hi ,
on a prevoius 5 i owned i had a similar noise , it became more apparent when passing a row of shops or houses on both sides of the road ( similar circumstance to you in cheddar gorge)…
i took it to a well known mx5 specialist who told me the engine was “shot” and required a £2000 rebuild ( 5 yrs ago )
After some research ( google /forums ) ,
i removed the serpentine belt , restarted the engine and it ran silent and smooth
£100 bought a new belt , idler pulley and tensioner
around a hour to fit … no issues since ( the new owner is still in touch with me )
To echo bally3’s comments, I had a ticking noise on my 2006 2.0 NC in the early days of ownership, I replaced the idler pulley, the problem completely disappeared, I now have a BBR200 kit fitted, no ticking at all.
Tell the garage to remove the belt and run it briefly without. If that doesn’t stop it then suggest they whip the cam cover off and visually check every cam bucket face and cam lobe for abnormal wear.
BBR have arranged to pick it up, but who pays is still to be established. They’ve said that if the problem is due to anything other than the work they did, I’m liable for transport and investigative labour costs, which is fair enough. I don’t want to cry before I’m hurt so I’ll leave it at that for now.
As a fellow BBR200 owner, I’m sorry to hear of your troubles with BBR.
Just my opinion, but whenever I get that feeling, I take that as the moment to cut my losses and try someone else. Especially if once collected, its up to them to make their own and final judgement as to if its their responsibility or yours to pay for recovery and investigation…
My own experience of them was deflating given the apparent hype behind BBR - I bought my car from them which was generally ok, but then I used their springs & dampers, and within a year & a half the rears had sagged to an unusable point.
Regards service, I’ve had a couple of other niggles which again, felt like an inconvenience to them rather than an opportunity to build a good customer relationship, I’ve never had really bad service per se, but I’ve never really felt valued as a customer either.
Whatever you choose to do, best of luck for a positive outcome!
I agree. I spent a lot of money at BBR because I assumed it was the best route to go and expected much more in terms of customer service. There were some minor issues with the work that I had done that took a long time to resolve. If I have future problems I intend to suck up the cost and go somewhere else.
