As many of you have reported in the past I have suffered the dreaded clutch judder on my 2002 1.8i sport for over a year. I recently saw a new ‘Sachs 3 piece clutch kit’ available on the MX5 parts website and as a result of reading the reviews decided to order same plus a new spigot bearing. My local garage fitted it in just under 3 hours. The result is nothing less than fantastic. The judder is totally cured. Why did I suffer for so long. This piece of kit really is the definitive cure.
I get the judder sometimes when reversing up my cobbled street into my space, have no idea why it does it?
Hi Tracey
The problem I had was well documented on the MX5 oc forum and only affected Mk 2.5 cars produced between September 2001 up to 2003/2004. Apparently the judder was caused by the material lining the clutch plate. Mazda produced several versions to try and cure it but never admitted there was a fault! In my case changing the clutch plate (with the Sachs kit from MX5 parts) cured the problem. However in your case, the car being much older and a Mk1, it may just be due to normal wear and tear i.e.oil contamination on the plate, worn engine or transmision mountings or just general clutch plate wear or distortion. I’m not a mechanic or expert in this field and am only expressing views I have read regarding this problem. Actually reversing up a cobbled street is probably stretching a worn clutch a bit anyway! Good luck with finding a solution.
I naively purchased my first Mx5 Mk 2, 98 with this problem, I actually thought it was supposed to do this! arf! arf!
Can laugh at it now but the seller kept quiet about it. However, it was purchased relatively cheaply. A couple of years later the Mazda dealership happended to mention
this on a service and just corrected it as routine. We still have the car and it looks like new, 40,000 miles later. : D