I have the Michelin Pilot A/S tires and are expensive. $200 a pop for 17s.

 

I have a 2005 Touring with 6500 miles, no feathering or any other problems however, when washing the wheels the other day I noticed that the tread on the rear tires,RE040's, weredifferent than the front tread also RE040's from the factory. The front tires do not have the groove all the way thru on the outer tread but the rears do. Just wondering why there is a difference in the front and rear tires. I know they are different sizes but having different tread pattern for the same tire seems strange.

 

Uh...ok.

We really don't need another tire roar thread - my point was, its too soon to tell on the 05's, but I highly doubt we've heard the end of this problem. I hope I am proved wrong.

 

.......i'm being offer a 03 track with 20K miles for 22,700 right now but chances are, it has tire feathering , so if the 05' doens't have it, might as well cough up the extra cash and get the 05

 

I have an 05 with around 11,000 miles and I have no "feathering" I just hear motor and road noise.

It's awesome. I just keep a close eye on my tire pressure with the pressure monitors. I make sure I'm a couple pounds over everyday, and I'm fine.

Good luck.

 

Good to see an '05 with that many miles and no problems. Do you have 17 or 18 inch wheels? Mine only had 500 miles on it but I'm keeping an eye on it.

Btw ... everyone knows there are a million feathering threads. If you don't want to read another one, then don't. If someone wants to post something for the 10,000th time, its their right. There are a lot of new Z owners on the boards and yes they should search. But all of the feathering threads are related to the 03 and 04 models. Very little information on the 05 models. You'd think after 2.5 years, Nissan could figure out a fix.

 

My 2004 was exhibiting tire feathering. I took it to the dealership, they called Nissan and Nissan agreed to purchase new tires for me if I got the alignment done. as a little bonus, the dealership is going to give me the old tires. The feathering wasn't that bad, I just wanted to get this problem on their radar before hitting 20k miles. After the alignment, (the toe setting was out on both sides) the car doesn't roar at all. It feels totally different. I can't feel the pavement through the steering wheel anymore. The service manager suggested I might want to get the alignment checked once a year. He said that would help prevent the problem from happening again. He says it's a pain, but that Nissan hasn't issued a TSB for the 2004's and that until they do, frequent checks of alignment and adjustment when neccessary is the best we can do. I'm not too upset by this. The feathering was minor and took 15,000 miles to show itself, I've got that set of tires as a backup, the process cost me $70 bucks. I hope Nissan has resolved the problem for the '05's.

 

Well, for those that believe its the tires, think again.......either that or i'm just incredibly unlucky. I had tire feathering showing up on the stock tires at about 6k. I had the tires replaced twice with nissan's blessing. The third time, they told me to bend over.....but that's another story. I therefore replaced all four tires with some pricey michelin pilot sports with a nice V tread pattern. I made it beyond the 6k mark and was quite happy....then to 12.....no problems.....I just hit the 13k mark and the noise and vibration is back with a vengeance. This is after having the car alligned and checked at every oil change at the dealership. So....if you think that by putting top dollar into new shoes that the problem is solved, think again. Just go buy some lower end kumhos and call it a day.

This problem is not going away. EVER. Nissan will not put the money into the engineering to fix this problem. They won't even admit it's their suspension specs that cause it. Hell, they have bridgestone designing a "model specific" tire for the Z to "fix" the problem. Congratulations Nissan...you passed the buck onto a tire company.

For those interested....if the feathering is so loud and droning that it makes your teeth rattle.....do the following........take off the wheels, put the rear wheels in the front, put the fronts on the rears. Find a VERY smooth blacktop parking lot and do a few controlled burns on the front rubber. After a few runs, run your hands counterclockwise over the surface of the tire tread. If the tread stops your hands, do another burn. If the tread is as smooth running your hands counterclockwise as they are running clockwise, you are done. Put your wheels back on their proper axle and enjoy your quiet driving. Yes, this will decrease your tires' life, BUT you will get much more life from the tires in this fashion than any other.

god bless

 

I have 5100 miles on my '05 Enthusiast (17" stock wheels and tires) with no signs of uneven wear. My tires have been loud since the day I drove the car off the lot and on rough surfaced roads, they roar but so far there is no sign of feathering

 

I have an '04 that was feathering and replacement tires were covered by Nissan. I didn't notice it until about 11,000 miles and as soon as I brought the car in, the service manager said that he had ordered new tires for me.

