mx5cartalk.com

n.b. throughout the posts' some names will be removed, and substituted with "seller" for ease of story telling.



Thursday Night 11/11/2010
So for quite a few months I’ve been on carsales.com searching for that perfect mx5. The one that I’ll have a look at and get all the right feelings from.

I’m very particular about my cars. They have to be clean, and by clean I mean “new looking” inside and out. It is actually possible to have a 20+ year old car that looks new inside and out. I know, I own one, and have had a couple in my family.

The last time I bought a car for myself was Friday, 23 April 2004. That day was an amazing day (I’ve typed up the story previously in my personal blog). Everything that day felt right. The car was perfect, interior and exterior clean, engine bay clean, the drive was perfect, the seller was genuine and honest.

I was hopeful that if I looked at cars again, a similar thing would happen. It did, but it took a very long time. This time around, instead of having to only look at a handful of cars to find “the one”, I ended up looking at quite a significant amount more.

This year I decided I might want something a little less modified, without a roof, something that allowed me to blend in but still have fun while driving. A car that allowed me to enjoy the winding roads like I once use to, without fear of repercussion from the law, or the disapproving looks of others.

Prior to the interest rate hikes I was looking at Lotus Elise’s. My heart wanted to jump there, but my head wouldn’t let me.

“So what else out there matches the same criteria met by the Elise but won’t break the bank,” is what I asked myself. The only answer that I could come up with was, “Mazda MX5”.

I let my OCD run rampant. Not a single morning or night was without a few hours spent browsing carsales.com. This eventually turned into a ritual. The more car’s I found and looked at that disappointed me, or sold before I got the chance to look at, the more I wanted to find “the one”.

For months my girlfriend and my weekends and some week nights were filled with anticipation and disappointment. I’d find a car, make a call, go to view the car, and either have my heart sink at the first sight of the exterior of the car, the interior of the car, or the engine bay.

Or I’d fail to pull the trigger soon enough and have the car sold out from under me.

That said, none of those really gave me the right feelings. None gave me that feeling I got when I found my car nearly 7 years ago. None really met all the criteria I look for in a car.

After awhile I put together a list of questions that I either asked during the first phone call, or sent via an email. This helped save my time, and save me from some disappointment.

That said, you would not believe how different people’s opinion of “excellent”, or “immaculate” can be. To me, covered in visible swirl marks is far from “immaculate”, and a ding in every panel is far from “excellent”. These owners were obviously not enthusiasts.

I also found that I have one pet hate.

Quite a few people, when confronted with questions about damage, or the few failings of the condition of their car’s (asked politely ofcourse), replied with,

“Well, the car is over 10 years old, you’ve got to expect that.”

This got on my nerves. If a car has been maintained correctly, it can still appear “new”. Deep gouges in the paint don’t just happen because the car’s ten years old.

…Oh, and for the exorbitant amount they were asking for their cars, saying that just made me….ARGH! (/end rant)

Anyway, I digress. By the end I had quite a few cars lined up to look at after emailing and calling, but the blue one that I bought was the first in that line.

Prior to the week of Thursday 11 November 2010, I was adamant about the age of the car that I would allow myself to buy. I did not want to look at any below 1997. But then I read on a thread somewhere on jdmstyletuning.com (and I’m paraphrasing here), “…that the physical age of the car shouldn’t matter, because there are owners of older vehicles that look after their cars much more than many new car owners.”

I’d been thinking this for quite some time. But I never allowed myself to believe it. This one post seemingly allowed me to give myself the green light to look at older vehicles.

So I found the blue one on carsales. It had actually been advertised for most of the time that I had been looking for an MX5. It’s just that it was out of my price range before, plus it was older than I wanted.

But with my new found vigor (or whatever) I looked up the number, made that phone call, and I was met with an automated answer! Not even voice mail! But I was asked by the pre-recorded voice if I wanted to send the recipient my number. So I did thinking nothing would come of it. At this point I thought that maybe the blue car wasn’t for me.

Feeling rejected I put the phone down and walked away from the computer, and attempted to rid my brain of all thoughts about the blue car, or any MX5 for that matter. I was protecting myself from the possibility of more disappointment. I didn’t even want to try calling about one of the other car’s I had lined up in the list.

Later that night, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise. It was the owner of the blue MX5 that I had called earlier! I was quietly excited. I walked quickly to my study and brought up my list of questions. Nervously I went through them, and I think the owner could tell I was nervous. But he obliged. Answered every one of them, at one point I even think he questioned himself on the validity of this potential buyer he was speaking with (ie. me). I think he thought I was a tyre kicker at one stage.

