Thoughts on the new Mk4 ND

[donegalgeordie]

looks very nice, see you opted for the soft top, is that the 1.5 sport ?
Enjoy

[donegalgeordie]

Just noticed your quite local to me, I'm in the Redcastle area of the Inishowen peninsular, must watch out for the red Mk4.

[TOM 5252]

Yes it is the Sport version as they call it in the brochure that I picked up in Strabane. But on this side of the border it is called the Roadster GT.
GT in this case seems to stand for Gadget, for an extra €2200 you get a big bunch of very useful extras like Heated Leather Seats, with nice red stitching, Rain Sensing Wipers, Rear Parking Sensors, and Adaptive LED Headlights that look round corners, and more.
I've only been out twice so far in the dark but I am already loving these new LED headlights and the improvement they make in the view of the road ahead. I have though discovered that to replace one headlight would cost £643 (mx5 spares) and a U-Tube clip said that a new windscreen costs 1000 dollars
I was back at the garage tonight getting genuine mazda mud flaps fitted as part of the deal. These four small pieces of black flexible plastic would have cost me over 160 euro.

Tom

[Pops]

Isn't that just a brilliant colour for the car.
Wishing you many many and even more happy years of motoring with it

[donegalgeordie]

Yeah Tom, got mine in the North as well probably the same dealer Pat Kirk. I went in there last January to order the special edition 1.5 Icon and came out with a 2litre Sport.!!!. The one I got was the dealer demonstrator which they were moving on ready to an RF demonstrator for the, then, upcoming launch. Got a good deal and they are took my Mk3 in part ex. Ok I suppose it was second hand, but it only has 110 miles on it. White would not have been my chosen colour.

IMAG0398.jpg

[TOM 5252]

No actually you picked me up wrong on the cross border remark.
The only thing I got in Pat Kirk's was the brochure. Their price converted to euro plus about another €4500 VRT or so was no better than buying here. I bought it from McGinley's in Letterkenny but through Dominic Robb's garage in Newtoncunningham.
Dominic was the mechanic in Hugh Tinney's Mazda in Letterkenny when I bought my green mk2 in 1999 He suggested and arranged that on the Saturday morning when I collected the car, I spent an quite some time under the car (up on their lift) with a selection of small long brushes and a pot of copper grease, coating every nut and linkage I could see, Since I was planning on keeping it for a couple of decades.
Dominic did all the yearly services on the car there and when Hugh Tinney retired he set up his own garage on main street in Newton,
He has done every service since including the timing belt change.
So that's where I bought the new car and while fitting the mud flaps last night he sprayed some of the Hamerite underbody aerosol that I brought with me, on to any red or grey metal areas that we found under the car that Mazda had not coated with their black protective layer.

When you decided on a 2.0 rather than a 1.5 did you realise that according to the g/km figures you would be paying more than twice as much road tax per year?
Isn't the Icon special edition a white car too, with red mirrors spoilers etc. When I was checking out the online insurance figures before I bought mine, the only 1.5 listed on some sites was the Icon so I googled it. I think yours looks better (without the red bits)

[donegalgeordie]

The Icon also came in a Meteor Grey, with all the red bits, that's what I was after.

[TOM 5252]

Thought I should get around to changing my avatar.!

Yes the grey Icon is nicer, looks like the colour they reserve now for the RF

Another question, Did you find that the mk4 fabric roof seems to get soaked when it rains. I washed mine last Saturday and didn't like how hard it was to dry it off.
After having the mk2 vinyl roof for 18 years- treated at times with Son of a Gun- and as easy to dry as the paintwork, I got an Autoglym kit for fabric roofs and treated mine yesterday. Today, throwing water on it, it just beads and runs off, like on all the relevant clips on youtube.
Now I feel that this roof has a chance of being like new in 18 years time,-just like my old one.
This is my first question for Mazda about the mk4. Why doesn't it leave the factory like mine is now,-beading water?

Tom

[Steve]

Gorgeous car Tom, congrats!!

[TOM 5252]

Open in sunlight.jpg

Yes ,as Pops said it's a great colour, and being metallic it can range all the way from wine to scarlet, depending on how the light hits it.

