I’m currently in the market looking for an mx5 either mk1 or mk2 ideally as a daily driver (about 30mile round trip). I have read extensively about the dreaded rust on these cars and the places where to look for it e.g. Sills, chassis rail and so on.
My question though is what if the car has undergone some form of repair work in the past to treat the rust? Are there certain areas of the chassis where if the car has been treated you should walk away from? For instance I see that the seatbelt anchorage corrosion is quite a common theme for an MOT failure in these cars, is this much of a problem if repaired correctly?
To summarise would you guys recommend purchasing a car that has been treated for rust in the past? I’m a final year university student so ideally don’t want to be spending any money on the car for a few years and be able to purchase a car that is driveable straight away.
I’m in the southwest region near Bristol if anyone would like to point me in the right direction.
You appear to be easily fooled or do not want to properly examine the car you are about to purchase.
I watched someone put a Mk2 on a lift and they found the front chassis rails were virtually rusted through. They spent 30 minutes with a hammer and some very thick underseal to fake the front chassis rails so that it looked as if the front chassis rails were in good shape.
Either spend time on the ground checking for rust or PCP a small Peugeot for £150 a month if you are not prepared to properly check the car.
There are lots of people selling rusty early cars out there looking for people who are not prepared to do a proper check of the car they are selling.
Including in this case, a member of the MX5 Owners Club.
Hi Eddie thanks for the reply, I think you are assuming I am imminently about to purchase an mx5 without thoroughly examining the car; this is certianly not the case as I have yet to have seen one! I’m not in any rush in fact to buy one right now, I’m simply trying to build a better picture of the market at the moment and trying to understand whether or not looking at a car that has had previous work done or had previous warnings/advisories on the MOT as aforementioned in this post is at all worth looking into.
I had similar quandry when researching my mk2.5 purchase. I discounted many that had had repairs or corrosion advisories and looked for the most pristine example I could find from a dealer, on the basis I’d have some reassurance from the consumer protection regs. Eventually found one owner, 34,000m example sold by a local Honda dealership. Came with pristine bodywork, refurbished alloys, hardtop, fresh MOT, new front discs and pads and a year’s warranty. I paid close to £4.5k which for book price will be well over the odds but for me, as a daily driver and with no technical ability, gave me the piece of mind I wanted.
That was a year ago, and now, with no sign of rust, kept outside and used daily on the 30mile commute, apart from needing rear brake pads it has just sailed through it’s latest MOT. For me, the expense was worth it. It’s great fun to drive, in all weathers and if it gives up the ghost in a couple of year’s time it will have been money well spent. Fantastic value.
Go for the best you can afford but do your homework and if you can, buy from a reputable dealer for additional peace of mind, and get it inspected for rust by a specialist within the first month. That’s what I did and fingers crossed, it will give me a good few years’ worry-free motoring.
Oh, and keep an eye on Mazda’s used cars website. I’ve seen some examples on there this year for £2k+ that may fit the bill.
I’m not having a dig, but I also think that you’ll be pretty hard pushed to find a 20 year old car that doesn’t need any TLC or molly coddling
If you can find a 20 year old and intend to use it as a daily driver, then you need to be looking for something that has lived it’s life in a garage being used as a summer toy, and this would command a top price.
Take a look around, how many T, V or W registered cars are still on the road ? Not many.
I’d suggest that the good ones tend not to be used as dailys, the bad ones are obvious.
There’s a MK2 appeared up my street recently, I can already tell that its days are numbered, and I won’t be seeing it beyond 18 months.
I honestly wish you well in your quest and hope to see you on here in the future enjoying the kindredship and banter.
Thank you all for your replies. I think a few of you have digressed from the main stem of the question from which I’m trying to ask which is about views and opinions on vehicles that have had previous repairs for rust. Pmba your feedback was very helpful for this.
I was being a bit too optimistic by saying a few years without any problems. I fully intend to invest and look after the car, I’m simply saying that preferably I wouldn’t want to spend money on it immediately. Perhaps if this is the case I should look for a newer mk3.
So to conclude, you should not purchase an mx5 if there is a history of any sort of rust repair?
There are repairs and then there are “repairs”. MX5restorer has a youtube video on how to spot the really bad repairs. Bad repairs are the repairs trying to pass themselves off as something else, and involve gobs of filler. You can have crude repairs, which are perfectly fine, but don’t look great.
Avoid MK2s, and just don’t get into having to check that front chassis rail. Rust here is extremely structural, and will only push you towards an expensive repair; there are no half measures.
When it comes to “seatbelt anchorage corrosion” failures; this is code for sill rust. It goes down as seatbelt, because its within 30cm of the seatbelt mount. I’ve not heard of, but I suppose its possible, of the actual seatbelt mount becoming crunchy (I’ve had a Mini go this way). In most cases, its the outer panel that has perforated through; its thin metal, and not particularly structural. The actual sill (the inner sill) is pretty substantial, and it takes a lot for it to be completely rusted through (most repairs needed are relatively straightforward reinforcements).
