Mazda MX-5

Plans to spend a few days at the seaside were severely hampered because my suitcase wouldn’t fit in the boot, and the boogie boards had to stay home! And a spot of DIY caused mayhem and mirth at the superstore car park, when I tried to squeeze a paste table, stepladders, tins of paint and several large rolls of wallpaper into the car.

Impulse buying is something else not to be taken lightly with a sporty little roadster such as an MX-5. Your passenger ends up either getting the bus home, or being squashed by a very large box. Even the simple task of taking garden rubbish to the tip is a hassle.

Of course, if you have access to a larger vehicle as well, these problems never arise. However, as a single girl-about-town, I’ve been trying to live with the MX-5 as my sole means of transport.

There are upsides to this impracticality, however – I have yet to be asked to drop friends and family at the airport at unearthly times, nor do I have to run a ‘volunteer’ taxi service for my son and his friends any more!

Also, I’d like to thank everyone who E-mailed or called to advise me after my previous report that, if I had taken time to read the owner’s manual properly, it does explain quite clearly that the windows need to be lowered an inch when using the roof. So my failure to operate the system wasn’t caused by my being too weak, and I don’t need to go to the gym after all – hurrah! However, the MX-5 has had a rough time recently. The windscreen has managed to pick up a nasty crack (although there’s no obvious stone chip to account for it) and will have to be replaced, while the mystery engine warning light syndrome, first mentioned in Issue 917, has reared its ugly head again.

A quick trip back to my local dealer, TW White & Sons in Byfleet, Surrey, confirmed it was the same fault. The sender unit located beneath the clutch gets confused in slow traffic, assuming there’s an engine problem where none exists. TW White is contacting Mazda to see if this has happened on any other MX-5s, but for now it’s reset the system again. Perhaps it might consider loaning me a bigger car when I need one, as well...

Second opinion
I love the nippiness of the 2.0-litre MX-5, but I think the quickest thing about the Mazda is its drop-top roof – it’s so simple. There’s no waiting around for a whiney electric motor to lower the canvas, instead it’s nice and low-tech. You simply release the central lever and push the roof up and back over your shoulder. It’s all done in seconds, too. Why make things more complicated?
Gary Lord, production editor