MX5 mk2.5 rust

motorfan

Hi everyone,

Looked at a lovely mx5 recently, a UK import, on the surface it looked and sounded great.

After the owner changed the flat battery in it for a new one, I took it out for a spin. It started up first turn of the key and the engine sounded smooth through the rev range and idled nice.
Everything seemed to work and sound as it should in the cabin and under the bonnet, felt like one of the best I've driven so far. But underneath seemed riddled with rust.

I would know a few bits on these cars and a few things to look for but I am not hugely familiar with these cars, particularly with regards to rust. I am not sure whats bad rust and what would be just normal amounts of it (if there even is such a thing).

I checked the usual spots around the sills and they were showing rust, and a lot of bubbling. There was clearly a pretty poor respray job done on it, and the new paint was bubbling very bad around the jack points, and the old rust creeping back out through. The boot had rust showing inside the roof of the boot lid and around where the license plate lights are.

Whats your thoughts on this? Stay away?

And do the NA models suffer this rust as bad? I know the NB 2.5's went under small changes to the crumple zones which made this problem worse.

Thanks guys!

coolbeans

motorfan wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Looked at a lovely mx5 recently, a UK import, on the surface it looked and sounded great.

After the owner changed the flat battery in it for a new one, I took it out for a spin. It started up first turn of the key and the engine sounded smooth through the rev range and idled nice.
Everything seemed to work and sound as it should in the cabin and under the bonnet, felt like one of the best I've driven so far. But underneath seemed riddled with rust.

I would know a few bits on these cars and a few things to look for but I am not hugely familiar with these cars, particularly with regards to rust. I am not sure whats bad rust and what would be just normal amounts of it (if there even is such a thing).

I checked the usual spots around the sills and they were showing rust, and a lot of bubbling. There was clearly a pretty poor respray job done on it, and the new paint was bubbling very bad around the jack points, and the old rust creeping back out through. The boot had rust showing inside the roof of the boot lid and around where the license plate lights are.

Whats your thoughts on this? Stay away?

And do the NA models suffer this rust as bad? I know the NB 2.5's went under small changes to the crumple zones which made this problem worse.

Thanks guys!

]]

There are plenty of good MX-5s out there. I'd walk away from a rust bucket especially the one you've described as it's got to the arches. Some people say that Mazdas are more prone to rust than other makes but what really makes them rusty is the UK roads, they put way more salt on the road there than in Ireland.

landmarkjohn

Stay away unless you are prepared for major work replacing sills etc.

Jap import MX5 are best option IMO.... but make sure and fit an alarm immobiliser, they are an easy target as jap imports often don't have these security features as standard.