I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: ND wandering on motorway
Hi folks,
I owned an NB FL for quite a few years, then switched to a 2nd hand ND in February last year. I’ve noticed that, though the steering feels great at up to 50mph on local roads, it’s quite hard work to keep the ND going in a straight line on the motorway. I’ve tested the car on straight stretches of motorway; if I centre the car in the lane and hold the wheel straight ahead, it’s generally only a few seconds before it’s drifted left or right and I have to put in a steering correction to get the car back into the middle of the lane.
I’ve seen plenty of advice on here for issues like this and so I’ve had 4 new Yokohama Advan Sport tyres fitted, had the wheel alignment checked by Lee at FCM Wheel Alignment in Bristol and checked all the pressures. The problem still shows itself.
I’ve had the steering checked out by my local Mazda dealer, they can’t find anything mechanically wrong, though they’ve not done a motorway road test I think.
Just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions, either for things to have checked or for MX5 specialists not too far from Bristol that might be able to take a look?
It maybe worth checking the upper and lower ball joints, track rod ends and universal joint on the engine bay side of the steering column (it’s very close to the exhaust so gets hot) for free movement.
It’s not unknown for them to semi seize which can throw up some odd steering issues.
Looks like you have done all the right things, new tyres/alignment checked… One question about where you tested on the motorway, always the same stretch/lanes? I ask as my TVR Tuscan ran brilliantly most places but get on the left of second lane on some motorways which had “lorry tracks” and it was complete nightmare, just a thought. Peter
My 2.0 ND is fine on the motorway and I never had any issues with it. You want a bit of toe-in, if you toe-out (as they do on track setups) the car will tramline in to lorry grooves on the motorway. Caster is a difficult to judge but it affects steering a lot, more positive caster makes the wheel self-centre better but too much and it can behave twitchly to steering input, from the sounds of it your car may benefit from positive caster though.
I got a full custom alignment done by Rodders that’s a million miles away from factory settings and it transformed the driving experience, steering has more feel and weights up much better with lock, get less understeer and more grip. Don’t know what settings he dialled in, but whatever they are, they work for me. I was genuinely surprised at just how much difference it made.
TLDR: The Mazda recommended alignment settings are only okay (and they are also set sloppily at the factory)
That’s an interesting way to ‘test’ a car. Have you another car? Don’t you have to correct that? Motorways aren’t level, they all have a camber. And that’s before you start with undulations caused by heavy traffic.
I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with your car, but I’m sure I’ve never had one that didn’t need continuous steering correction.
There’s a lot going on with electric assist, I wonder if the sensors are working correctly - I’d hope the car could detect a fault if that were not the case.
I find the ND really weights up at speed and is very stable. This is possible partly because of the electric assistance, which can be programmed with whatever assistance level the engineers want for different conditions.
That’s a really interesting question, and I have wondered to what extent it might be a function of me more than the car, or at least me not getting on with the particular set up of the ND. I’ve owned and driven a number of other cars and this is the first one where I found I needed to think about steering to keep it on a straight line. I expect I am putting in steering corrections with my current other car (Toyota Avensis diesel estate) but it seems to be a much more automatic process. I also notice a much greater steering centering force with the Avensis compared with the MX5. In the 5, I can turn the wheel to go into a corner and the wheel will stay where I put it with almost no force required to hold it in place.
On motorways, what I think I’m feeling and seeing is a slight dead spot in the centre of the steering, where moving the wheel in either direction takes only a small amount of force and makes no noticeable difference to the direction the car is travelling. If I turn the wheel a bit more I feel much more resistance to turning. From that point a very small amount of extra movement of the wheel seems to turn the car relatively rapidly. So I find it very easy to over-correct and keeping straight can end up being somewhat challenging.
I found a mention of a slight steering dead spot in Clarkson’s review of the car:
“Maybe, if you really, really concentrate when going round a long bend at about 60mph, you can feel a small dead spot in the steering.”
Interestingly I sometimes find that if I distract myself enough from thinking about the steering, then my subconscious can do it for me for a while at least. I still have to be careful glancing away from the road ahead to check mirrors etc though, as I’ll often find I’ve drifted sideways in the lane when looking back ahead.
So I guess it might be that the fast steering, combined with a slight dead spot is what’s throwing me? I find the steering absolutely fine at lower speeds, possibly because the car doesn’t change direction as much in a given time at lower speeds…
I also suspect this is the first car I’ve owned with electric steering (though I’m not sure about the Avensis) and the different feel of that could be a factor too.
Many thanks for the input, I’ll try and distract myself from thinking about the steering more and see if I can make the process more automatic. If I can’t, sounds like it could be worth me trying some alignment tweaks to change the feel, which might suit me better.
Thanks for the thought, I know what you mean about some bits of motorway having a different surface, I notice some stretches are really quite rough. I find the steering tricky pretty much everywhere though.
When I first got my nd I didn’t like the way it kinda understeered when pushing it and that there was a floaty dead spot mid corner.
Got it lowered on mazda springs and had roddingsons Sheffield do the tracking and wow what a different car it is. Courners in a much more predicable way and tbh I havnt noticed that dead spot since in the 5k miles I’ve done.
