Hi all, first of all I can’t afford a genuine Panasonic battery that Mazda originally put into the mx5 so please, let’s not get into that one. I’m after some advice on a good alternative and am willing to pay maybe up to £70. I know Yuasa do a battery with a high cca of about 480 but do I really need this much, I think it’s their 5000 silver battery HSB063, they also do a smaller 3000 model with a cca of 425. Does anyone reccomend another? Cheers.
Tony
Have a word with Autolink and see what they can do.
Looked on their website and they only have the Panasonic one, well over £100.
I got the Eurocarparts Lion battery. Seems perfectly good to me!
As others have pointed out on here, it does not seem to be the right size for the Mk1.
I hasten to add that it fits int he battery well, but the battery retaining bar does not fit properly.
Please can someone else explain?
Tony - I think Mal’s advice was “…have a word with Autolink…” They’re always breaking Mk1s and will doubtless have a selection of excellent quality, but pre-owned batteries. 01489 877770
Suggest you visit this site. I got one from them for my wife’s (ours really) Mk3 and it was spot on and a really good price.
https://www.buypartsby.co.uk/buy/MAZDA/MX5/1.6/1993/__/174/batteries/
Hope this helps.
At that price circa £70 you will probably not get a battery with vent fittings on it. Therefore there is a reasonable risk that if you do not use the vent hoses in the boot to get the slightly acidic gasses that a battery can produce (and no battery is gas sealed) out the boot it has caused corrossion in the past on many cars. There are others on this forum who will advise they have never had the problem with a noraml battery. So no vents on the battery no connection to the vent hoses.
The boot is not airtight but has no through draft like in the engine compartmentso no natural venting for these gases.
The Westco has vent nipples on it, is the correct size and is around £100 which is above what you want to pay, it is not great if discharged so you should fit a battery cutoff switch.
The next one down is the Lion 114 from Europarts at just below £100 depending on the offer they have at the time, it is the correct size but no vent fittings I have been told but I have never seen one in the flesh.
Now from the tone of your message, cost seems to be your main driver and your are not wanting to pay more for a bigger capacity battery if you can help it.
Therefore all the other batteries on the market will not work with the normal Mazda hold down fittings and most of them will not have vent fittings. I suggest in that case, you buy the most inexpensive battery that you can find and just accept that it may corrode the boot, will not fit the hold down fittings and will probaly start the car as long as it is not left for weeks on end in the winter, in that case. buy one of those battery cuttoff switches.
I’ve had a couple of batteries all be it cheaper options since owning the car and they’ve had the holes for the vents to go into.To be honest I’ve looked at a few over the past few days and all have had them so don’t know when you last bought a battery. I’ve also had no trouble using the clamp as I had manufactured a 3x1 inch piece of steel fitted under the bottom clamp with two holes drilled into it which lifts it enough to get the top clamp over all batteries that fit into the tray, pretty simple really.
As for corrosion, I’ve had none at all in my 2 1/2 years since owning the car.
I don’t know where you’re coming from with the ’ buy the most inexpensive’ advice either, I reckon £70 in anyone’s book isn’t cheap when you can buy one for less than £40.
My main point which no one has been able to answer yet was the 480 cca is this enough or too much?
Read again what I said, I have in all cases been very careful of what I said.
Yes, I have advised that some of the cheaper batteries “most of them will not have vent fittings” line 8 , I did not say they did not.
I have looked at some batteries that have the holes and for your info I have replaced an Impreza and a Mk3 battery this year so I have an idea what I am talking about.
The Panasonic or the Westco have nipples that are open from the internals of the battery and these vent into the Mazda supplied vent tubing. I have checked around 6 different makes of battery with the side holes you have mentioned and using a vacuum pump nippled into these holes they held a very high vacuum and then changing the pump to pressure they held 5 psi of pressure.
From that I assume that the holes were not vent holes. Your mileage may vary, did you do a check any of the holes like I did, I would be interested in your results.
I advised with normal batteries you could not use the standard hold down fittings, you have gone to the trouble of making brackets, so I do not stand corrected, you have to make some mods. The vast majority of Mk1’s I see with non Panasonic batteries are not clamped, yes it is not rocket science but the majority of people do not bother.
I was very clear re corrosion some people say there is no problem and I said that on line 2 of my reply, others disagree and have posted pictures. I think I covered both camps there, see the picture at the bottom of this reply.
