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Around the start of May, the wife and i were discussing the idea of travelling down to the Champagne region of France to visit a few vineyards we like and try lots of champagne. She started looking at flights to Paris and i started looking at hiring a convertible (what other way can you drive round France!). Flights were looking at around £200 each and hiring a crappy Megane style convertible was about £300 a week. I then decided that it'd be a much better idea to drive down there in our car which we share (An Alfa Romeo Giulietta 2l Diesel). Sadly this went against my idea of using a convertible so I decided that it would be a great idea to buy a convertible for the summer for around £1500-£2000. Use it in the sun, drive to France and then sell it towards September time.
I had a general idea that an MX5 was the one I wanted, but also considered the mk3 MR2 (ruled out due to girly looks) and the BMW Z3 which I quite liked but were comparatively more expensive than the MX5, plus I’d want the 2.8l one and I imagine fuel costs and repairs would likely be expensive!
After a boozy night out in Manchester I woke up and checked out Auto Trader/Ebay looking for local cars for sale. My wife who had only recently reluctantly agreed to me buying one came along, she was dubious as to the quality of an old cheap sports car.
We first looked at a ’99 Mk2 special edition (I forget which one) which was in absolutely terrible condition, seats were tatty, interior was filthy and the shell was rusty and had terrible paintwork. My wife’s beliefs were confirmed and I started to wonder if this was the kind of quality I’d be able to buy with my budget. I had been curious from the start as to whether I’d fit in an MX5 anyway at 6”2 and after sitting in the driver’s seat I couldn’t quite decide whether I could be comfortable on a long drive. The seller suggested I take it for a drive to see how it felt. I didn’t have any insurance as I’m just a named driver on my wifes policy for the Alfa (she’s been driving longer and so this was much cheaper for us, with me only been driving for 3 years). Luckily the seller had a trade license so was happy for me to drive it. First impressions were good, it was a fairly sunny day, the top went down and after being encouraged to rev freely I had a blast. This was a strange feeling for me as the only cars I’d driven previously were a 1.3l Hyundai Getz I learnt to drive in, then a 1.9 Astra diesel and then the 2.0 diesel Alfa. Going over 4k rpm was a novelty and felt great. Sadly even though the seller offered to buy it back from me in 3 months for the same price I decided the condition was too poor to really enjoy it for any length of time.
Next up was a ’98 regular 1.8 mk2. This was in a dark blue which my wife had previously said she didn’t want (I was initially told either Black, Silver or Red), when we arrived the car wasin decent condition, appeared to have no rust and only a few blemishes to the paint, although it was slightly dulled. We were greeted by a very enthusiastic owner. He was selling as he had a company car and had just bought a 2.8l Z3 which he’d had previously owned and he couldn’t justify 2 “weekend” cars. This one was a little more basic with it's cloth seats but had stacks of history and the seller even had a file filled with all the old Tax discs! He took me out for a spin and then went to a local Tesco where he let me have a little drive around to check I was happy enough with it. We had one last one to check so thanked the seller and headed on my way.
Last stop was to Irlam and to see an S-VT sport. This one intrigued me most as it had the 6 speed box and LSD and those all important extra 6 ponies! It was also considerably newer being an ’03 plate although the price was increased compared to the others. It looked superb, the paint was shining and we were met by a seller who seemed to know a lot about MX5’s. Telling me about how he’d recently replaced the bilstein springs and fitted pagid brake pads along with HID upgrade and servicing the car and putting on some rather blingy chromed alloys. He spoke about the drain holes and showed me they were clear. The negative points were that the tracking pulled a little to the left, there was a about a 2” square mark on the bonnet which had been chipped away and would need respraying and the drivers side bolster was pretty worn and would need fixing. The wipers also squeeked badly with every wipe. Issue confused the seller as he’d just put some brand new Bosch blades on it. Least it helped agree a slightly lower price.
I decided the S-VT was the one for me, I didn’t know much about the mechanics of cars at all and this would be my first car after 3 years or sharing with the wife. So the appeal of buying a used car which seemed to have recently had quite a bit of work done was high. It also had brand new alloys and tyres which I figured I could sell and replace with some cheaper standard ones to reclaim some of the spend
In hindsight what I probably should’ve done was take someone who was much more experienced with me to give the car a check over. I went home, checked over some insurance quotes, did a HPI check and rang him back to tell him I’d take it. Transferred a deposit and went back a couple days later to pick it up.
Here it stood on day one
2 days later the wife and I had a weekend in the Lake District booked (May bank Holiday), we did our best to fit everything we wanted into the boot (don’t know how we’d cope getting to France for a week and certainly no room to bring back any bottles!). But off the set, the sun was shining, the roof was down and my wife who is a nervous passenger at the best of times did her best to try and remain calm as I had a blast on some great country lanes on the way to the hotel. Her knuckles white as she gripped onto the hand rail on the side! The ride home was less fun as it was torrential rain and the squeaky wipers for 2 hours was considerably annoying.
After a week or so I went up to see Mazda Mender in Wigan to ask for help with the wipers and also to ask for advice about the problematic radio (the cd player was fine but the radio reception was terrible). He gave the car a once over and said the sills were starting to go from the inside and would be best getting sorted before it got worse and would be more expensive to fix. Also pointed out it was the wiper linkages which had gone and not the blades causing the squeak. He looked at the aerial confused for a while then rummaged in the boot and discovered the aerial motor wasn’t plugged in. Plugged it in and gave it a whirl and there was a clunking noise and no aerial movement. He told me what to buy and said to head back when it was delivered for help fitting everything.
So after 2 weeks I had the following plans
1.
