Hi Strawman - sorry I didn’t mean to belittle your pride and joy. Before I knew better I bought a UK spec 88bhp MX5 MK1 in the days when dealers were frightening naive people with horror stories about spares, etc. This was over 8 years ago so I have got over my mistake.
Given hindsight I would have bought a Eunos but I guess you would have bought a car with a longer crank. Anyway I am sure we both care deeply for our respective cars and now wouldn’t part with them.
If you have any advice on OE parts for the MX5 based on your experience, please tell all.
Do not worry about pride, my car is a little bit of a low cost fling. I picked up mine as a banger for one summer, and well it turned out to be in
better condition than I thought and sailed the MOT so what the heck it cost me
not a lot, probably down to it being an import and fears on the short nose
engine and its terrible paint work, which turned out to be related to some very
bad polishing. So will it break no doubt but at its age it may well drop a
valve or any other number of problems so I thought it may well fail for
other things first. My point was more that if I believed the web I would have
walked on past but here it is at 163,000km still on its original short nose
engine. Plus I do like the way the original 1.6 revs compared to the newer
lower power ones I drove. There is also the though if its made it this far it
may well go further. From a bit of research I think it is a combination of
factors lead to the short nose problems and not all of them will fail early in
life.
It is possible the web tales just make better value purchases for those
that do get one. My most reliable car to data was an alfa, 85,000 miles with only scheduled
servicing is a record for me personally, and no car has touched that for me. Word of mouth would say that is not possible.
My OE experience is more with European cars but I have seen a number of
items where the non-OE part is superior to the original, to the extent that
even dealers started to fit the non-OE part. But its a sensitive area so it is
best I ask you to think of the brand that supplies the part and decide on that.
From my experience of supplying Japanese VM’s (only 5 years so far so of little
relevance to MKI/II cars) I see nothing to alter my views that a reputable
replacement part is as good, sometimes better than an OE part.
If your roadster as or if it as the cam belt or water pump done, there is no need to crack the crank shaft bolt like the later versions, and that is where the problem starts, most garages will read the info for the later version and take it as said that is the way to do it without doing their full home work, so when the short nose crank bolt is cracked it needs to be replaced and check or replace the woodruff key , it is also torqued up different then the later version, so they reuse a bolt that as done its job and over torque it up, which over stretches and works loose, giving you the short nose crank problem.<o:p></o:p>
The only time that it should need to be cracked and replaced is for the oil seal.<o:p></o:p>
Always take her to someone who knows the difference, and you should never have a problem
M-m<o:p></o:p>
So if I am going to avoid the main mazda dealer, where should I get my parts for this?
Well i always use Andrew at Autolink
M-m