I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: various questions
Hi, after owning an early NC 1.8 for 14 years, I have just bought a soft top ‘ND2 1.5 SE-L Nav +’ which I’m very pleased with, but I have a few questions if you can help me with.
When accelerating very hard at speed the car pulls slightly to the left, then veers to the right when taking your foot off the throttle. It does not pull either way when braking. There are no clunks or banging when going over bumpy roads from the suspension. Is this normal or a characteristic of these cars, or is it indicating a problem with the rear suspension bushes I hear about?
On the stereo I cannot get any sound out of the N/S seat headrest, I’ve tried playing around with the graphic equaliser in the settings, but no luck. Is there supposed to be speakers in that headrest, or because it is a lower spec car it never had them?
On the subject of the radio, how do you turn it off? I can turn the volume down, mute, but not see how to turn off.
I’m looking at fitting reversing sensors, like I did on the NC, anybody know if there are markings on the back of the bumper for drilling?
Firstly an alignment check.
I believe only driver headrest has speakers in 1.5
I think you just mute audio not turn off?
I have no idea on reversing sensors
I do not think your model has speakers in the passenger seat, you need a model with ‘Bose’ for this.
If you have a warranty with the car I would take it back for assessment of the throttle on/off steering.
Have you checked the obvious like matching tyres and tread depth plus pressures. Our 30AE will show a hint of this trait if you are lets say ‘clumsy’ when it is wet or damp. (Unequal length drive shafts on a Caterham SLR that we had caused this effect)
Look at tyres and pressures first. Mx-5’s can behave oddly with mixed tyres. The ideal is to have 4 identical tyres with even wear. There is a recommendation to move wheels around to even out wear.
If the bushes have gone you will hear them rattling, so it’s unlikely bushes. As others have said, do tyres match and are pressures the same? Then get a proper wheel alignment done.
There are no passenger headrest speakers on SE-L. They were only fitted to Sport Nav that came with Bose (you’re not missing out, the Bose sound is very average) and later equivilant top-end trims.
Audio only mutes/pauses, doesn’t turn off per se. You can turn the screen off via the settings menu if you want.
Thanks everyone for your help.
Tyres on back are Yokohama Advan Sport v105 (anyone got comments/experience on these?) treads both about 4 mm, but about 4 psi lower on N/S, so might be it, will try tomorrow hopefully. Jeff.
The fact the rear is OEM tyres and the fronts are new would be suggestive of a suspension alignment issue on a low mileage car. You expect the rears to wear out first unless moved between axles.
Match all pressures first, 29 PSI all round. Then test for the symptoms again, on the same section of road of possible.
If that sorts it, great. If not, I’d be tempted to swap the tyres front to back and re-test.
If it’s still not happy, get the suspension alignment checked before finally moving to getting all tyres matching. I would go for the Yoko V105s all round over the Toyos personally. They’re fitted to my ND1 and have proven to be a pretty decent all-rounder and well suited to the ND’s setup in my view.
But a tricky decision if the TR1s are newer on the front!
Also check the date stamp on the rear tyres are matched. Tyres which appear to be the same brand, model and size can be made in different factories, different countries, with different compounds and slightly different tread patterns.
Any variation in the rear tyres will cause the problem you have had.
As for reversing sensors have you considered a reversing camera such as the kit from MX-5 parts. I would say it would be easier to fit than sensors.