2.Order a set of Mk1 wiper linkages and a new aerial from Autolink to fix the issues
3.Take the car somewhere to get a price for sill work and a bonnet respray
4.Speak to an upholsterer about fixing the seat
5.Buy new wheels and sell mine
6.Buy a style bar and windblocker to help protect the wifes hair from the wind.
7.Get the tracking sorted
8.Remove sun visors for an extra inch of visibility
The parts came and back I went to Waynes to get help fitting them. I’m not sure how he does it but Wayne was very patient with me being such an idiot when it came to anything! But in the end we got the wipers fixed and they squeeked no more. We also changed the aerial but sadly which the old mast was broken it also seemed the motor was also broken. Luckily though Wayne had a set of genuine Mazda style bars and windblocker in his man cave which he let me have and helped fitting them. I drove home a happy man J
During this time I also decided I wanted to use my phone for music in the car to save me having to carry huge amounts of CD’s. I did what I enjoy doing most and started looking into buying more goodies . I ended up with a Pioneer X3500DAB touch screen thing which would also allow me to connect my phone and use google maps on the screen as a satnav device. Bought it along with some Alpine 8” speakers and some sound proofing stuff for the doors.
Fits great and I’ve routed the cable to the storage compartment where the boot release is. Sadly I did this before I got the pioneer iphone cable thinking it’d just be USB but it also has a second connector so at the moment I’ve not got the Appradio side working yet.
Speakers were quite fiddly as whilst they fit in the holes, they stuck out too much so the door panel wouldn’t fit back on. After a bit of work with the dremel they fit great though. Sound quality seemed pretty crap at first but I think this was down to the EQ settings on the head unit being set to “powerful”. Changing this back to normal has sorted it out. Although I’m still not sure whether or not they’re in phase but I’ll get round to that another time.
I also found someone on here breaking a MK2.5 so bought the aerial motor unit off him. After a bit of fiddling I finally got this working and felt very proud of myself and manly. Rewarded myself with beer J
Around the same time I bought some white Dezent Motion 2 alloys from Greg on here. They came without tyres so I got them booked into a local place to fit some Kumho KH31’s to them for £200, a decent price after looking at the costs of buying the tyres and getting somewhere else to fit them. I figured this would be an easy job so dropped the car off with CP Davidson with the wheels in the car and the instructions to fit tyres to them and them fit them to the car, sort out the tracking (included for free in price) and then stick my wheels back in the car ready for the wife to collect whilst I was at work.
A few hours later I got a phone call saying they couldn’t find the locking wheel nut, a quick phone call to the wife and she headed round with the key which was rather unhelpfully in the bedroom at home! A little while later I got another phone call, saying that they have the car up again but the wheel nuts on my car wouldn’t fit the new wheels. They also weren’t sure what wheel nuts would be needed so we agreed I’d look into it and they’d put the old wheels back on and the new ones in the car. My wife turned up and due to the extra size of the tyres, they couldn’t fit the wheels in. The wife then had to drive it home with 2 wheels in, put them in the house and go back for the other 2. I had some grovelling to do!
A made a thread on here and was advised I need “tuner” nuts, being confused by all the types, I managed to find a “Dezent Fitting Kit” for sale from a place in Essex, great I thought, these must be the right ones. Got them ordered before I went on holiday for a week and when I got home I had a shiny package waiting for me. Called the tyre garage back up who told me to bring it back in and they’d get them fitted for me. So that night I struggled with my limited tools to remove the passenger seat to make room for all 4 wheels. Dropped the car off again and went to work. A few hours later however they rang me and told me the wheel nuts fit, but they didn’t stick out enough to use a socket to tighten them. I passed on the number for the place I ordered them from and suggested they speak to each other rather than me being in the middle and confusing everyone. Turns out they’d sent the wrong nuts so again they fitted the old wheels and my wife went down to pick the car up again. Apparently the garage were starting to feel sorry for me now! On the bright side though I treated myself to a nice 3/8” socket set to make refitting the passenger seat easier.
To cheer me up I met up with some people from another forum for a lovely drive in the sunshine through some Yorkshire roads. Mmmm sun
After numerous phone calls to the Essex place I eventually got the new wheels nuts delivered. I felt I couldn’t take them back to the garage again so decided to man up and fit them myself. Went out, tried and then promptly gave up because the bar in the car didn’t fit the wheel nut fittings. A trip the next day to Halfords to buy a breaker bar and I was on my way!
The car handled slightly better now and didn’t pull to the left as much, however there was a slight knocking noise coming from the front right wheel which worried me, surely even I couldn’t have messed something relatively simple up? A quick phone call to Nigel Langs in Bolton was made and the car booked in for a Hunter Laser Alignment.
They were great and the car came out feeling completely transformed. I went for the “Lowered fast road” settings but left the print out I got there but it’s coming in the post so I’ll post it up when it arrives. I also got a good look under the car whilst it was on the ramp which shower some of the rust underneath so added some waxoil style treatment to my to do list. On a better note Warren worked out what was causing the clunking noise. Luckily not my fault and it was the wheel weights just catching on the brake cable. He ground these down a little and problem solved.
So here we are in it's current state
Current to do list therefore is
1.
2.Sort out sills and get car undersealed
3.Sort out the drivers seat
4.Get the bonnet painted
5.Possibly look into track days
6.Possibly try and move the rear view mirror higher in the windscreen to give myself a little extra visability.
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have decided that all this sounds like a lot of work for a “temporary” car. My wife has also noticed this and has come to accept that it’s very likely here to stay for a while. Luckily she’s enjoying it a lot more than she expected (I think her words were “it's not as crap as I expected it to be”).
This also ended up a lot longer than i expected!
