krashkelly

I had feathering and pulling to the right problems. And yes, when my dealer replaced the front tires they tore the hell out of my wheels (still a fight). And because my dealer was so bad and put the new tires on my car did not allign or balance the car I took it to a 3rd party shop and had it done and sent the dealer the receipt for the work and they cut me a check!

Best part, after 5k miles on new tires, still NO pull and NO feathering and my Production date was 11/02.

BTW, seen it mentioned before on a thread but just in case... YES Nissan Customer service is AWFUL! The 800 number reps don't care and are rude. If you ever deal with them make sure to send back in your comment card they send in the mail.

And whatever you do, make sure to get your Z realligned BEFORE the feathering starts or ASAP. Almost every one has some allignment issue. Some dealers will pretend they have never heard of the problem, and that is insane! They all know, even the driver for my rental car told me about it!

Good luck finding a good dealer... shop around. And get to know your Service Manager! Make 'em want to help you and you'll get better service.

Krash
Silverstone/Touring 6sp
24k miles

waukee

So what fixed the pull to the right? Did you use the same tires to replace and what specs did they use to align your car?

krashkelly

Same Potenza tires were used in replacement. The pull and treadwear issue seemed to be resolved by a good allignment by a tech who actually seemed to care. I had it done at a Firestone Company store (believe it or not, had good luck with this store in the past) by an ASE Tech who did it in front of me and discussed everyhting he was doing. He showed me by his specs that the dealer had mis-alligned it. Also, it appears that adjusting the rear wheels changes the specs on the front, so do a 4-wheel allignment!

My specs for allignment were in the range of:

Ft Left: Ft Right:

Camber -1.3 to 0.2 same as left
Caster 7.4 to 8.9
Toe .00 to 0.08

Rear Left Rear Rt:

Camber -2.1 to -1.1 same as left
Toe .04 to 0.11

Both rear and front toe was way off in specs after Nissan alligned it. Honestly... the cars seem fine, just the ignorance and crap we all have had to deal with at Nissan and their dealerships which seem to be the problem.

Older production date and over 20k miles and once I got it out of the hands of Nissan, I love the car again! Even if they had not repaid me for the work, I would have gladly spent the $179 (got lifetime allignment and balance just in case) to be happy with the car and not waste time with the Nissan idiots.

If you have a COMPANY owned Firstone shop in your town, find out what their specs are for the car and compare with what Nissan alligned it to. Hell, I may have just gotten really lucky!

Hope this helps!

Neuf350z

Just came across this problem the other day...when driving over 45mph, the car pulls back and forth to the left and right rapidly. Feels like you could lose control and definitely took me by surprise.

I've had problems with the pulling to the right and am calling to schedule time to have that checked out, but the pulling back and forth was weird. Anyone run into this problem??

Deb "Neuf"

Conceyted

iTrader: (7)

unless you were running over bumps I have no clue what that coudl be!

BlueDragonZ

iTrader: (11)

I am at this point with my dealership. As soon as thew tires get in since they are in back order my two fronts will be brand new. Hopefully this will put to an end to this PULLING TO THE RIGHT. What did they tell you about your scratched up rims? I have to take this fight not with Nissan but with a tire company. Nissan didn't have the capability of swapping the tires so they sent me to a tire company.

2Fishy4U

Mine also has started to pull to the right at about 4,000 miles. I was wondering how big a problem this is and how difficult to fix. I have heard everything from just alignment to new tires, some kind of rod on the suspension, etc.

The pull is very mild at this point and I am looking for an update from you folks on how Nissan is handling this.

Thanks

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

The "pull to the right" TSB is well described. It has to do with a control rod and bushing in the right front suspension.

Mine was corrected and not only was the pulling eliminated, I realized how much slop I had previously been seeing in the steering - post repair the steering returned to its old tight feel, nothing vague about it.

I think Mike posted the TSB in the forum section, I sent it to him in PDF. If you cannot find it PM to me and I'll be happy to send you a copy to take to the dealer.