That said, if you are looking at a repaired car, you have no idea of the state of the inner seal. Removing the seatbelt trim does allow you to get some fingers down onto that sill, and feel if there is anything there. A bad sign is if the jacking point, or that entire flange, is bent inwards, or beginning to bend inwards, as this is a sign that the inner sill has lost all integrity. If the car looks others good around the sill, I would expect a bodged repair, with copious amounts of filler, fiberglass and worse (I found newspaper and builders plaster on my Austin Mini van), because someone hasn’t paid attention to the most important part of the repair.
A clearly patched car might be alright to drive; it might not look pretty, and the repair might need redoing in the course of ownership, but it shouldnt cost much. Much of the cost of MX5 sill repairs lies in making the repair look good, and a significant part of the cost is paintwork. As a student, that might not be on your list of priorities.
Rust can occur elsewhere on the Mk1, such as around the front wings, but these cars are obviously scabby. If a car has obviously good, solid rear wheel arches, it’ll likely be good for the period of your ownership. Run a finger along the edge of the wing lip. If it feels sharp, its filler. Check both sides, because usually on cars, only one side is affected, so you get a sense of what is original, and what isn’t.
My remaining MX5 has had a lot of welding done on it. But I paid to have that work done. I would be happy to buy this car because of the work done. So whether to buy a car with previous rustrepairs very much depends on the repairs involved; its either well documented repairs, or the ugly, warts and all repair, nothing in between, because the in between repairs are not honest, and always worse than you suppose.
Cheaper Mk3s are turning up with rust, and it tends to be more extensive, structurally, than Mk1s and Mk2s, affecting all areas of the floor pan, subframe mounting points and subframes. You can’t even check the sills properly due to the tupperware over it.
So much doom and gloom, most of the comments on this thread appear to be saying don’t buy one, seems a bit odd as we are all suppose to be enthusiasts of this great little car and it’s great that this chap wants to buy one and join in the fun.
Like any purchase it’s ‘buyer beware’ and the more research you do the better informed you may be, but you can also become confused if there is too much noise. I think the best advice is to spend as much as you can afford, buy from a ‘reputable’ dealer with a warranty and get it checked by a professional. Shelling out a few hundred for a full check ( even if it has a full years MOT ) could save £1000s in the future.
rust & weld-repairs are an interesting subject, theres plenty of ‘welders’ out there but few are actually good - theres lots of ‘Grinders’ out there (as in they have to ‘grind’ every weld to make them look presentable )
also remember, its easy to ‘hide’ repairs behind underseal or filler…
a magnet, a torch and maybe an extra pair of eyes are usefull when viewing cars (not just 5’s )
on the positibve side, good MA /Mk1 cars are around sub £1000, just have to look for them & wait till the right time
and automatic cars can be in better condition as it seems that they’re more likely to have been a second car & garaged so worth looking at them (easily converted to manual if thats your thing!)
I’m not sure I agree, the whole point of paying for an inspection on any age of car is to get the true and honest opinion of the independent inspector. It won’t matter if the car is 3 years old or 30 years old the report will list each inspection point / area and what has been found. The more you pay the more things get checked which is probably the only caveat :-). I think RAC vary from 200 - 300 inspection items depending on how much you pay.
As someone considering an N/A myself I would agree with the OP re the corrosion problems. If I see corrosion issues come up in the MOT history of a car I tend to move on to the next car ad. I could be disregarding some decent cars that have been properly repaired but I don’t have the skills to make that judgement. The video from the MX5 restorer which has a link on this site is very informative and I think this is the standard you should be aimimg when considering a particular car. I tend to get suspicious of cars that seem to be smothered in fresh looking underseal as I think what are they trying to hide? but perhaps I am being too cautious. I think what I am looking for is a Eunos that was imported not too long ago rather than one back in the nineties. I am also looking for something that has not been someone’s daily driver and has been garaged. I realise I am going to have to pay more for such a car but IMO this would be better than a cheaper example that needs tons spending on it to tackle extensive rust.
I think if you are looking to buy from a dealer an MX5 specialist would be the way to go rather than a generic dealer who just so happens to have one for sale.
I think you are going to have to accept that even if you find a solid car you are still going to have spend some money on it.Until now I have tended to buy newish cars 3 years+ old usually with reasonable miles, but within a year or so something breaks and needs replacing so the odds of this happening on 25/30 year old car must be greatly increased.
Interesting thread, summarising both my fears and ambivalence toward past repairs. I would be interested in views about something I spotted in the MOT history for a prospective purchase… Failed MOT due to the sills at 7.27am, passed at 10am the same day… I guess there are some plausible explanations but it does make me wonder how superficial the repair may be? Especially when the owner gave away that it had been done by a friend at a time when the car was being MOTd to sell…
Perfectly possible for a rust hole to be plated quickly, and a pass issue. The repair might last 1, 2, 3 years, its a crapshoot. At least you can see where the repair was done. Depends what the asking price is. If its £1000-1500, worth a punt, I would not expect an A1 car for that sort of money.You could try jacking the car on its tyre jack at that point, and watching the whether lip starts to turn in, that will at least tell you if there is any metal left behind there. It doesn’t really make any difference to the cost of the required work to make the repair right. Different matter if the 24 hour repair looks perfect. Guaranteed to be filler, fiberglass and chickenwire. Or else its a bent MOT.