Hi. I need to replace the front left and right lower suspension arms on my MX5. There are a lot of after market ones available. Does anyone have experience of these and whether they are any good? They are typically £80, with bushes, which seems very cheap. I have seen the product on the MX City website for this price. Does anyone have experience of MX City and their products?
Thanks in advance.
Peter
Post amendment…
OP didn’t state for which model, we have to make assumptions.
Front lowers, new, pattern parts, £79. Seems like a bargain
You need to call MX5city and ask who supplies them, whether its a big name like Febi-Bilstein, Nipparts, Blueprint, and something off Aliexpress. Its almost certain they come from China. I think the regulation on car parts is very lax, but a major brand should have some quality assurance and have obtained the CE mark needed for Germany (even though that CE conformance testing would be done by TUV in Shanghai).
I think I’d be inclined to bite the original Mazda options on something like a cast Ali lower suspension arm. It’s a pretty substantial part taking quite some loading. I wouldn’t put faith in a 3rd party piece IMO.
Edit: Oops !! I thought it was an NC
I am rebuilding my NB suspensions as noticed this bargain from MX5City. My bottom line thought is that the new Chinese parts should not be worse than the 20+ years old rusty bit? Hope more with experiences could share here.
They won’t last ,metal grade is not the same, they are a bargain new for a reason. just get some very good S/H units and refurb.
M-m
Original Mazda NA and NB parts were steel stampings. The NB parts from Mazda have a tendancy to rot out. Some of these parts are NLA, and the used parts supply is now quite low.
Thank you all for your comments. It is difficult to make an informed decision with so many different after market manufacturers out there and without knowing the quality of each brand, or knowing the brand! I have found some Borg and Beck ones from my local Motor Parts Direct store which are priced at £170.00. Probably without bushes. I think I will go for these.
The 20 year old part probably has 100-150,000 miles on it. A replacement part, whether from China or Mexico, will likely put on less than 50,000 miles over the next 20 years.
What a factory original 30 year old Mk1 wishbone/control arm might look like after 30 years
Actually its on an early import. So that would have been rust free for the first 10 winters in Japan. So thats what it looks like after 20 salty British winters.
I can lookmon RockAuto, and see the brandnames for myself. The leaders are Moog and Mevotech, then Suspensia, Dorman, SKP.
So like this:
The SKP is $44
The Dorman is $80. With delivery, VAT and duty. £165.
Same part on Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dorman-524-468-Control-Front-Passenger/dp/B019IO0E5E
So 76% of Dorman parts come originally from China
With these American aftermarket brands (they’re not made in the US), you can do your own due diligance by researching the moans of thousands of consumers over there. Moog and Mevotech I have seen in the UK. The complaints usually centre around the quality of the prefitted bushes etc not some made up complaint of them rusting through in just a few years. Japanese parts these days are mostly made from Chinese steel due to the Fukushima meltdown causing loss of part of Japan’s steel capacity. And Mazda Japanese steel isn’t much cop given how it generally rots out.
So someone should call up the likes of MX5heaven, MX5parts, Autolinkuk, MX5city and get them to put it out there what brands of parts are they selling.
I have seen them and the look fine, but I would add another layer of paint to keep them from rusting.
Problem with 2nd hand referbed ones is unless you get them referbed yourself, you may not know how rusty they were.
And the control arms will rot from both sides, not just the side that can be blasted clean,
The youngest used arms are nearly 20 years old now
Front and lower fronts are £70 a piece now, so these MX5city efforts don’t look such a bargain now.
Its the rears that are a problem; seems to be Mazda or nothing. And the sellers know this, with second hand parts being £90-100.