The sloppy steering Neuf350Z sounds like mine of last Summer. 2fishy4u also sounds the same, mine came in around 4-6k miles, I don't recall the exact mileage, and of course, results will vary with usage and driving style

Thanks,
Steve

99AllTurbo

Report it right away to the dealer so they can align the car, and go from there. I noticed the pull to the right at about 400+/- miles, and finally took it in a 610. The tech told me to break the car in and then come back. Well I'm at 7,200miles and after all 6 attemps to fix this trouble, it has not improved one bit.

I'm going through the Lemon Law process right now to get Nissan to buy back the car. There is NO fix for the pull.

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

It's the whole rod assembly, you're right. There is a conical bushing or similar at one end but the TSB part number spec's the rod assembly.

Steve

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

Sorry to hear that. Mine was not subtle at all, and was completely addressed when I took it in for the TSB-related service. Tire wear is still wrong on both front tires, but that's another veerrry loooong story.

In my case replacement of the rod assembly fixed the issue. I wonder given the low miles you ran into this problem if there wasn't something else out of whack.

Steve

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

BTW, I am now 5000 miles later into the car and the pulling problem has not returned.
Steve

99AllTurbo

*Correction* There's no correction for the pull in MY car . Glad that worked out for you Steve. I don't understand why my car still has this problem after 3 alignments, rotated tires, new tires AND the rod replacement. Don't know.

Take care,

toykilla

iTrader: (1)

i had this done .. and 2 months later its pulling to the right again.. along with feathering

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

yeah, I can't think of why it would not work for the same range of car, unless something else is whacked in the front - has Nissan tried their "A-team" Factory Engineer approach on you yet?

If not, it will be sure to come up in LL proceedings - most State's LL allow the manufacturer one last chance to address fixing the problem, and you pretty much have to go through the motions of letting it go if they respond to your filing within "x" number of days. Outside of the period specified, you typically no longer have to allow them to touch the car...good luck.

99AllTurbo

They've already done so. I gave the NNA rep the car about a month ao for one last attempt. He claims nothing is wrong with the car and it drives perfect. That had me boiling because as soon as I drove the car from the dealer, it pulled as always. I was pissed. Now it's up to the arbitrator to decide when I take him/her for a drive and show them the car pulls. I timed how long it takes the car to cross the line (as stated in the TSB for the rod) and it takes no more than 5 secs. Did it 3 times in a row.

Anyways, that's why I'm now taken it to arbitration. Will find out early next month and post the results.

2Fishy4U

Thanks for all the info. Mine, at 5,000 miles is pulling to the right, although not to badly. A few thousand miles ago it was a bit more subtle and the dealer nicely said alignment was not a problem.

Ironically, when I show the service department your E Mails they to react more quickly in terms of resolving the problem so I appreciate your comments.

CottonWoodz

To me, it sounds like half of you need to find a new dealership to go to. Cause it should of been fixed the 1st time.

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

Not very helpful - you'll note that even when many of the people on this thread walked in with the TSB and other info in hand, things didn't work out. This includes having NNA folks try to address the problem.

Dismissing the issue as a "dealer problem" is not really on target - I'd say any problem not resolved by simple alignment related to pulling to one side or the other, i.e. requiring complete replacement of parts is fundamentally a design and engineering problem.

Dealers are for service, repair, but they're not involved in the design and engineering of the car, so I'd cut them a little more slack when it comes to problems like this. Sure, some are less helpful than others, but the real issue here is when no one can easily address the problem, you're stuck.

99AllTurbo

Steve, I couldn't have said it better. You are totally right.
As frustrated as I got when my trouble wasn't fixed, I knew the dealership was doing what NNA had available as far as TSBs for the Z. That's why I began dealing with NNA because my trouble wasn't fixed after the 2nd time.

My dealer DID do what I asked them to do and never gave me a hard time (Ok maybe once), but they were not succesful because this has to be a physical problem with the Z's suspension (design or whatever).

To those that have NO problems with your suspension, ie tire feathering, pulling to the right, it's great that you don't, but the moment you feel your car pull or see abnormal tire wear, you better get busy reporting it to the dealer or you'll regret it.