I was just wondering if anyone had anything similar to the issue that I’m having with retractable hard top roof of my 58’ plate 5? On opening and closing the roof the decking part has started to judder on the drivers side and it also makes a fair amount of noise. Ive taken it to the local Mazda dealers who gave it a quick look for me and thought it was the motor that was on the way out. Since then I’ve also taken it to my local mechanic who does everything on all the cars in our household and he has advised that its its not the motor at fault but the gear that has gone. Apparently you can’t buy just the gear and have to buy the motor and linkage which will cost £1006!! And thats without fitting costs either. The car has covered just under 40,000 miles and is perfect everywhere else so I’m utterly shocked that something like this could have gone so quickly. On speaking to a specialist MX-5 parts supplier they were astounded that it had gone and mentioned they don’t keep them in stock as they never fault.
This has been reported once on this forum in the UK and if I remember once on Miata.net in the states.
It is as you say unusual but known in two cases.
The final cost was reported at nearer £2,000 to repair.
The roof is controlled by it’s own ECU which I believe in turn needs reset by the Mazda specific software or the Mazda specific code reader.
It is possible for your garage to hire the software from the Mazda European portal on a daily basis to be used on a Windows Laptop.
I must say that I’m not in the least astounded with this very complicated mechanism going wrong as it is less than heavily built and I have never for a moment thought it would last the life of the car.
Just too complicated but a replacement soft top for the non RC cars will be towards £800 fitted if you use a high quality replacement and by 10 years old say that may well be the case for a number of early Mk3 soft top cars.
You like myself have purchased a car at I guess less than half the new price of the car, if like me you bought a 4 year old car. In my case I saved some £12k rather than buying new but risked a big “out of warranty” bill.
To date I have been lucky but mine could do the same at any time.
Not in the least what you wanted to hear and the repair is getting on towards the value of the car in the existing over supplied secondhand MX5 Mk3 market I’m afraid.
There are a pair of silver/chrome bolts, one on each roof hinge that hold the cogs together. With the roof down and the deck stopped over the boot (by switching off the ignition) they can be seen if you look from the door pillar.
These need to be very tight otherwise the teeth will not mesh properly and make a horrible clicking noise. If left too long the teeth will round off.
Have a look at this link and in turn at the links I have previously posted. These have photos that should help you or your mechanic.
Thanks for all your replies everyone, much appreciated.
I’ll definitely look into what you’ve all suggested, and I’m doing a bit of searching around and going to get quotes from a number of different people and then see what to do from there really, its just a bit of a pain in the backside!