mepb

no generally I do everything myself, but thought I'd get one more main dealer stamp in the book, being as the car was a 2005, it was the same main dealer and I'd have to nice people but appalling service, did I mention the rear brake clunk they could not fix or the water pump they did under warrenty and made the engine buzzy!, fix that when I do the first cam belt change. Got a lot of good advice from Tony over the phone will follow up on it and hopefully get my steering back.

Thanks guys, If Tony's is only a hour or so away that seems like the best solution, I'll PM as asoon as I figure out how!!

Hi Tony, Been around various web forums and your name came up (a lot!) as the man to ask about tyres and suspension issues so..... Everyone says mx5 plus f1's are a great match so I bought some, unfortunatly I did not see the scare stories till after I bought. Orginally with all oem bridgstones, not too far gone on the front and near worn out on the back I had fast steering, loads of feedback and fun tail slides at will, with nice recovery. The story 2005 mx 5 1.8 arctic goes to main dealer for complete wheel swap out (corrosion), comes back with nice shinny new wheels and worn out back tyres rotated to front, steering now really bad in the dry, bloody scary in the wet, thought near bald tyres on the front stupid dealer has no idea what he's done, he'll never see my car again. One week later fitted a pair of goodyear eagle f1's to front (E13 made in germany) steering is now better but still crap, very heavy wooden feel at low speed, follows where every you left it last, does not center unless at speed, follows the camber left or right, very twitchy over bumps, my nice fast responsive steering is gone! All tyres preasure checked and set to 28, slight improvement only, dealer had left 32/36 in the back!! he'll never see my car again. I did not have the car tracked as was planning to buy two more tyres first next month, did not think it would matter much as car was fine before. Pity blackcircle forgot to mention the F1's are being replaced. Back tyres are the orginal bridgstones swaped from the front, no sliding still quite a bit of grip left. Have ordered another pair of f1's and spec I want made in germany etc. Have read your forum, unfortunatly I did not know about the red banding marks around the tyre and if mine did have them they are now worn off. The only other thing was the car had a new drivers front wing at the same time the wheels were swaped (got a free dent on the 25k service!! same dealer and he will never see my car again, think I may have said that before!) probably not related as the car was still steering ok after the dent but before the wheel swap and new wing repair. Any idea what's gone wrong, its my daily driver and I'd really like my steering back, an mx5 with heavy wooden steering is crap! Also do you know of anyone near sutton surrey (sm3) who could be trusted to do the alignment check/ adjustment. Hope you can find time to reply or if anyone else has an idea please post it.