Mazda MX-5 2.0 SE-L Nav 2d Owner Review

Great car to drive, but with some frustrations. Positive: Handles like a dream. Like Federer playing tennis. I have the (softer suspension) 2L Sel-Nav, which don't have the harder Blistein shocks, and the ride quality is a dream. Looks great, although it may look too good, as I've had a fair bit of abuse hurled at me fro jealous idiots. Throttle response superb, and the revs drop like a stone (a good thing), which makes rev matching great. Steering lovely (although some reviewers don't like it). Feels lighter when less fuel in the car. (in fact the car itself feels so much more willing and lighter with less than half a tank of petrol in it.) Car nippy. Bad: 1st to 2nd gear change (as another person on here has said) when getting going in the morning (when the car is still cold) is a nightmare. Worst I've ever experienced. It often simply won't go into 2nd unless you do all sorts of esoteric rev matching or double de clutching. It warms up after a few miles and is fine then, but 1st to 2nd is horrible firs thing. I open and close the soft top every time from outside the car, as I'd read that doing it from inside the car can lead to the soft top rubbing the roll hoops. Mine don't do that, maybe as I've read that the hoop rubbing is much less common when users exclusively open/close the top from outside. However, I drive top down 95% of the time, and after a year or so, I'm starting to notcie small white 'wear marks on two point n the hood (above the passenger side, and on the seam near the back of the hood, but on the same passenger side. This is apparently caused by the hood rubbing against itself when in the 'down' position and you're driving. Not good, considering there was a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) issued to address this very issue over a year before I bought my car. You'd have thought this would have been sorted by now in the design stage.