► Month Four with the Mazda MX-5
► Jiggly ride accentuated by motorway commute
► Time to rekindle the love with a B-road blast
My commute is turning me into a zombie: 20 miles of truck-clogged, average-speed-camera-patrolled dual-carriageway A14 leading straight into the quadruple-lane, police-bait drag-strip section of the A1. The surfacing seems optimally primed to activate the MX-5’s irritatingly jiggly ride issues, too – okay, so it’s got a short wheelbase, but surely there was a better spring-to-damper match than this?
Clearly I needed to give the thing a bit of seeing to before it all got too much and we ended up with irreconcilable differences. So taking advantage of my other half being away for the weekend, off Mazda and I trotted on a remarkably bright Sunday morning in an effort to rekindle the flame, targeting the B660 out of Bedford by the power Google.
It used to be that the occasional horse was the only countryside worry; now it’s enormous roving packs of cyclists. Still, on the stretches in between, the MX-5 was more than happy to remind me to be thankful. Yes, it’s a little soft, which can lead to some clumsy sliding on cold tyres and damp surfaces. And no, it’s not particularly fast. But with such a snicky gearbox and such perfectly placed pedals it remains a hoot – and once you’ve wound it up the suspension tuning comes together far more convincingly.
I enjoyed myself so much I even treated it to a wash afterwards. And following three months of an embarrassingly repressed 40mpg average, that trip worked out at 29.1mpg…
From the driving seat
+ Sweet engine and gearbox combo
+ Pedals perfect for heal and toe
+ Baby iDrive infotainment a joy
+ Three-second roof action
– Unsettled ride increasingly annoying…
– …especially since body control is so soft
Logbook: Mazda MX-5 1.5 Sport Nav
Price: £22,445
As tested: £23,105
Miles this month: 593
Total miles: 6094
Our mpg: 40.2
Official mpg: 47.1
Fuel this month: £73.62
Extra costs: £10 (screen wash)