintenance beside the mandatory mandatory services which i did yearly or whenever the kilometers interval came which were about 300 300 swiss francs depending but of course this is uh highly influenced on the country so the hourly rate of a mechanic in switzerland is much higher than it is in italy so in italy i think these numbers would sound completely bonkers and crazy but so i think in italy i don't really know but i think in italy you could take 100 swiss francs off the price easily so besides spending yeah let's say 200 between 200 and 300 swiss francs per year to do the service i did nothing to the car the car has still its original set of tires it still has its original set of discs it still has the original set of pads i did nothing to the car not because not because i'm skipping it or because i want to run it cheaply but simply because it didn't need it because the car is less than a thousand kilo and it is not so powerful so you're not go very very fast anywhere and uh you don't need to brake so much so basically you ended up not using the brake so for as far as as far as this side of the equation such as the reliability ease of maintenance costs the car hit the mark perfectly i think i could have not have bought a better car in this regard like literally i don't think there are so many cars that can do this full stop no matter how much money you're going to spend on them [Music] if you buy a modern golf or if you buy a modern bmw diesel car yes it might be a little bit better on fuel economy but you i don't see anybody running 90 000 kilometers or 85 000 kilometers on a set of discs in a set of pads and you're gonna have problems because everybody knows that especially when you buy a relatively new model you go through a few you know few niggles that the car develops through the time electronic issues whatever it might be this car bomb proof literally bulletproof absolutely fantastic ownership experience on this regard and i couldn't be happier [Music] of course what kind of youtube car review would this be without a top five things that i hate and top five things that i love about my mx5 and the after three years of owning ship well let's start from the hate from the least hateful feature i would imagine that this must be the the charging ports the charging ports are just useless if you plug your phone into one of the two usb charging ports then it will discharge if you are using it for a gps or spotify or music and i cannot imagine how much that would have missed this this is just such a small thing yet it makes such an impact in an everyday usability of the car of course there is a 12 volts plug that you could use instead but it's hidden in almost an unreachable place and you have to have a two meters long cable to be able to use it i really don't get it it's not such a big problem but it gets to your nerves you know if you use it every day it is something that will will be disappointing on the same sort of level i would say i will put the windows control so basically they have automatic descent automatic opening so you click it once they come down and you don't need to stay there but if you want to close them you have to hold them so when you stop for example on the highway and you have to pay with your card and the window goes down and then you drive off and it's such frustrating thing to have to stay there with your finger i know it's such a small thing actually but if you use it and repeat it over time it's just unbearable after this i would put probably the noise of course you know i am aware of the fact that i've bought a roadster that is not gonna be as uh as quiet as a closed cockpit car but the noise is just unreal you can't have a phone call in this car it's just impossible the roof sort of jiggles and wiggles about and there's always some kind of noise you might even pick it up in this video and it's not just road noises the wind noise for it's everything it's not engine noise though unfortunately so the car is very very loud and this is something that i certainly underestimated when i decided to buy the car i especially underestimated how much of an impact it would be the next thing i have to say uh the general ergonomics this is the first generation nd which had the adjustable steering wheel in height but not in reach such as i cannot put it further away from me or pull it towards me this combined with a fixed sitting position in height so i cannot put the seat lower or higher it's just fixed i can move it forward and backwards and i can recline it but even reclining it is limited by the nature of the thing that's the fact that there is no space behind me so all these limitations combined make for a very very weird sitting position so either i find the right position for my arms so i and but then i am so close to the pedals that my legs hit the bottom of the steering wheel or i find the right position for my feet and my legs and then i'm so far away from the steering wheel that i cannot reach can i cannot reach it comfortably and the only way i could find to find a sort of a solution to this was to move the seat forward as more forward than i would normally do and then recline it a lot more than i would normally do which makes for a slightly uncomfortable sitting position at least to my tastes but it's the only way i can sort of fix all the issues because this i mean that i can fit so with my hat it means that i have a relatively okay reach to the steering wheel and it means that i can still use the pedals uh properly but and i'm a normal build like i'm one meter eighty tall so it's i'm generally normal build but the car is just so weird in that sense but the thing that i hate absolutely the most about this car and i i know that this can be controversial and there will be we will discuss this in the video a little bit more in depth but the thing that i hate the most is the steering feel and i know this can sound uh outrageous because this is this should be what this car is about but the steering feel is horrid honestly