Mazda MX-5 - long-term review

Again. It's happened again. I seem to be the special correspondent with regard to punctures. I must have had, oooh, several gazillion since I started work here, and now the MX-5 has joined the illustrious ranks of cars in which I have had flat tyres. What an accolade.

Naturally, it was a day I needed to go into London for an important meeting. Naturally, the traffic was somewhat heavy. And naturally, 500 yards into my commute, the tyre pressure monitoring system brought up a big scary message in the instrument binnacle. I found somewhere safe to pull over and had a look around the car.

All the tyres looked round, to be honest, I was tempted just to carry on and not risk being late. But those systems are rarely wrong and have been immensely useful to me in the past. Best not to ignore it. I drove home and discovered the pressure was down 10psi in the rear offside tyre – obviously there was a problem. Initially, I thought the front offside was also low, but fortunately not – even I couldn’t be that cursed.

A quick examination of the tyre revealed the culprit – an inch long screw – embedded deep into the tyre about two inches into the main tyre face from the sidewall shoulder. While this may not seem like terrific news, it actually is about the best kind of puncture to have – clean, simple, straightforward. It can be repaired, and the repair cost is a very reasonable £20. Had the screw been closer to the tyre’s shoulder, or in the sidewall itself, the car would have needed new rubber. Which got me wondering how much it would be to replace the tyre.

Unlike many manufacturers, Mazda seems fabulously sensible regarding which rubber it fits to its cars, and this is wonderful news. So, instead of some super-rare unicorn spec tyre only available from one shop 400 miles away at 11.37am on a bank holiday Monday after a full moon, the 205/45R17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tyres fitted to the Mazda MX-5 are readily found on the internet and cost just £125 – appreciate this is relative, but bear in mind that a previous replacement tyre on another car was £300.

I’m not suggesting this means I won’t be vigilant about tyres and tyre pressures, of course I will, but the relief of knowing that replacement tyres are easily sourced and don’t cost a fortune is palpable. Thank you, Mazda. Your common sense is much appreciated.