But we ended up talking for 20 minutes or more about his car, what work he’s done with the car, the history of the car, the reason’s for selling, his history with MX5’s, and even about my experiences looking at other used MX5’s.

With more than suitable answers to my questions I organised a viewing of the car for the next day...

Friday 12 November 2010
The excitement was overwhelming. Again I had allowed myself to get excited over a car that, going on history, would more than likely disappoint me.

It was Friday morning, my alarm started going off. Waking from a broken sleep I wanted to slap myself for being stupid. “Don’t think about it,” I had to remind myself.

As I started my day I put cars out of my mind. But as the time to see the car came closer I couldn’t help but feel an anxious excitement, “Will I need to keep looking after this one? What if everything’s good, what then?”

The time came to head out to the car. I seemed to be on autopilot. Emotionless, I went through the checklist that I had gone through many times before:

* Print out of the car details, including rego, vin, engine number, seller’s name, address, asking price, kilometres…check.
* Multiple print out’s of the Car-Buyer’s-Receipt pre-filled with most details…check.
* Torch…check.
* Copy of the Miata Buyer’s Guide…check. (Never really used this after the first few times, but kept bringing it along out of habit).
* TomTom…check.

…and off I went.

Pulling up infront of the driveway that nervous excitement that I had grown familiar with returned. I wanted to be optimistic about it. “It’ll be all you wanted and more”, I said to myself. Followed by, “Don’t get your hopes up idiot!”

Slowly I began my walk down a very long driveway. I could see a couple of cars in the distance, but not the MX5 I came for. It wasn’t until I rounded a slight bend that I could see something blue under a carport, parked behind another car, hiding…waiting for me.

As I drew nearer, I recognised the shape of the front, followed by that headlight intake that I was set on changing with the stock item that was included in the sale, and then the wheels. It was shiny, sparkly, and clean. My heart rate must’ve doubled at that point, it actually looked good!

This moment was only interrupted by the seller opening their front door, peering out, and asking, “Wil?”

It’s at this point my memory blurs a little.

The seller brought the car out into the light where it shimmered wearing it’s colour coded hardtop. I went through my checklist, all the while I struggled to suppress my eagerness. I went over every inch of the car, using my torch where needed. It was looking good. Cleaner than any of the previous MX5′s I had seen, including one’s that were ten years younger.

Time for a test drive. It was during the drive that I had made up my mind. The whine of the supercharger was intoxicating. The first set of twisty corners I encountered the thing that came to my mind was, “Jinba Itai”. Something I had read along the way whilst researching MX5′s. It translates to, “Horse and Rider as one”. I wanted this car, and it wanted me.



As we made our way back to that long driveway I had a script playing in my head on how the sale was going to go down (I wonder if I was talking out aloud while running through it, I hope I wasn’t, how embarrassing).

I stopped the car, and we got out. I asked if we could take the hard top off, and put the soft top up. We did, and I commenced going through an abbreviated version of my checklist again. But my mind was already made up.

“So, how do I buy it?”, I blurted out without so much of a breath.

“Did I really just say that?”, I thought to myself quietly.

The seller looked shocked, “Really? You’ve decided!”

I think he was as shocked as I was with the question I had just asked. So we danced with the how’s and how much’s, and came to an agreement, as long as a few RTA and REV’s checks turned out AOK ofcourse.

…and that was it. I drove away about one and a half hours later that 12th of November 2010, in my new MX5.

day 2 - let the mods begin

There were three things that were on my “must-do” list after I bought the car. Mount the front number plate (it hadn’t been mounted), adjust the coilovers so the car isn’t sitting up high (they were adjusted to the top of their height for trailer clearance), and wash, polish, and wax/seal the paint.

The first night of owning the car was a restless one. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, nor could I bring myself to eat. I was hungry, but I couldn’t keep anything down. The lack of sleep from the night before had me exhausted, but I couldn’t relax. The adrenaline keeping me going had well and truly taken hold. All I wanted to do was drive, and do the three things I mentioned above.

But there wasn’t enough time in the night to do it all.

I also lost some time because my girlfriend and I had to go pick up her car from my work. That was a good opportunity for her though, I let her drive the mx5. It also happened to be the first time I had been in my car with the roof down whilst it was driving. But that’s ok, I love her :-P , and she loved driving the new car for that brief moment. That made me happy.

