Have been searching for a used ND for a while now either 1.5ltr or 2.0ltr with a budget of £14K max. My main priorities are overall condition and a full service history. The car will be for summer use only.
Lots of cars with partial service history and not cared for, which are non starters.
Prices are high for low mileage examples. There are quite a few around with 35k to 40K miles on the clock and a full service history. Which is a higher mileage than I would ideally want.
I’m aware of the issues with main ICE screen delamination, window regulators, bushes on rear hub carrier brackets etc.
My question is…does anyone own a higher mileage ND and how reliable has it been.
Bought mine for £14k with 25k miles. Put 10k on that in twelve months. Rear bush went and needed doing but other than that I have only needed tyres and oil changes.
Must be on 35,000 now, 1.5, nothing has gone wrong except for the rusting window guide cover which was replaced as per the TSB.
Probably helps that it’s generally garaged and is a mainly fair weather car. The spherical bearing failures are said to be caused by poor sealing resulting in corrosion. As mine are generally dry and it doesn’t go on salted roads, that could have preserved them.
Which makes a point really. COndition matters more than mileage.
I’ve had a 2 ltr 2015 ND since late 2017 . It had 5kmiles when I got it and I’ve done about 8-10k miles per annum since. Problems? A very short list - key fob battery went kaput , rear bushes got vocal and been replaced and I might need a new exhaust - sounded a bit blowy yesterday . It’s been Dinitroled and had a ceramic job last year (very good too).
Gearchange better now than in 2017, 42mpg typically and no other issues at all . Some mild upgrades and tweaks have improved it - geo and remap at Roddisons , lowered suspension (massive improvement) , PS 4s (much better than OE Bridgestones) and a Royal steering wheel (another big improvement ).
I have a 2017 ND 2.0L that, bought in 2019 with ~18k on the clock and a full Mazda service history. It is now on 117k still with a full Mazda service history!
In my ownership I have had the rear hub bushes replaced twice and the passenger window regulator once, that is it. (Well there have been other things but they were self-inflicted due to modifications and getting caught in the rain 1 too many times with the roof down.)
I have had everything done inline with the service schedule, plus gearbox and differential oil replaced a few extra times too.
Also replaced a few key fob batteries but I would be surprised if someone hasn’t with a 8 year old car now.
I would echo this;
If it has been cared for and maintained, go for it! Personally, I like the full Mazda service history, but as long as it is reputable and documented it puts my mind at ease.
It is also worth adding “roof rub” to your list of known issues. This is where the leading edge of the soft top rubs against the back of the roll hoop covers when down. There are cheap 3D printed blocks you can buy that push the roof back slightly when down to mitigate this. Just check the roof/roll hoops on any you look at when viewing them.
And the seat bolsters tend to wear quick heavily so another thing to keep in mind, I have seen some lower mileage cars than mine with worse wear on the seats.
Other aspects to check are:
Key Fobs x2
Cup Holder x2 (although I believe some might have only come with 1…)
User Manual (this is now digital I think but earlier cars all had a physical one to the best of my knowledge)
Towing Eyes (should be in a nice bundle in the boot)
Tyre Sealant (no spare wheel so this is what you get, it is dated so ensure it has been replaced/is still in date)
Satnav SD Card (there were issue with a batch that caused the infotainment to reboot intermittently)
Floor Mats (I believe most came with them fitted but they tend to disappear)
Thanks for all the valuable info guys, much appreciated.
Is it easy to hear a clunk / knock when the hub carrier bushes are worn.
What does it cost to have the hub carrier bracket bushes replaced. If I understand correctly Mazda replace the whole bracket with bushes, however I understand there are aftermarket bushes that can be fitted to the original hub carrier bracket.
It makes me chuckle that 30-40k is regarded as high mileage on an MX5 in the UK. In the US, high mileage would be more like 150k.
Personally, I was less fussed about mileage or Mazda service history. More concerned about fluids being regularly changed, whether the rear hubs and window regulators had already been done, whether the tyres are decent and matching. All the things that indicate fastidious ownership.
There are some real bargains to be had for £10-14k if you’re patient. Particularly if you’re planning modifications and can find something that someone else has spent all the money on.
I bought my 2015 ND1 last april with 47k miles on it and full MDSH and it now stands at 55.5k no issues with it in my time except key fob battery mazda dealer charged me £5 to replace. Ive done 4 track days in it and no issues at all except changing front pads. Great cars 50k is nothing in a modern motor if its been properly serviced, go for it the sun is back now and you wont regret it
I endorse the condition more than miles thing, with a caveat. Everyone says the car should be used , and they are right, but if you intend to resell don’t expect to get a comparable price for a higher mileage car. Simple reason - most people don’t like higher milers.
When I sold my Sevens the Seven community all said the same as this one. I was told I’d get £X easily as " these cars are simple , they thrive on use ". The reality was that I got about 30% less than £x , because as soon as most buyers heard I’d done 5k miles a year for ten years they lost interest.
So higher milers are great buys but not so great sales in my experience
Yes. You will hear it. A definite clunk clunk over surfaces that you’d expect to expose tired components. I paid £300 for the set of 4 + tool from performance bushes. My labour bill with a local independent was £70.
The hub bushing replaced twice? Was one of those recently, as I’m sure Mazda have redesigned those now (say last 3 years, as I can’t recall the exact TSB date), so should it go again if one goes the Mazda route to get them done? It’d be interesting if you had the second set fail if they were done fairly recently. Or maybe your second set which failed, failed a while ago, and hence were the previous ones, before they redesigned it?