With regards to your £70 figure that is nothing more than your pain point good or bad. It has little direct relevence to the performance of the battery at starting your car.
I believe that if you are not in a very cold area like here in snowy Aberdeenshire or a high place in the Peak District for instance that any reasonable car battery will start an MX5 and that is why I advised you to buy "the most inexpensive battery that you can find"
I would change that to " the most inexpensive car battery specified by a car battery manufacturer for the MX5 Mk1/Mk2"
I did not answer your question about 480/425 cca as I have not perfromed tests with different newish batteries of different CCA ratings on MX5’s therefore I have no answer for you on that one.
I say again and as you have now added more info I will advise further.
As you believe that corrosion is not a problem in the MX5 boot and as you have the ability to make hold down modification brackets, that unless you live in a very cold area and you do not leave the car for long periods unstarted that your purchase the most inexpensive battery as advised by the battery manufacturer.
I will buy the Panasonic but my location and requirements I assume are different from yours. 
The original Panasonic I believe was 370 CCA.
Halfords Yuasa sell 360, 420 and 480 CCA rated batteries.
From that I assume either the 360 CCA lead acid at £43 or the 420CCA calcium battery at £52 will do the job on the MX5. The 480 CCA at £73 is probaly what they term selling up!
The batteries both had two vent type holes but from what I could see and it was difficult to be sure they only came with one vent nipple and only the most expensive one could I see the vent into the battery. The other two batteries vent type holes were too deep to tell if they were into the right into inards.
I’ve read elsewhere that the modern sealed batteries do vent, but only when a certain pressure is reached… of excessive gassing
caused by, for example, a faulty alternator. With this, and your test results, this would appear to imply a one-way pressure valve,
that can only be activated by internal pressure, rather than by a difference between internal and external pressures.
I can’t see why those holes are there, if they’re not vent holes.
I too am at the pont of buying a new battery for my MK1. I can’t afford a Panasonic, so it’ll be
either an 063 or 048/053 battery. I’d like to fit one of those Mx5parts battery isolater things, but haven’t worked
out which battery would suit that best, room-wise.
I also have noticed that some of the popular batteries say ‘calcium’ , and some don’t.
And also wondered how much truth there is in the stuff that says… calcium batteries retain their charge for far longer
than standard lead-acid when the car is unused. With the downside that they are difficult/impossible (?) to charge from absolute flat, and
that typical alternators have a hard time getting them up to full charge.
I went for a Yuasa 3000 063 battery in the end £50 from a local parts shop, it has, what I’m hoping is two vent holes and I’m taking it has two as the battery can be connected either way round depending on which way your battery leads are situated. Only had it on a day but fingers crossed it seems ok. Also the crank amp is 425 which is better than my previous batteries so here’s living in hope.
The original Panasonic is very long lived, so sometimes a used original spec battery might be a viable option for those on a budget. But even a 25 year old Panasonic might be pushing it a bit. Replacing original 1993 (or at least, never changed since 2002 import, I think its original) for brand new battery, I had a chance to compare original versus 2004 replacement sourced from UK Mazda dealer versus 2015 replacement sourced from Autolinkuk, who I think get them from Mazda Europe.
1993 Original; no part number showing on top, information sticker in Japanese, factory applied paint spot to top (why I think this is the original)
2004 Replacement; note part number including “R”, maybe for replacement. Information sticker still in Japanese, no paint spot (I brought this battery via Shing Fung, who sourced it via a Coventry Mazda dealer with a trade discount. Back then, the battery cost me a princely £53).
2015 replacement; slightly different part number. Information sticker now in Japanese. Now included “recycle” sticker, as per recent regulatory changes 
1993 Original “Panasonic” moulding (2004 is the same)
2015; moulding is different. Happy to see production is still in Japan
2004 battery; information sticker on side, in German (primary) and English/ French (secondary). Mazda Europe is a German company, so in 2004, there may have been German-specific regulations regarding labelling of batteries. Also note dimensions.
2015 battery; no side sticker
I think this might be enough to give an informed decision as to whether to chance a used battery. I too have seen the damage caused by fitment of the wrong batteries to MX5s.
The 22 year old battery is still fine; it still holds enough charge to start a car after 3 weeks storage. However, the 2015 battery gives a noticeably stronger start compared to the 2004 battery.