Andy’s Sable 2004

[MrAndyP]

So having been an owner of two AW11's in the 2000's, I found myself towards the latter half of 2025 looking for an MR2 again. I didn't want it as a daily driver, I have my family wagon for that. I wanted something for a bit of weekend fun and perhaps odd track day here and there.

Fast forward to January of this year I bought a 2004 Red edition on eBay without having seen it. I had never even sat in a ZZW30 before never mind driven one!   It had only done 65k and looked pretty clean so I thought why not?  I travelled from Chester to Lincolnshire to pick it up and the drive back went without a hitch and I was really pleased with my purchase.

Here's how it looked just after I got it home.







The first thing I wanted to do was pick up a hard top so I bought one from a member on here. I struggled for head height with the soft top up when wearing my helmet so the hardtop bought me an extra bit of headroom for track days.

Shortly after that, I replaced the brake hoses with Goodridge stainless ones, all discs and pads for a Pagid ones and a K&N panel filter. I got all this done at MR2 Ben who is pretty close to where I live.

In March I booked onto a track day at Oulton Park which is only 30 minutes from me. The day before the track day I checked the tyres and decided to replace the fronts.

The previous owner had fitted some Falken tyres on the rear which were only a few months old, but the front had a brand I'd never heard of - albeit with plenty of tread. So I changed the fronts to Michelin Pilot Sport 3's.

The track day went well and both sets of tyres held up pretty well considering. The brakes were OK but I could see how there is room for improvement in that department at some point in the future.

The suspension consisting of unknown shock absorbers and unknown lowered springs was OK. Again room for improvement and more about that later.

Anyway, here it is at Oulton in March.

[puma2]

  sounds like your off to a good start with a blind buy

most of all your out haveing fun doing what a 2 does best put a smile on your face    

[MrAndyP]

The other week I got round to treating the car to a new set of coilovers, replacing the unknown shock absorbers and unknown (and quite rusty) lowering springs.

I had originally set out to buy MeisterR ZetaSports, but having been out of stock with the manufacturer since I started looking in March and failing to find a retailer that had them in stock I figured that maybe I needed to look elsewhere. The nail in the coffin was the lack of communication from MeisterR. No one answers the phone, no one returns your messages and no one replies to emails. I figured this was not a company I could rely on should I need support in the future...

I looked around and settled on a set of Tein Mono Sport coilovers with a spring rate of 4kg/mm front and 6kg/mm rear. They are a bit dearer than the coilovers I had originally set out to buy but there are a few retailers out there with some reasonable offers if you shop around. Plus they do look amazing 🤩

I had the rear drop links replaced at the same time (standard Mr T ones) as I plan to replace the rear ARB at some point in the future and didn't want my old cruddy drop links bolted to my nice new green coilovers 

I've only had them for a week or two and I've certainly not put them to the test properly yet so this is not a proper review, just my initial first impressions from running around town and one trip from Chester down to Stoke.

Firstly, the steering feels way sharper compared to my old suspension. Such a huge difference!

Secondly, out of the box they are set to the firmest setting. I drove it like this for a few days and it wasn't anywhere near as uncomfortable as I thought it might be. It was actually surprisingly manageable. It definitely felt really planted and gave great confidence in cornering. A huge improvement on what I had.

I then switched to full soft setting. This was definitely really comfortable and the dashboard rattle really reduced. You could 100% use this setting as a daily driver should you want that. Super comfortable that's for sure.

I've currently got it on the mid setting, 8 clicks from soft (there are 16 clicks on these by the way). Predictably the ride is a bit firmer and there is slightly more shake from the dash, but again very manageable as a daily with a slightly more 'aggressive' feel. Going forward I will either leave it here, or go a few clicks firmer.

Speaking of clicks, one thing I don't like is at the hardest setting you can feel there are no more turns clockwise. However going softer (anticlockwise) you can overshoot the 16 clicks to the softest setting and keep clicking which can damage them apparently. So counting the clicks is definitely key.

The real test will be when I get it back at Oulton Park, but that won't be until August and I'll write more about them then.  To sum up, the first impressions are really good and I'm surprised how useable they are as a daily driver.

I've also bought a front Whiteline ARB and I need to fit that at some point in the near future.