I wouldn’t call the battery going in a key fob being something to report lol (unless people are saying it to show literally nothing has gone ‘wrong’ with their ND). My fobs last about a year max, but that’s the nature of the Cr2025 battery maybe, not the car
A solid £700 a side with Mazda, easily, cheaper if you go aftermarket.
Issue before was even if someone was going the Mazda route (or got the done via warrenty), the same rubbish part was used again, just ‘new’. Not like its cheap, either. So it’d ruin again eventually. They redesigned it a few years ago (3). So if you did go the Mazda OEM route for replacement (or if someone bought an ND, off the production line as 2022 wore on, or later), they should be fine
I had Rodders fit the polybush option when they first went and there was an issue after those, when I took it into Rodders he mentioned that one had shifted so addressed it with no cost. I have never had the Mazda ones fitted as last I checked they still only offered a full hub replacement.
And I agree on the key fob battery comment but it had been mentioned so I added it.
Yes, that is a good point, and I thought that myself, ref the conditions which might help get more life out of the OEM hub bushes. Add to that having mechanical sympathy over speed bumps etc and trying to avoid potholes etc.
However, I raised that either on here, or on the US forum a while back to someone who had them done under warrenty, and he claimed his usuage was similar to yours!
The corollary to that I suppose being that with ‘hobby’ cars, a 50,000 miler could be a bargain, even though it isn’t really high mileage at all.
At the extreme, I was offered a a 5 year old E-class Mercedes some years back with 3,500 miles. It sill had the plastic on the seats, and had been stored in a humidity controlled garage. It had a full service record, and had never been out in the rain. If the owner had a service booked, and it rained that day, he would rearrange it. It had been garaged with the doors and boot lid slightly ajar so as not to compress the seals.
The asking price was about 25% over book value, which I thought was reasonable for a car that never got wet and was literally as good as new. But there seemed little point in paying the premium if I was going to drive it in the rain and put 15,000 miles a year on it.
Cars are for using. I’m almost relieved when I get the first stone chip on a new car. Mine would be a bargain, so I’m not selling it!
You’d think so, but I don’t think it is.
Folk often don’t like paying dealer or above dealer prices for cars privately (if it was a private sale). Some will of course, but 25% over book value even if you had a free supermodel in every seat, is going to reduce a sales pool a lot. Even more so when a dealership will probably put a year’s warranty on it too. A regular car will invariably be bought by someone who will use it as a regular car, so stuff like not driving it in the rain, doing all sorts of ‘extreme’ looking after it methods (I’m not knocking that, I do too, but I think that’s more to do with my brain than common sense) rarely delivers the rewards it deserves. Of course you’re aware, that whilst something like the ND, as-is from the factory, might have ‘issues’ with rain and salt etc, there are cars that are fine. You mentioned your Merc, a German brand. I’ve commented on my Mrs’ MINI on here before that I am ASTONISHED by the phenomenal undercarriage condition of it, just passed it’s 4 year anniversary, 33K miles and used ‘as a car’. Ditto a 48K up! gti I’ve got too. I honestly don’t know what she’d have gained if, with that car (the MINI) she didn’t drive it in the rain, didn’t close doors, and I don’t know, reading a storybook to it at 16 degrees precisely, every Thursday evening before bed.
I had my 2015 ND1 2.0 SE-L from about 1500 miles in Feb 2016 until 69,000 miles in August 2023. It had almost every common fault apart from gearbox issues:
Crappy pleather gearstick gaiter split under warranty
Crappy OEM Panasonic battery went in 2020 about 40,000 mi
Window regulators failed 2021 at 44,000 mi and 52,000 mi (I was roof down a lot, car was kept outside)
Rear hub carrier bushes went in 2021 at 50,000 mi - that was expensive. They weren’t sounding very clever when I part-ex’d the car either.
Roof drains blocked in 2021 but fixed it myself
Air con got a bit weedy and needed a regas in 2022 at 55,000 mi
Rear pads had to be replaced in 2022 at 60,000 mi because a slider pin had seized. The left boot strut had failed too.
The crappy plastic flap on the sunvisor mirror just came apart in my hand in 2023 - the visors on later cars are nicer
At some point the roof started rubbing on the rear hoop trim, but easily fixed with self-adhesive wedges now
Rear view mirror started to delaminate
Being Soul Red the paint was made of butter and the sills particularly had serious road rash
Average fuel consumption was 37.7 mpg across 145 fill ups, that’s 4170L and 34,000 miles I tracked it, starting November 2019.
Routine servicing costs were £3200 (including tyres, MOT), maintenance was another £1600 (wipers, repairs, tracking). That’s roughly £1200 a year then you have insurance, tax, depreciation and fuel on top, I was averaging about 9000 miles a year I think.
Not the nicest list.
I don’t think the window regs got anything to do with the roof down (touch wood mine on 7 years this Aug are fine and I reckon I’ve done 99% of my 16.6K miles top down), I think it’s more to do with the area by the front little ‘quarter window’ getting wet as it does in the rain, and that finding its way down and rusting up the flimsy window reg wire. If it aids anyone, mine is pretty much exclusively under a half cover, which covers that area, hence I guess has had 5% of the water/rain there that non covered cars do?
