Looking at coming back to an Mx5 after 2 years and wondering what the experience with the Soul red crystal paint (ie the new paint) is, I have obviously seen all the horror stories on the CXs about stone chips x 1000 and paint peeling , not really seen anything on MX5 forums though apart from trouble colour matching for repair . I just checked a demo model over, quite a lot of surface scratches, I assume the top clear coat is not that hard and / or the colour just shows it a lot, but didn’t see hardly any chips and no flaking that I saw.
I have a Soul Red one which has covered 10k miles, it must have 100 stone chips on the front end through no fault of my own (always keep my distance and look after the car). In comparison I had a Clio 172 which covered 40k (a lot of motorway) and had 2 stone chips.Â
Wow, that is soul red, so the older version that was supposed to be less prone to this than the crystal one, eek, that doesn’t bode well, are they very noticeable ? you must be well annoyed
I think this is likely to be a “Mazda thing” - generally soft paint - rather than limited to any specific colour?
The whole front bumper (particularly the bottom portion) of my 33,000 mile Stormy Blue 2012 NC2 looks like it’s been shot-blasted when the light catches it - despite me always maintaining a safe distance from vehicles ahead. A consequence I think of many of those miles having been covered on motorways & fast A-Roads.
It does let down a bit what’s otherwise an almost immaculate car, for its age - no point in me having the bumper painted I think 'cos it’ll probably be just as bad again in a couple of years! Hence it’ll just be something for the dealer who eventually gets it in part exchange to sort.
My Soul Red 65 plate car (registered Oct 15) has 14k on the clock and one noticeable stone chip touched in by the previous owner. Maybe there are good and bad batches of lacquer.
May be an obvious question but if OE Mazda paint is very soft, does this mean that if panels are repainted over here then the new paint would be more durable?
Modern laquers can be very hard and stiff. This means they are brittle and therefore chip waybto easily. It’s the cost of saving the planet I’m afraid.
There is a product many of you will know called Ventureshield. A film that is applied to the frontal facing areas where chips occurre …
I have justv sold my 2015 mark 4 soul red with 24000 miles on the clock,it only had about two very small chips on the bonnet,i have just taken delivery of new crystal soul red,it will be interesting to see if this one is as good and does not chip,i certainly hoppe it does not suffer with undue chipping.
Ok, got the demo I was looking at with 2000 miles cleaned up. There were only a few proper stone chips on the bonnet. There were however a load of small white dots you can see up close, they could easily be confused with left over dust from polish , in fact some of them were, but 30 or so were actually tiny chips. From about 4-5 feet away you could barely notice but still annoying enough for me. Colour also seems a magnet for top coat scratches ( or just shows them a lot) . Decided if that’s it at 2000 miles I probably couldn’t handle it by 10 000 so didn’t buy it. Shame as the colour is beautiful. I know I could use coatings etc but guess I was looking for lower maintenance
Thinking about ordering a new arctic white, even if it does chip generally find white hides stuff much better and I like white almost as much anyway plus I would have much more chance of getting a reasonable colour match on a spray that soul red crystal
Hopefully this detail will be useful for someone, I suspect some people could live with it just fine, just depends.
For comparison I currently have an Audi S1 , mythos black, 5000 miles and chips are a lot less or at least less noticeable by me
I think in general Mazda paint is quite soft and vulnerable to stone chips,my ND2 has about 6 very small nearly invisible chips at front end,i think in lots ways if wanting to probably would pay to wrap with clear wrap when brand new,i also have a nearly new Suzuki Vitara in bright yellow,the paint on that i consider to be better than the Mazda,certainly more durable and tougher,overall i love my ND2 ,it is i think what the ND1 should of been.
It can help a little bit, some of the professional coatings have a hardness rating, 9h etc.Gtechniq crystal serum for example.
Only sure fire way is PPF paint protection film. A lot of detailers offer the service, but it tends to be more suitable for high price cars, as doing the wings, bonnet and front bumper is approx ÂŁ1k!
Also seen some sprayable PPF being used. I think Litchfield do it. Think it is as expensive though.
I have seen on my 2018 ND the tiny front and rear mudflaps, if you can call them that, have protected the sill and rear bumper edges from chipping.
Not really sure if the mazda paint is too soft as our machine grey nd is 2 years old and not a paint chip on it.
Our silver Euphonic 2.5 was sold when it was 9 years old and that was, as far as I can remember, sold without any noticeable chips.
To be fair, both cars were not used on the motorway very often.