i have no words to describe it besides horrible and horrid when you're traveling in a straight line or actually at any stage when you're driving if you release your hands from the steering wheel the steering wheel doesn't come back to center it's just stays sort of to the angle that you're steered into there is no self-centering torque or very very little of it which makes it for an extremely [Music] weird sensation when you're driving it is like reversed force feedback so to speak such as suggest that when you turn the wheel you don't get the sensation of the torque increasing by the time you're steering it just stays linear and then when you release your hands it just stays turned it's like there is not enough self-centering force and this look at this it's ridiculous so this means that outside of the corner so this means that if i'm doing now a corner on the right it means that i have to physically straighten the wheel at the exit of the corner and there is no feeling it's just it feels empty when you do it but you must do it because otherwise the ceiling will stay stunned it's absolutely incredible the way this car feels i have never driven anything that feels like this and this also makes it for an extremely busy ride when you're driving on a highway and i'm not talking 200 i'm talking 130 140. it's a co you're continuously adjusting the steering wheel because the car the steering wheel is never centered the car never wants to go straight the car always wants to go either to the right or to the left anyway we talk more in depth about the handling later [Music] then again there is plenty of stuff that i really like about this car and this is the top five things that i love number one is the looks i think it was a bit controversial at the beginning especially the rear but it's aging really well unlike the nc which was always controversial and i still don't like by this time i really like the nds although it is in in stock form so quite high up but i still think it's cool another thing that i absolutely love is the the way the gearbox feels it's really snatchy it's really cool it's really easy to heal and tow especially when not driving on track i'm not talking about the the ratio or the spacing but just the way that it feels when you're shifting gears it's actually pleasurable to go from second third fourth this kind of stuff it's really cool and together with this i think that the next thing that i really love about the car is the the way the engine and the way that the power level uh combines with everything uh it's a rev engine and it doesn't have so much torque so you have to shift quite a few times but it doesn't feel underpowered as an na felt it feels like it has a it has enough power to to have fun without ending up in trouble and especially uh the second third fourth gear sections the car really really really shines there and i i it's it's fun you know to go through the gears it's actually a lot of fun the next thing that i really love about this car which is coming to in its own for everyday use is the infotainment it's nothing super fancy it doesn't even have apple carplay for that matter but it's just it just works you know you put the destination in it's easy to put the destination in it's easy to find the points of interest if you have to go to an airport it's easy to pick the airpod even the zoom feature works for me it's perfect and every day this takes a lot of stress out of the experience and makes it pleasurable to use and just been very useful for me naturally now it's time to talk about the one thing the one feature that i love the most about this car and it's the roof although i'm not a big fan of open top cars and admittedly i drive this car 99 of the time closed but i just appreciate the sheer ingenuity and engineering marvel that this roof is it's unbelievable one hand moving what five seconds it's incredible incredible that is the best feature of the car that might be one of the best features in any car because i have never seen i have never seen such a well-engineered roof i've never had this experience before it's amazing incredible and it's not like to only open it and it's close it's unreal [Music] you've heard now five things that i love five things that i hate and you might be thinking yeah well but i knew most of them already that doesn't sound so interesting is this really all that the one lap heroes have to give about this and of course the answer is no as you know we are very opinionated and we don't shy away from a controversy so let's go and have it [Music] the nd is actually quite a bad car what the nd is is all the negative sides of a sports car roadster condensed with all the negative sides of our regular run-of-the-mill diesel car and let me explain it a little bit before you start screaming and writing in the comments that i don't understand anything mazda built this car with a mission which was not to build a performance car but was to have like a mx-5na reborn to go back to the roots to step away from the nc to strip away ultimate performance but have a light car that is fun to drive at low speeds this is what they wanted to do and this is what they achieved but the way they went after it i don't think works because they made the car and this is something that you're familiar with if you know the car they made the car extremely soft and they made the car behave like a car that is 50 years old so it's not a matter of giving it low grip so that the car would slide at low speed they just built a car that actually feels like an n a it actually does but the n a is 31 years old i don't want to buy a new car that feels 31 years old do you nobody does [Music] nobody wants that i don't feel that anybody wants that and this is what they did so the car doesn't have low grip the car has modern tires the car actually grips in the corners but it's it's set up to feel like it doesn't grip the steering wheel is completely empty it doesn't self-center it feels like honestly it feels like a steering wheel from 50 years