Mazda MX5 after 1 year and 11,000 miles - Likes, dislikes, problems and costs

this is my mazda mx-5 i've owned it for a year now i've done 11 000 miles i've taken it to scotland twice i've been to wales the lake district cornwall shropshire other places i'm sure and i've done five track days in it it's a 2020 model i bought it from new it's the 100th anniversary edition to celebrate 100 years of mazda there's only 100 of them in the uk and 700 worldwide or at least i'm told so what has it been like to live with this car for a year and has anything gone wrong well despite me driving this hard on track it's been mechanically sound there's been a few minor issues one that's been resolved that was this wheel the lack lacquer started peeling on it i took it to mazda underwood's in colchester they had a look at it could see that it wasn't me that had damaged the wheel so they replaced it fuss-free it's dura's first service now although i have been servicing it more regularly because i do track the car as well and when you take your car on track you want to service it more than just a normal service schedule to be safe and there's three issues i want them to look at one being the rear lights sometimes they missed up a little bit the next one being these windows when they go up and down when it's wet they make an almighty [Applause] awful sound mazda know about this there is a technical service bulletin about it so hopefully they can sort it and the third being the passenger airbag it makes this sound it's rather annoying and it doesn't happen when someone's sitting in the seat and it doesn't always happen so i am hoping they can resolve it now i'm going to talk about the things i like and dislike about this car having owned it for a year i'm going to start with the dislikes first thing are the sun visors they spring up quite harshly and if your fingers are here it hurts i've learned to close it like that so it's not a problem so to be fair that doesn't bother me i've made a list the next one is the volume knob it takes forever to turn things up and down it doesn't turn it up quicker if you turn the knob quicker it only gives you a little bit of times you end up turning the knob quite a few times to make it louder or quieter that's something i haven't got used to and i find that quite frustrating no lumber support these seats give you no lumber support it's a hammock style seat with no padding it's just the lever the tension of the leather that gives you support however i have found a way around it because it used to give me a bit of a sore back is i lean the seat back a bit more because the lower bit is a bit firmer and when i lean the seat back a bit more it gives me a bit more lumbar support and i find i have been very comfortable doing that the steering wheel is a little bit big although it does help you have a an arm rest because it's bigger you've got you can rest your arms if it's smaller might not be as easy but it's harder to get in and out of the car and you end up scratching the bottom edge of the steering wheel if you've got a zip on your trousers or whatever cruise control plus and minus is too slow so if i'm at 30 and it comes to a 40 and i just want to use the cruise control to go faster i can't press plus 10 times i've counted it takes 25 times to make it go from 30 to 40 because every time i press it it doesn't always add one it's quite dim-witted that's annoying auto wipers are slow to react you can leave it on auto it starts raining takes ages for them to come on and when it rains heavy it takes them too long to go into the fast mode so you end up having to use them manually anyway accessing the glove box isn't easy for a start you've got the bottle where your cup holder is that stops you getting in there and you have to be some kind of contortionist to get around and get your hand in there i can't get my hand around in there to grab anything so i have to then lean forwards and sort of get this hand up there like that and i'm quite a slim guy so that's that's not easy but it's the type of car they could have had a glove box in front of the passenger seat surely but there is no glove box there maybe there's something else there i don't know leaves in the boot and dirt in the boot when you open the boot not actually in the boot but the surround it gets very dirty very easily and it's quite awkward to clean mine is quite clean as i'm showing you because i do clean it quite often but leave that for a month and it looks dreadful if there's a little rubber bit around it or something to stop stuff getting in there that would be good the phone doesn't fit well my phone doesn't quite fit in this bit down here meant for the phone there's a little bit of a gap underneath it and as a result it doesn't fit flat with the surface that it's sitting on it's only the front of it and the back of it that is touching so it slides about too easy the mat for the phone should be flat not like bowed like this that's a little bit silly i would like them to fix that as quite an easy fix they just literally need to make a different rubber mat and that will solve the issue you can't see how much oil you've got when the engine is warm and you're supposed to check the oil when the engine is warm according to the owner's manual you put the dipstick in pull it back out again and the oil's everywhere clean it again put it in take it out and again the oil is everywhere it never gives you a reading but it does give you a reading when it's cold so you can only check the oil when it's cold and the screen wash bottle is a bit too small it looks quite big on the outside because it's nice big and flat but it is flat it doesn't have much depth to it so it doesn't take long to run out of screen wash now for the things i love about this car firstly the looks when i first got it i really liked how it looked but i wasn't so sure about the rear end i thought it looked a bit squished but that has grown on me the next thing are the headlights the headlights in this are amazing you leave on full beam when somebody comes the other way it stays on full beam but it dims where they are and if you're following someone it dims the car in front but still shines brightly to the left and right of them and you can literally see the dark area following the car but you can still