Hi all, I posted before with a 2009 sunlight silver, that was moved on as i was planning a Cayman. However the 5 got under my skin and while looking for a Cayman a lovely 2012 venture in radiant ebony came up.
The minor issue was it was written off for a bumper and wing, so I quickly purchased replacements and chucked them on. Don’t worry they are booked in to be painted in the new year.
A clean of the throttle body stabilised the hunting idle.
A thorough service, all oils and all filters and plugs, Pair of falken rear tyres and stainless manifold were fitted as the original had split.
I got £170 for the old manifold scrap!
It has 118k but drives spot on with no clunks. I will keep an eye on oil consumption…
One thing that bugs me, the radio is the tom Tom nav unit, and every time I turn the car on it comes on, even if it was off previous…with it’s mega bright distracting screen. Even when “off” it is still bright shiny black screen with clock.
Is there a way of turning it off off unless I want it on…?
Agree, rip it out and treat yourself to an android auto/carplay head unit.
Reading on the forums they’ve been trouble updating and not very user friendly.
I’ve just got mine (2014 - I’m pretty sure they share a head unit) - I do agree with others, a third-party or self-built unit is the way to go, but until then - as long as your unit is the same as mine;
While in ‘Media’ mode, press the settings icon (top right. You may have to tap the screen near the top if all you can see is currently playing media)
Along the bottom of the screen, select General
Select Visuals
You should now have options for the ‘dim’ setting. This is - at least on my car - not paired to the lights as it is on most, so just turn dimming on, which will then allow you to edit the amount the screen is dimmed by.
I’ll double check that when I get in my car next to make sure I got those steps right - sorry I’m doing it off the top of my head!
If your looking for recommendations for after-market units - I’ve installed a number of Sony units into mine and my mates cars (non-MX-5) and been pretty happy. While you will be paying £300+ for a name brand, reviews of cheaper ones off Amazon in my experience tend to be littered with connection, audio and other misc issues, especially when it comes to Android Auto or CarPlay. Also note you may want to go for a more expensive unit as they come with more creature comforts, such as more audio options (power, speaker setups & EQ) and other bits like reverse parking cameras - although most of those have to be purchased separately.
If you’re willing to spend some time on it, you can DIY it (what I am planning to do) but you’ll need familiarity with electronics and a will to fiddle IMO and if you are just looking for a set-and-forget setup this may not be the option for you!
How true, why on earth has the motor industry allowed them to become the norm? At least the MX-5 stops the touchscreen from working once the car is on the move which I think is a pretty reasonable compromise.
It reduces the number of holes for knobs and dials etc. It’s cheaper to build, cheaper to retrofit box-tick features (or “improvements” to fix design errors).
When I was designing professional stuff we were keen on remote controls to replace knobs because they cut the cost of equipment enormously, and improved reliability simply because of fewer moving parts on the gear, and a remote is very quick and cheap to replace.
For pro stuff in the 90s I used to quote a grand for each hole put in the box as the first ball-park estimate, regardless of what was inside. It was amazingly close to reality, even with stuff made by other manufacturers.
Domestic hifi etc was closer to a tenner per hole, if you included the sockets etc as well as the controls. But you get the idea; look at the market, the numbers built and sold, and scale the prices accordingly.
Car manufacturers are looking at saving every single penny, not just a few pounds. And touch screens are dirt cheap in bulk, it almost costs more to plug one in on the production line than to buy it from the sub-contractor who assembled it.
Design costs (of item, system, assembly, etc) are another matter, and these are what make the difference between profit (reliable success) and loss (warranty rework).
Hi Richard, that’s a comprehensive reply which certainly goes a long way to explaining why the manufacturers do it. It does not, however, explain why the manufacturers are allowed to continue to produce cars which virtually guarantee that the driver will spend dangerous amounts of time with their eyes elsewhere than on the road ahead. Given your explanation for why manufacturers do what they do it’s a real shame that motoring bodies (AA, RAC, etc) do not encourage Mazda’s approach to the problem to be accepted by others as a logical approach to the safety issue. I can foresee a time in the not too distant future when legislation will be necessary to force manufacturers to take the issue seriously.
The more cars written off because of inattention, the more replacements sold…
The safety features will protect the occupants…
Does the manufacturer care about collateral damage to others?
Wow, really? Pedestrians and the like are not surrounded by these safety features. I must be getting old, I hadn’t considered ignoring the safety of others.
I heard a presentation once about IV pumps in hospital.
The mfrs came to the hospital to show off their new touchscreen model
Of course the hospital bought the new touchscreen model because of course it looked high tech and better.
The interface had various things buried in menus
People started getting the wrong dose due to “operator error”
The old IV pumps had a few buttons and the nurses would tap in the dosage required by muscle memory mostly they didn’t have to think about it and it was fast.
The touchscreen took some standing, thinking, waiting, and looking up in the manual, pressing again when the input wasn’t captured etc.
The main issue is switching source radio, cd, or even radio station is impossible without a few screen presses, which is dangerous when moving.
I got the brightness right down and found night mode so I just run with the headlights on all the time.
The startup coming on all the time is manageable by not turning the unit off, instead turning the volume right down when I want it off, this means it comes back on zero volume.
Even VAG (who’ve been taking cost out of their cars to pay for dieselgate for years) have, I believe, gone back to some physical controls now. Their ‘haptic’ controls are simply a complete frustration, as are ‘gesture’ controls that they, and others are using.
I’m no technophobe, but touchscreens and other such non physical controls are on a par with smart (dumb) motorways for their obvious (unless you’re a politician/civil servant working for the department of transport) danger to other road users.
Why is holding and using a phone illegal when peering at and using a touchscreen is not? Madness.
Mini rant over🙄
Dump it like quite a few of us already have because of many many reasons.
From what you have already discovered.
The amp is rubbish.
The rear speakers “barely” work but do with a different unit.
The SD card had map limitations and if you want to do a trip to Croatia,(or other) then you will have to try and get other maps on another card, (that was a right pain). Because the current maps are far too big for the size of card that can be used in the unit and trying to get two cards to recognise is rather difficult.
TomTom support is pretty useless.
You have to pay daft money to upgrade and then the downloads wouldn’t work.
The screen will craze in due course.
The touch screen is far from the best.
Mine seemed to have hizzy fits and at times didn’t know where it was let alone me.
The GPS module is just stuck on top of the unit.
It was literally a bodged job fitted in by Mazda as a selling point for the last of the 3.5/3.75.
In actual fact it only lasted a year as they replaced it in 2014 with an Alpine unit, (which I believe some on here are not great lovers of)
Apple CarPlay/Android would be the way to go in my opinion.
Good luck!
I dont like touchscreens because I cannot for the life of me understand what the bl**dy icons represent. But I think I must be unique in having this challenge.
