Tony's wife's NB8A
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:32 pm
Finally putting a garage thread together after several years of lurking on these forums.
My name's Tony, I'm based in Sydney and I've been a closet MX5 owner for 5 years.
The story starts about 5 years ago when I "convinced" my girlfriend at the time to buy a manual MX5 for her first car.
After taking a look at a few NAs, we decided that the NAs were a bit to outdated and lacked some of the safety features that the NBs had, so we settled on a Silver NB8A with about 85000kms on the clock. It was well serviced, immaculate inside and out and came with a full set of log books and 2 sets of keys, the perfect used car in my books.
It was a great daily for my girlfriend, who later became my fiance and finally my wife - I think finding a cool chick who could drive manual and actually liked cars had something to do with this, although it did take me about 8 years to finally put a ring on it!
During the first 5 years of ownership, I didn't care too much for the silver snag, as our friends had dubbed it. I had a 98 Honda Civic VTI-R which I cherished and the MX5 was simply the girlfriend's car. It wasn't until we downsized to city apartment living, that we decided to take the MX5 with us, leaving the Civic back at my parent's place. This was about the same time I started to develop a fond relationship with the MX5 as I really started to appreciate it's character and started to understand what roadster life was all about.
Over the past 5 years, it was over serviced and under utilised. My wife barely averaged 10000kms/year, usually commuting to and from work with the occasional trip up and down the coast. That being said, we serviced it religiously. In fact I just noticed the other day when going through receipts that the previous owner had completed the timing belt and major service prior to our purchase and we did it AGAIN at 100000kms at MX5 Mania, who we've entrusted with the car over the last 5 years.
It wasn't until I trawled through receipts did I realise how much preventative maintenance we performed on the vehicle. This made it a fairly reliable and fun car to drive, except one major bug bear, which was the extremely worn out stock shocks, which were matched to some sort of lowered springs by the previous owner. We ended up ditching these for a set of Yellowspeed coilovers from MX5 Mania late 2013. This transformed the driving experience immediately as the car suddenly felt 10 years younger.
The refreshed suspension inspired me to take it out to scenic roads and out for cruises with some old friends. Suddenly I enjoyed driving again!
Having said that, coming from FF ownership for the last decade, I'm finding the MX5 a lot more challenging to drive. With a front wheel drive car you literally just point and shoot and power your way out of corners, the MX5 on the other hand I feel teaches you to respect the vehicle a little more. I'm looking forward to more seat time with the car at Wakefield to improve my driver skills, I see it as a learning platform until I acquire my dream car one day, a 911 of some sort.
Anyways, this has been a long enough first post, I will continue the thread with some pictures and some other updates later on, as we're about 4 months behind the current state of the car.
Cheers,
TT
My name's Tony, I'm based in Sydney and I've been a closet MX5 owner for 5 years.
The story starts about 5 years ago when I "convinced" my girlfriend at the time to buy a manual MX5 for her first car.
After taking a look at a few NAs, we decided that the NAs were a bit to outdated and lacked some of the safety features that the NBs had, so we settled on a Silver NB8A with about 85000kms on the clock. It was well serviced, immaculate inside and out and came with a full set of log books and 2 sets of keys, the perfect used car in my books.
It was a great daily for my girlfriend, who later became my fiance and finally my wife - I think finding a cool chick who could drive manual and actually liked cars had something to do with this, although it did take me about 8 years to finally put a ring on it!
During the first 5 years of ownership, I didn't care too much for the silver snag, as our friends had dubbed it. I had a 98 Honda Civic VTI-R which I cherished and the MX5 was simply the girlfriend's car. It wasn't until we downsized to city apartment living, that we decided to take the MX5 with us, leaving the Civic back at my parent's place. This was about the same time I started to develop a fond relationship with the MX5 as I really started to appreciate it's character and started to understand what roadster life was all about.
Over the past 5 years, it was over serviced and under utilised. My wife barely averaged 10000kms/year, usually commuting to and from work with the occasional trip up and down the coast. That being said, we serviced it religiously. In fact I just noticed the other day when going through receipts that the previous owner had completed the timing belt and major service prior to our purchase and we did it AGAIN at 100000kms at MX5 Mania, who we've entrusted with the car over the last 5 years.
It wasn't until I trawled through receipts did I realise how much preventative maintenance we performed on the vehicle. This made it a fairly reliable and fun car to drive, except one major bug bear, which was the extremely worn out stock shocks, which were matched to some sort of lowered springs by the previous owner. We ended up ditching these for a set of Yellowspeed coilovers from MX5 Mania late 2013. This transformed the driving experience immediately as the car suddenly felt 10 years younger.
The refreshed suspension inspired me to take it out to scenic roads and out for cruises with some old friends. Suddenly I enjoyed driving again!
Having said that, coming from FF ownership for the last decade, I'm finding the MX5 a lot more challenging to drive. With a front wheel drive car you literally just point and shoot and power your way out of corners, the MX5 on the other hand I feel teaches you to respect the vehicle a little more. I'm looking forward to more seat time with the car at Wakefield to improve my driver skills, I see it as a learning platform until I acquire my dream car one day, a 911 of some sort.
Anyways, this has been a long enough first post, I will continue the thread with some pictures and some other updates later on, as we're about 4 months behind the current state of the car.
Cheers,
TT
points now... 