see either side of them it makes driving at night a lot easier the feel of the doors they remind me of my friends 5 series there's a bmw 5 series the new one because they're so light and the click of the handle reminds me of that as well with really nice quality to the door and when you close it no rattles it makes the car feel of higher quality and so doesn't the interior in general it's a really nice place to be and just about everyone i can think of who has got in the car has been impressed with it the wheel for the infotainment system is a little wheel down here that you use to control the touchscreen which is better than using the touchscreen in my opinion it's much safer you can keep your eye on the road more and i'm much rather using that than i do having to lean over and look where i'm pressing to make sure i press exactly the right place and sometimes i know the system so well now i can do stuff and change stuff without even taking my off the road because i remember what i need to do to do what i want to do so that's great the rasp of the engine this engine is renowned for not being that great to listen to but i disagree i really like the rasp it is a four cylinder so it doesn't have the best rhythm but it reminds me of the s54 engine in my old bmw zed 4m which was a straight six 3.2 340 something horsepower engine which is renowned for being good and sounding good it has a different rhythm but the tone of it is similar and i've owned both cars and the way it revs they are actually quite similar this is just like a a mini version of it it's easy to change the brake pads two bolts on each wheel okay four bolts on each wheel to take the wheel off but two two bolts on the caliper so then get it off and change the brake pads and the piston is quite easy to get back and the design of the piston means that just about any tool you buy will work to push the piston back in it's not important for everyone but i change the brakes before a track day and after a track day so being able to do that in two hours on all wheels is very useful and there's no awkward circlips and stuff that you have to deal with like on some calipers which i find very annoying also the brake pedal has a great feel to it i drive other cars after driving this car and it makes me realize how nice the brakes are in this car especially when i get back in it and how rubbish the brakes are in my stay at layout my brakes in my layon aren't that nice they're too sensitive and too grabby i wish they were like this but you can't have everything the aircon works really well but what surprises me about the aircon is it doesn't seem to use more fuel i've done long journeys across the country several times sometimes with aircon sometimes without and the car gets around about 50 miles to the gallon 48 to 51 miles of the gallon on really long trips okay if you're doing an hour journey it's going to be in the 40s i'm talking about journeys when you're on the road for four five hours the longest journey i did was thirteen and a half hours and it doesn't seem to make much difference on track as well i've done two really hot track days one at fruxton one at donnington had the air conditioning on for the whole time i didn't notice a difference in power although there may be a difference in power and i didn't notice a difference in economy in fact the economy on track in this car is quite amazing i get between 14 and 18 miles to the gallon and the time i got 18 miles to the gallon was at fraxton on a really hot day and i had the air conditioning on the whole time i was even using the car to keep myself cool in between the times i was out on track so i'd come back leave the engine running leave the air conditioning on sit in the car and stay cool because it was it was a really hot day as i say i have really beat on this car probably nice to turn the engine off and let it cool down but no i kept it running oh by the way if you do go on track it is a good idea when you get off track to let it run for two or three minutes just to let everything circulate cool down gently but it's good to give it a break as well after that next thing are the dials they have this like purple reflection to them and in other convertible cars i've owned when the sun is out sometimes the glare can make it hard for you to see your dials but i think mazda have purposefully put this purple reflective coating on it it's so subtle you almost think it's there's nothing there but it's definitely something there and it stops the glare i've never had glare when sun has been shining on them so i'm guessing that's deliberate that is clever i like that and also you have a button to zoom in to your corner temperature which is useful when you do track days and the whole car just feels like you're meant to drive it hard and you're meant to take it on track the the engine is designed to take 1.4 of g lateral g and maintain all pressure the fuel gauge tells you you're on zero when it has nine liters left they think is that important well it is because most cars tell you it's on zero around four liters what that means is that there's more fuel in the tank so when you're going around a corner hard and the fuel goes to one side the fuel pump will always have something to suck on you're not going to get fuel starvation and get sudden loss of power on track which is quite dangerous and not good for your engine and the fact the engine can take the g-force as well and maintain oil pressure it's good because many people who do track days have to modify their car to deal with that by putting like a baffled sump pin to prevent the oil swishing about so much so if you want to do track days this is a really great car it's not the fastest but it doesn't matter the roof so easy my old bmw said four was an electric one and it took a while this one just do it in a couple of seconds look sometimes manual is best really quick i wasn't even trying to be quick there under the bonnet stays clean you have these little rubber strips either side and at the front i was expecting after my first trip to scotland for it to look terrible underneath there because it was really quite wet and lots of stuff i was driving through and the car was covered in muck yet underneath the bonnet was really clean which is nice it's nice to keep that clean and