It also happened to be her first time driving a convertible, and a supercharged car. At the first set of traffic lights she exclaimed, “I want one!”

Finally she knew why I had wanted to own an MX5 for so long, and why I was getting so frustrated during the many months of searching.

Anyway, after eating barely anything for dinner I grabbed my girlfriend and told her we were going for a drive. She too was excited and wanted to get going.

The car was still riding high, with no front number plate so I decided to keep the drive local. It was so much fun. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried….and all we did was go around in circles. I finally had a convertible sports car to call my own.

The next day I was up at 4am googling, “How to adjust coilover height” finding out all the information I could, and watching all the youtube how-to video’s I could find. Unfortunately the coilover’s in my MX5 were rare in English speaking countries, so an exact how-to for me didn’t exist.

By 4:30am I was in the garage with the car up in the air on jack stands. Measuring, and adjusting.

By 5am the car was lowered. Seeing the car sitting properly (though, I would end up lowering the car again the next morning) made my smile grow even larger. It was time to drive it again….I drove to my parents to show them my handy work .



Eventually it was time to tackle that front number plate. I didn’t want to drill into the front bar, so I decided to fabricate a number plate bracket out of some lengths of aluminum, and bolts that I had. I wanted an offset number plate.

So I sat down infront of the car with numberplate in hand, and some lengths of cardboard and started visualising, and looking for mounting points.

My original plan of mounting to the baby tooth (tow hook) was ruined because my car didn’t seem to have any :\.

Eventually I figured out how, cut and bent the cardboard to size, then made the bracket out of aluminum. After a few hours it was mounted! HURRAY! “I could relax finally”, I thought. But no.



I needed to wash, polish, and seal the car. All my energy was near depleted, and the adrenaline I had been running on was disappearing. I literally felt sick, but I was still smiling. I even went for a 2 hour drive after doing everything.

That day I ended up completing all that I wanted to, except the photos.

From the moment I had the car in my possession there was one thing I was that was more of a need than a want. A security upgrade. So I started searching for someone to do the work. I eventually found Daniel from Platinum Car Security and organised a day for him to perform some magic.

Great work, clean, and efficient. The website he has is brilliant too, if you need to book him in for an install just click the appointment button on the right and follow the steps. Too easy.

I started to notice some swirl marks on the MX5, and now that I had seen them I couldn't seem to un-see them. Everytime I looked at the car my eyes were drawn to the areas where I've seen swirls. Frustrating...

So last Friday I went and bought some Prima Amigo from Dave at Reflect Effect. The results he had posted up of this stuff + dríven fixing swirls has been pretty good, and after using it I can vouch for it. One thing I don't like is how dusty the dríven is. Pain in the ass.

I also finally received the Shin-Etsu grease I ordered for the window rubbers last week. Ordered for 1/4 of the retail price in Australia from America, however took nearly 4 weeks to get here. Bitter sweet victory there.



Saturday was spent polishing the MX5. Satisfying, but painful with my back injury. The planned drive for the next day didn't go ahead because of it. d'oh.

Shiny toys.



Last week also saw me order quite a few parts from overseas. The waiting is killing me already!

...and what happens if I head into the office expecting a package for my MX5 to arrive and the damn package never shows up?

Bought this from a work friend, he's actually a member here - Ian with the black NB8B. He had one spare



Feels much better than the Razo Baseball style soft vinyl thing that was on there previously.

I recently got my first of many boxes (hopefully) from overseas.



I.L. Motorsports clear indicators. Not Zoom-engineering unfortunately. I had ordered these before I knew about that website. d'oh! Still though, these set the car off nicely. Much better than the weathered and faded orange ones.


I no longer have a radio controlled car! I disliked the whip with a fiery passion.


Now this is a bit funny. I ordered what I thought was "ONE PAIR", when infact what I ordered was "ONE". DOUBLE D'OH!@!!!@$!$!! Shipping costs more than the part, and MX5-mania (who look to have these on their website) aren't back till mid January or something.

funny looking boobies....

I don't know about you guys, but this is the sort of crap I can't stop thinking about. The car's not balanced left to right now!!!

After a while I found that these don't actually fit properly with the bar that runs behind the seats. It kept popping off everytime I went to grab the seat belt. But my mate Ian came to the rescue again with a spare NB version. Tried it, and it fits. I'm going to order a couple of them now.

So, over the Christmas public holidays I started looking at some of the photos of my MX5 and couldn't help but think it was sitting nose-up. Which kinda annoyed me...really annoyed me, and at the first bit of free time I had I got out the c-spanners...



