ND MX-5 Common Complaints (and What's Actually Fixable)

The ND chassis (2016–present) is the best-driving Miata Mazda has built, and owners still complain about it constantly. That’s the nature of a car people use every day and also flog at autocross. Most of the gripes fall into three buckets: things with a clean fix, things with a workaround, and things that are just what the car is. Here’s the honest breakdown.

Cabin and ergonomics

Tight footwell, offset pedals. The ND’s pedal box is shifted slightly toward the center, and the dead pedal is small. Owners over about 6’2” feel it most. Fixes are limited: a thinner-soled shoe helps heel-toe, and some owners run a Goodwin Racing or 949 Racing dead-pedal extension. There’s no way to move the seat back further than the factory rail allows without modification.

Seats sit high; not much travel. The stock seat bottoms are mounted high relative to the cowl, which is the #1 complaint from tall drivers. The common DIY is “low-seat brackets” or lowering rails that drop you ~25–40mm. On RF and Club trims with the Recaro option (2017+), the buckets are better bolstered but sit at a similar height. For track use, a fixed-back seat on side mounts solves the height and bolstering at once — see harnesses and track seats.

No telescoping wheel (2016–2018). Early ND1 cars have tilt-only steering columns. Mazda added telescoping adjustment as part of the 2019 refresh (the ND2). It can’t be retrofitted cleanly. If reach matters to you, that’s a real reason to favor a 2019+ car — see ND1 vs ND2 vs ND3.

Limited cabin storage. No glovebox; the only lockable storage is the cubby between the seats and the small bins behind them. This is a packaging consequence of the car being tiny and isn’t fixable. Most owners adapt with a center-console organizer.

Noise, vibration, and the top

It’s loud at highway speed. A soft-top NA-aspirated roadster on 16–17” wheels was never going to be quiet. Soft-top cars see roughly 75–80 dB at 70 mph. The RF (retractable fastback) is meaningfully quieter with the top up because of the hard roof panels, but it actually gets louder with the top down than a soft-top because of the buttresses creating turbulence. There’s no fix beyond a wind blocker and accepting it; this is a roadster.

Cowl shake / scuttle shake. All convertibles flex. The ND is stiffer than the NC but you’ll still feel the cowl move over expansion joints, especially top-down. A front strut tower brace and a chassis brace (the “frog arm” / front-mid brace) reduce it noticeably. The RF’s added structure makes it the stiffest ND body style.

Soft-top wear and leaks. The cloth top is durable but the rear plastic window’s heat-welded seam and the header seal are the usual failure points. Most reported leaks are at the front header latch corners. Keep the top clean and treated — see soft top care. Don’t fold a wet top; it mildews.

RF top rattles/creaks. The retractable hardtop mechanism is complex and some cars develop creaks from the buttress panels and the tonneau. Mazda issued lubrication and adjustment guidance through dealers; it’s usually a fix, not a defect.

Known mechanical items

These are the ones worth knowing before you buy. None are chronic across the whole fleet, but they recur enough to be “known.”

Item	Affected	Notes
Hard clutch / pedal feel, occasional grind	2016–2018 ND1	The 1.5L/2.0L six-speed can be notchy cold; some early cars had soft clutch components later revised. A short shifter doesn’t fix synchro feel — see short shifter.
Crank/restart hesitation (i-stop)	All with i-stop	Often a battery-condition issue, not the engine. Weak battery makes i-stop and the CMU misbehave.
Rear main / oil consumption	Early 2.0L (Skyactiv-G)	Some 2016–2017 2.0L cars consume oil; check level often and review engine oil. The 2019+ revised 2.0L (181 hp, higher redline) is the more robust engine.
Differential/driveline clunk	All	A light driveline lash “clunk” on throttle transition is normal for a small open-diff/LSD RWD car. Persistent loud clunk warrants checking diff and PPF bushings.

For the fuller list and what to inspect on a used car, see mechanical issues and the buying guide. For year-by-year reliability, see reliability by year.

Infotainment (Gen 6 Mazda Connect)

The ND runs the same Gen 6 Mazda Connect (MZD Connect) head unit as the rest of the lineup of that era — a 7-inch 800×480 panel driven by a CMU running an embedded Linux build with an Opera Presto-based UI. The hardware is dated and that’s the root of most screen complaints.

Genuinely fixable in software:

Complaint	Reality
Disclaimer screen on every start	Removable.
Touchscreen locks out while moving	Mazda disables touch above a few mph by design; this can be re-enabled.
Slow boot (~48 s to fully responsive; home screen ~25 s)	The CMU loads 100+ services at startup, many for hardware not installed. Trimming them brings the unit to fully responsive about 16 s sooner. See slow boot fix.
Commander-knob page lag	Animation/transition delay can be cut.
Beeps on every input, no track-change toast, tiny album art	All UI behaviors that can be changed.

These are infotainment tweaks rather than car defects. If you want them changed without DIY, that’s what ScreenTune does in a single USB install; the full list of what’s adjustable is in what’s possible.

Body-module behaviors (FORScan, not the screen): i-stop default state, auto-locking doors at speed, and a horn chirp on lock are body-control settings you change with a FORScan license (~$12) and an OBD adapter, not on the head unit. See ND FORScan and OBD adapters and apps.

CarPlay:

No CarPlay at all (early ND1/ND2): Cars built before the factory integrated the USB hub need the OEM retrofit. See ND CarPlay.
No wireless CarPlay from the factory: The OEM implementation is wired. A wireless adapter works but adds connection latency.
CarPlay connected, then dropped: Usually Mazda’s per-device “never enabled” flag or stale pairing state. See CarPlay won’t connect.
Slow wireless connect (~20–35 s): Inherent to the adapter handshake. See wireless CarPlay speed.

Just hardware — no software fixes it: the 7-inch screen size, 800×480 resolution, sunlight washout, no split-screen, and the dated look. An aftermarket head unit is the only way to change the panel itself, and it costs you the steering-wheel and vehicle integration.

Daily-driver quirks people ask about

Clock resets after the car sits. GPS time-sync recovers once you drive; if it persists, suspect a weak battery — see battery and winter storage.
Random reboots / very slow boot. First suspect the 12V battery, not the CMU. The ND has a small battery and low charge state upsets both i-stop and the head unit.
A/C feels weak on a black-interior car in summer. It’s a small cabin with a lot of glass; the system is adequate, not generous. Top-down driving is the real climate control.

Where the ND genuinely shines (so this isn’t all gripes)

The complaints above are the price of a 2,300–2,400 lb rear-drive roadster with near 50/50 balance, a slick six-speed, and a chassis that responds to honest, inexpensive mods. Nothing on this page changes the reason people buy the car. For making it better rather than just tolerating it, start with first mods, tires, and alignment.