anything else yes the heater and the heated seats i'm sitting here right now it's a little bit chilly outside the engine's off but i've got the heated seat on and it's lovely and i can have the roof off pretty much all year round i've had it off in the snow as well and i've been comfortable and warm because the heater just blows so much warm air it feels like it's summer when it's winter this car is not only great to drive enthusiastically but if you only need two seats it's also quite easy around town reversing camera reversing sensor relatively good visibility for a two-seater convertible really easy to use pedals and clutch and steering it's a joy even to go a sedate speeds but you don't want to know about that do you let's go to a more interesting road this is where the car shines a great british b road with its precise steering slick gear change quick to rev engine with its light flywheel and perfect balance it's quick too not the 60 in six and a half seconds it's a similar speed to a a clio 182 from the naughties except a much better driving position rear wheel drive better balance and a limited slip differential it's not the fastest car but whoever said a cleo 182 is slow what i find interesting about this car is the car i had before it was much faster it was 870 kilos 220 horsepower and not a 16 closer to four seconds and when i got this i definitely noticed it was a slower car but having owned it for a while i don't remember my last car being any faster simply because this one is just as much fun and that's what counts my sense to speed has adjusted probably for the better hmm i'm doing 10 miles an hour this is slightly uphill 35 60. it's quick enough it can get tail happy especially when wet these bridgestone tires are very good when they're hot they're good for a row tire on track very pleasant on track but when it's wet be careful of your throttle because the car will want to twist on you as for tyres and brakes i'm still on the original set of tyres after five track days two of them are really hot they've all been dry although i've had to replace one tire early on due to a puncture and i'm still on my first set of track brake pads my road pads have got loads of life left in them although i always say i only have probably one day left in the tires on track and certainly one day left for the brake pads on track and then when you're in a 30 mile an hour limit with houses and you want to relax or you're on a really long cruise on a monotonous a-road or motorway the car's relaxing and easy easy to use i love the chassis of the car it's positively rear-wheel drive you can really feel that and you don't get understeer you have to be on a race circuit and be driving very hard to get any kind of understeer much prefers to go into oversteer i thought i would share with you the cost of ownership i think that's quite an interesting thing about cars you want to know how much they cost well the first service is 220 pounds a full set of good quality tyres say bridgestone potenza sports or michelin ps4s will set you back about 400 450 pounds for the lot 350 pounds for good quality road breaks plus fitting and then the car was 30 000 pounds they're a bit more than that now and you can't get this edition but a similar one probably set you back about three thirty three thousand pounds now but i didn't pay thirty thousand pounds that's not how it works i paid four thousand pounds and three hundred and seventy five pounds per month for 37 months which is three years and a month with a twelve thousand pound balloon payment i think it's less than twelve thousand pounds but the car will still be worth most likely around about twenty thousand pounds at the end of its term so it would make sense to pay the bloom payment because it can't be worth a lot more than it not giving the car back if it's worth 20 000 pounds when i can pay 12 and keep it that'd be crazy that's like giving away 8 000 pounds i never thought that i would own a white car but a year ago i went into the mazda dealership and saw this thing could not stop thinking about it for a week and i ended up buying it part of the reason why i like it is the color the white the red the black the wheels as a package i think it looks fantastic but white cars are a pain to keep clean gets these little marks on it which just don't come out with a normal wash and i have to use something else for a clay bar so i went on the internet to find a solution and i found this stuff hybrid solutions funnily enough ceramic spray coating i recommend it i'll leave a link in the description follow the instructions for application although i don't what i do is i spray one spray on a small panel two sprays on a big panel spray it on the cloth for the wheels i use it absolutely everywhere glass and plastics no white marks makes the windscreen wipers work better because the water just flies off when you're driving down the road and it lasts about two months after two months then the car starts to get difficult to clean again but for a couple of months it's really easy all the dirt comes off and you don't get those stubborn marks that you can see on my cars i actually do it every month just to be safe and it only takes me 10 to 15 minutes to apply if i followed the instructions it would take me longer and there is a two-stage process you can do which means it would last 12 months apparently although i haven't tried that but link in the description highly recommended well that's been my experience of owning this mazda mx-5 over the last 12 months it's one of the best purchases i've ever made and it's been a lot of fun if you like the video give it a like and subscribe to get my future videos and until the next one cheerio you

Channel: Richard Fanders

Views: 513,045

Keywords: mazda mx5 100th anniversary review, mazda mx5 long term review, mazda mx5 2.0 litre long term review, mazda mx5 2 litre long term review, how much does it cost to own a mazda mx5, mazda mx5 nd2 long term review, mazda mx5 nd2 2 litre review, living with a mazda mx5 nd2, taking a mazda mx5 nd2 on track, fuel economy of a mazda mx5 nd2, mazda mx5 nd2 2 litre reliability, mazda mx5 100th anniversary edition interior, mazda mx5 nd2 faults, one year review mazda mx5 nd2

Id: iB0xFXxIsWc

Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021