Here in my car, I feel ner ner na ner, ner ner ner ner ner na ner, ner ner na ner, IN CARS! My Mazda MX-5

Not my one, but basically the same.

So you might have noticed by now I have a thing for using song lyrics in my blog titles. You may or may not recognise that Gary Numan immediately sprang to mind when I decided to review my regular mode of transport and lets be sensible, everyone knows the song, but no-one knows more than about 4 words!

I’m about as qualified to review cars as anything else (not very!) But it’s something I use almost every day of my life and your car is usually the biggest purchase you can make other than a house, making it rather an important decision.

The first thing I will admit is, I have never ‘test-driven’ a car in my life. I had a test ride in my second car, a 1.1 litre Fiesta, but I desperately didn’t want that car and knew I’d have to buy it anyway, so the purpose of that was just to check it still had an engine and working doors as much as anything.

In terms of my car history, I started out with a ’93 Renault Clio, a car which just about everyone I can possibly think of has owned at some stage in their life. It was the original model and had a huge 1.9l Diesel engine in it. It was slow to get started but went along well and shook you to the very core at the lights as the chassis was really only designed for 1.2l petrol engines. I wrote that car off after 2 months of driving (and after I’d earned my first speeding ticket and had to replace the radiator). I then bought my ’96 Fiesta for an extortionate £1,250 and ran it into the ground over the course of 6 years, during which time it had a new engine and was borrowed by my sister, before being returned with that impossible to remove aroma left behind by those who smoke in their brother’s car. When the classification of my Fiesta went from ‘vehicle’ to ‘scrap metal’, my lovely housemate let me use her Golf (1.6l), a 1998-99 model in white which was one of the most lovely cars to drive. In the short time I used it the alternator went and I had to be towed twice by the AA, a company that since has introduced me to no less than 6 of its roadside mechanics!

Finally, my previous car was an Alfa Romeo GTV, a 1997 Phase 1 model which deserves a paragraph of its own. This was a wonderous car. It was one of those cars which as a child I dreamed of owning. An Alfa Romeo Coupe, amazing! It had a 2 litre engine which made it rather nippy and it just stuck to the road. When I bought it (on ebay, funnily enough, not as bad as one might think) the guy who owned it said to me ‘it drives like a go-kart’ and the man was spot on. Over the course of my year of ownership, as I had anticipated the car’s roadworthyness deteriorated at a rapid pace and I eventually passed it on to someone more inclined to bring it back up to scratch than me. This car though, was and may well remain, my favourite car. It drove amazingly, got me to where I wanted to go and never broke down. It had leather seats, air-con, and working electrics throughout and put a huge smile on my face. I hope to see her around again soon.

Now drive a Mazda MX-5.

I didn’t test drive this car before I ordered it either, despite the fact it was to be my first ever brand new car. ‘What’s the point’ I thought, my mum is on her third, she loves them so much and it’s an absolute bargain. Well, it isn’t really, because rather than buying a 1.8l rag-top, I managed to end up choosing the 2l folding hard-top version with metallic paint, air-con and all the other little initialisms you get for spending more than you need to. (LSD and ASP to name a couple).

So, where’s the catch? I looked it up, in terms of fuel economy, top speed and 0-60mph it was exactly the same as my Alfa. Excellent! Every review is amazing and it seems the folding hard-top version really is markedly better, with less road noise and a roof which is able to open or shut in a market leading 13 seconds.

Well, the reviews aren’t totally right. It’s a fantastic car, it goes like sh1t off a shovel and it’s quite fun to drive. But. I’ve now owned (well leased) mine for about a year, so I can give you my own views on it, from an owner’s perspective.

Handling

It’s rear wheel drive. Most car enthusiasts think this is a good thing and maybe I’m just not ‘doing it’ right. In my old car, as I went around a roundabout a smidge too quickly and put my foot down on the exit, it would grip the road and take off. If I do (when I did) this in the Mazda, the rear end slides out and if you aren’t used to this your bowels prepare to evacuate themselves before you slam into that tree in front of you whilst gracefully spinning over a piece of tarmac, then grass. Luckily that hasn’t happened yet, but it could and probably will. However, the car is well balanced, with even weight distribution, meaning that if the back of the car does step out, it’s not too hard to get it to play-ball again. Don’t ever drive this car in the ice though.

So in terms of the handling it’s Alfa 1, Mazda 0, although it’s still not bad.

4/5

Ride

The ride is firm and sporty, but not overly-so. The suspension is just right and the car is well balanced, as I mentioned. It’s probably the best feature of this car and means that around a track, on a drive to work or a long journey to Wales, it is more than up to the challenge.

5/5

Looks

It’s a great looking car. My Alfa was starting to look a little  dated although it too was lovely. I don’t think you can fault the mazda on this front, particularly for the money.

4.5/5

Interior

It’s a decent place to sit, which was one of the main criteria for my car choice. I haven’t got leather seats of anything like that, but it’s none-the-worse for it. The console is a touch dated now, and it’s largely unchanged from that used in the previous iteration of the current model, so has been going for over 5 years now. The controls are functional though. One downer is that there is a large gearbox-related bulge on the driver’s side of UK cars. I am sure this is because the majority of the cars they build are Left Hand Drive, but it does notice sometimes when you change the position of your feet. The roof controls are also ‘the wrong way around’ for the same reason. They are minor gripes though and apart from a slight reduction in storage over the soft top version, it ticks all the boxes.

4.5/5

Boot Space

I generally only need to put my shopping in the boot and even when I bring Alex along and have to fit his in to, the car is well up to the task. Unfortunately there is no spare tyre in there, with just a puncture-repair kit provided. It’s not for golfers or serial house movers though.

3/5

Economy

It’s a good value car to buy, but with the bigger engine it does drink petrol and I typically find it sits at 26.2 mpg. My run to work is not dual carriageways and A roads, it’s a country drive which averages around 40-50mph, so I am sure it can do better, particularly if you are less lead footed, but it’s not a car for the frugal driver.

3/5

Safety

Many thanks for the comment mentioning safety, which is indeed an important issue, worthy of prompting me to edit this review. I have to admit, I had only considered the car from the point of view of an end user, on a day-to-day basis and as I’ve yet to have a crash, the safety of the car was not one of my primary concerns. Of course you don’t want to crash any car (my experince is that it’s not much fun) but of course you do want to know if you do you’ve got a fighting chance. Anyway, given that I don’t have firsthand experience I will point you to Euro NCAP, who’s business is testing and rating cars’ safety in the event of an accident. They’ve given the MX-5 a 4 star rating, which is pretty good (it’s out of 5) although for passengers the car receives just 1 star from a maximum of 4. The full details are here: Euro NCAP.

4/5

Overall

I was told once, third hand, that a Mazda sales-man once said that his was the easiest job in the business, because once you buy a Mazda, you never buy another car again. He’s probably right, but then I can only imagine none of his customers had ever owned an Alfa Romeo.

4.5/5

1,565 words about a Mazda, I didn’t think I had it in me!