And it sounds as good as it looks. It came with a more sporty exhaust note than my mk2

Tom

[TOM 5252]

Today I set about wiring in my reversing camera, that I had on my MK2.
I made another apparently new discovery. The reversing light bulb holder is very easy to access, the wires are blue and black, a volt meter confirms that the blue is +12v.
There is one blue wire in the section of the loom in the boot that runs down through a grommet to the light. So of course I tapped in to this blue wire and got nothing,- no volts.
I then got under the car and followed the run of the blue and black pair. There is a plug and socket connector clipped to the side of the light.
The Blue wire enters the connector plug and comes out the other side Red, the black wire also changes colour at the connector ! There are three red wires in the loom in the boot and the second one I tested was the one I needed.
After I had discovered that the blue wire didn't work, I went searching on the web. I found a post on the UK MX5 Forum by someone in the same situation asking for help, he got no answers and ended up soldering a wire to the blue one down at the bulb, - not the preferred place for a joint-.

Second job today, fitting some protection for the radiators.

Rad Protection.jpg

I like the look of the front of the car so I wouldn't want to fit the Zunsport type grill, even if they were not as expensive as they are, as they cover up the nice grill that's already there.
I got a 1m. by 250mm sheet of black painted expanded aluminium in Halfords.
With 2 straight cuts I made it about 32 inches by 6 inches. I undid the screws and fasteners holding up the cover under the car, slotted the mesh up behind the plastic grill and fixed it in place with small black cable ties around the vertical grill divider fins. Viewed from more than a couple of feet the car looks untouched

Tom

[mrges]

Like the grille - that's a nice subtle add-on.

And as for wires changing colour..... that's mad Ted!

[TOM 5252]

Hi All

I have another bit of information for all the ND owners out there.

It relates to this Mazda Service Bulletin, https://www.miata.net/garage/tsb/Squeak%20noise%20when%20power%20window%20is%20moved%20up%20and%20or%20down.pdf

The windows were fine when I bought it, but two months later both windows would squeak when wet for the top 2 cm. of travel.
At the 1500km.check-up I asked about getting it sorted and referred to this service bulletin. After the parts came in I took the car in for fixing on the Friday before last. The windows are still silent so far,

I'm posting this in case any owners were thinking that the squeak was normal and was something you had to just accept.

Tom.

[TOM 5252]

Hi guys.
I've been driving this car for exactly a year now and at it's first service last week, with
it up on a lift for it's oil change, I took this photo.

BOLT-X.jpg

Inside the black circle titled "BOLT:X" is an empty threaded hole.
Does anyone know the reason for this hole in the engine backplate ?


Another point of interest:-
A few weeks ago I drove back from a hotel on the far side of Omagh, through Sion Mills and Strabane
in the dark and with the wipers on for half of the journey, and the reported fuel usage reading for
the trip was 4.7 L/100km which is over 60 MPG.
Also the overall average fuel figure for the last 3 months of mainly shopping trips, is 5.4 L/100km
or over 52 MPG

I didn't expect the car to be this good on miles per gallon, when I was reading through Mazda's
advertising and brochures.
My last MX5 was green but this red one is a lot greener

[93 Mk1]

Hi guys.
I've been driving this car for exactly a year now and at it's first service last week, with
it up on a lift for it's oil change, I took this photo.

BOLT-X.jpg

Inside the black circle titled "BOLT:X" is an empty threaded hole.
Does anyone know the reason for this hole in the engine backplate ?


Another point of interest:-
A few weeks ago I drove back from a hotel on the far side of Omagh, through Sion Mills and Strabane
in the dark and with the wipers on for half of the journey, and the reported fuel usage reading for
the trip was 4.7 L/100km which is over 60 MPG.
Also the overall average fuel figure for the last 3 months of mainly shopping trips, is 5.4 L/100km
or over 52 MPG

I didn't expect the car to be this good on miles per gallon, when I was reading through Mazda's
advertising and brochures.
My last MX5 was green but this red one is a lot greener

That's almost twice as fuel efficient as my Mk1 ( ~ 30 mpg)