...and went to work on the front.



After a few minutes of measuring, twisting, and turning my MX5 was now 6mm lower in the front...and HOPEFULLY no longer sitting nose up. To celebrate (and help the springs settle), my girlfriend and I went for a drive. 6mm actually made my MX5 feel more pointy and taily than previous. I liked it.

While driving we spotted some water and boats. My MX5 seemed curious, she knew what boats were, but these things didn't look like anything she had really seen before.

2011!! A new year!!

Happy New Year everyone!

The morning of 1/1/11 I decided to get up early and head out for an early morning country drive...alone, for some reason people (including my significant other) seem to like sleeping in on the first morning of the year. *cough*

It was intensely relaxing and I enjoyed every single moment of it. I was pretty much the only car on the road. The sun wasn't yet hot, but it was rising, and everything was bathed in a beautiful orange glow. The air was also nice and cool. If I could drive this thing naked, I would! ;)






...and the sun started to come up higher, and hotter. So I figured I'd circle my way around through some twisties and visit my parents on this first day of 2011. I was a little hopeful that they'd want to come out and play...



...but of course, they're like everyone else (not strange like me) and were thinking a relaxing morning-in would be best.

Even still, this morning was beautifully relaxing for me. I'm loving this roadster, and I'm loving this life.

I've been unhappy with how and where I mounted my front numberplate for quite some time now. I had decided on changing it to a standard centre placement. But the other day, when it came time to drill the front bar, I just couldn't do it.

Instead, I went searching for the mounting holes for the front tow hooks (which are missing from my car). I eventually found them, and found that they're threaded for an M10 bolt.



The plate down here just ruined the appearance of the car from most angles. I think it made the front feel a lot higher than it actually was. It also looked silly with the "open" end (unsecured area of the plate) towards the centre of the car.

So I made the trip to Bunnings in search for an M10 bolt, and some thick and wide aluminum. Found both, and for under $10 I was on my way to making a new front number plate bracket.

When I got home I removed the front number plate and held the piece of aluminum up infront of my MX5. The aluminum began to struggle against me. I held it with all my strength and strangely it began to bend!!!



I then measured a few things out, cut it to size, and mounted the number plate on the new bracket.



I think it looks better there. I hope it does anyway. Otherwise, the next step will be to make up some new brackets to centre mount the plate, and drill into the front bar.

So I'm still waiting for parts, and I thought I'd kill some time by doing some maintenance that I've been meaning to do since the first week of owning the car.

The morning after I got the car home I got a little bit of a scare. The car didn't want to idle when I started it, and was kinda rough for a few seconds before smoothing out and being normal. I got worried...After all my effing check's how could this have happened?

So I warmed her up, and went for a drive. Engine seemed to pull fine, bad idle had disappeared. Shut-down, restart, starts and idles fine. WTF?

Anyway, every morning (or after any period of time of not starting) I had the same issue with starting my MX5, start then rough for a couple of seconds, then smooth. I put it down to the piggy back computers not being happy *shrugs*.

Then, one day when looking around the suspension towers (checking clearances for a brace) I noticed my IAC hose was rubbing against one of the bolts. I picked the hose up and looked underneath and found a nice hole. Looking all the way down the length of the hose there was wear and sometimes holes where ever the hose had been touching/rubbing. ARGH!



My temporary fix was silicone tape...So today I decided to fix it properly, and bought a length of 19mm heater hose from Repco.



After I installed the new hose I started her up (I hadn't started the car since yesterday), and it started smoothly. No badabup's, no hunting idle. Fixed



I also installed the new hose differently this time. I followed the instructions from the Jackson Racing site. If you notice it's now under the cross over pipe, and attached to the radiator fan shroud. Before it ran over the top of the cross over pipe and was attached to nothing. Hopefully it won't rub holes into itself down there.

While I was looking through the instructions I noticed another thing, the newer version of the supercharger kit comes with a check valve that goes in the IAC hose. Apparently this is good for an extra 0.5 psi (menial, but hey, 0.5psi is 0.5psi). So today I ordered one from Gary @ TrackDogRacing in the USA.



This also leads me to believe I might've been leaking boost with the "holey" hose. Anyway, it still felt fine to drive. Maybe it'll even be a tiny bit more punchy with just the new hose, who knows. I'll drive it later and see.

Haha that's awesome!

Great effort. Well done. Put us all to shame on our out-dated garage thread.

subscribed