old car and the way the body roll is so much rolling the rear it feels like the rear is stepping out all the time but it isn't the car is actually quite quite grippy to some extent because the tires are modern so you have the grip but you have the feeling of not having it so you could say yeah but at least it's comfortable on the bumps but i'm not buying an mx-5 with that because the car is extremely comfortable on the bumps you barely feel anything but if i want that i buy something else i'm not gonna buy an mx5 for that so i really think that while mazda had a solid idea which was to build a car that was not focused on the ultimate performance envelope the way they went after it is i think to me is just wrong just wrong because the car it's not like if it if it had low grip that i could slide it everywhere you know and enjoy it at 50. i would i would say to you yes the car is low grip it slides slips and slides it's okay it's fine but the car doesn't do that it just flows it rolls like a 2cv so you actually have quite a lot of grip because it can't roll so much so but this is not it just feels bad it just feels horrible it just feels frustrating because you have a card that looks like this so it looks good it looks sporty and of course i don't want a gt3 rs but i want a guy that is good in the corners that's the whole point that is the whole point of this car is to be good in the corners and it's horrible in the corners completely unacceptable and i feel that i actually felt when i bought it that i was making an informed decision i am an experienced i am an experienced race driver i i had other sports car so i felt i was buying something that i wanted but in reality i didn't this is because the normal reviews you see they say how the car feels amazing and alive it's all it's all crap how this doesn't this feels anything but alive it just feels bad if you it's like classic cars talk to somebody that owns a classic car they say i bought i bought it for what it represents for what it means or because i like it but it drives horrible that is the summary of the mx-5 nd it drives like a classic car and if you want that be my guest go and buy it but i don't want it [Music] by the way through the power of editing you will might be able to see this nice i think here's the current house feeling i think that car has feeling i think the car is a gt3 rs prototype cool i will never be able to afford it all this negativity though doesn't mean that this car is just wrong on absolute terms this car is wrong for me so i'm not the customer for this car but of course i believe that there are customers so who is this car for well i would imagine i would imagine my father may be enjoying it you know he goes out with my mom for a weekend on the lake roof down he drives 50 between 50 and 80 the whole day he drives all the corners slow he's just enjoying the sun and enjoying his day if you're looking for that i don't think you can buy anything better but for anybody else from the performance driven guy to the drifting whatever driven guy to the genuine car enthusiast just know that you're buying something that at the very least needs a lot of work to make it what you want would the two liters be better yes but the gap between what this is and what i would consider good is so big that i don't believe that the difference between this and the and in the two liter would fix that the two liter has a little bit more torque but the last thing this car needs if anything is torque or engine power because the car is okay in the straights it's not fast but it's not slow so you might be the right customer for this car i know i am not and i know costas is not and i know sergio is not i actually don't know many that are the right customers but this is because you know we tend to hang out with people we have something in common with but i can see this car being a very good car for some of you just be aware of what you're buying [Music] [Applause] [Music] so all right we had two outside shots planned for the whole thing and these are the only two moments it's snowing i don't know how this can happen but it's happening the number in weather always delivering the question that i asked myself might be also the question that that you are asking or you are wondering about so would i would i buy this car again if i had the way to go back in time no so i would not buy this car again not knowing what i know now i don't have an answer as to what i would buy instead but knowing how much how much of a sort of a disappointment this has been i couldn't force myself to live through it again so uh so no i wouldn't buy it again nevertheless we are the one up heroes so we will progressively ruin the car in the coming weeks in the pursuit of making it better so i know it's a bit crazy yeah so we will we will destroy it so that it's cool afterwards the chances of success are very small but this has never stopped us as this car can can prove i highly suggest you to follow us and see how this evolves the grand scheme of things is at the end i will keep it because at this stage i just want to get rid of it and sell it as quickly as possible but maybe this will change so maybe after giving it the one appearance treatment i would keep it maybe 10 years and that would be a great success this means that we achieved what we wanted if not then then it's a double problem because we would have ruined it and i would have to sell it so we'll see we'll see just make sure that you follow us throughout uh subscribe like share hit the bell so you get notified when the first video comes out and you know fingers crossed and wish us [Music] luck [Music] [Music] you

Channel: OneLapHeroes

Views: 43,534

Rating: 4.6749358 out of 5

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Id: -ICyUZmn1UA

Length: 30min 6sec (1806 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Lonely_Fondant]

I wonder how he would have felt about an ND2 Club or GT with the Bilstein setup. Some of those problems seem to have been addressed.