 

That burnout method is the funniest fix for feathering I have read to date, but you know what, it sounds like a great idea. There shouldnt be any reason why that wouldnt work. So Im taking a guess and say the avg Z is seeing feathering at 8-11k miles, so after the burnout you could prob get another 5-8k miles without feathering. Thats not to bad. Theres got to be a better way to smooth out the tire besides a burnout though, im not to keen on doing burnouts in my Z.

 

For people who reported the tire feathering issue... instead of replacing the tires w/ stock tires, can you get them to put the money it would cost as credit towards a different set of tires of your choice?

 

Damiousmonk and Bigmike, will you guys keep me updated on the condition of the tire becuase i'm dying to see what's going to happen as well as everyone else.

DamiousMonk- 11K miles and no tire feathering yet, thats a good sign b/c tire feathering using come at 5K miles

 

i hope you didn't replace them with the OEM tires... thats most of the problem... even if changing brands doesn't fix feathering there is no doubt you can get better overall tires for cheaper than the oem ones.

The tread rating on the stock tires is like 175 or something crazy low like that... if you drive your car hard it doesn't surprise me they only last 10-12k miles.

 

I just had my 2005 350z basic model serviced (3500 mi). The dealer found slight feathering and told me that at 7500 miles the tires will need to be rotated and that I had to pay for it. They also told me that high performance tires will only be good for 12,000 to 15,000 miles. I told them that Nissan should make good for the tires if they are gone by then. They told me excessive feathering has been solved but all high performance tires feather.

Is this true? SHould I only expect 15,000 miles out of my tires?

Bob

 

15k miles out of todays performance tires isn't unheard of - the tires will probably be outside of their useful life anyways. Some people get more or less..just depends on the tire and driver and how you use the car.

What is unheard of is "all high performance tires" feather. That is complete and utter B.S. Its true - all tires will feather if the alignment is off - but they do not inherently feather on their own....which is my beef with this problem. By the way - what caused my tires to feather according to the dealer this second time was toe off by .02" (.08 spec, .1 actual)....LOL. Tires were trashed at 8k miles, and nissan is replacing the second set now on our '03 (3rd pair of fronts).

If they feather, you won't be able to hear the radio over the tire noise and if you are sensitive as me, will feel at certain speeds the resonance throughout the car.

I'm no expert, but I have some experience (worked in a shop that only did tires and alignments for 4 years). The fact that the car can't hold an alignment sounds more like a flaw with the tie rods (inner/outer) than anything - used to adjust toe, and keep toe within spec. Of course, its cheaper to throw tires at the problem until the warranty on the car expires than to fix the problem. Its corporate economics we're fighting, not an unsolveable design problem.

 

Okay, not sure if this has been asked before but please bare with me.


Does anyone know the approximate percentage of G/Z cars that have this problem?


Does the problem show up more with 17 or 18 inch wheels?


Thanks.

 

damn, issues like this really concern me. I just registered last night. I'm in the market for a new car and the Z is at the top of the list. After reading the thread in the repair forum i figured the problem was limited to most if not all 03's and some 04's. Its a good thing I found this thread. My parents have an aviator that has feathering problems (well it was probably due to my mom driving the car w/ a poor alignment for so long). It was quite loud and you dont sit nearly as close to the rubber as you do in a Z. All this stuff is really starting to scare me away. The way Nissan is handling this seems pretty poor. Right now I drive an 01' focus and ford never gave me any problems about issues like this (and there were a few). Well hopefully something will change in a month.

 

Doesn't matter what tires or what alignment setting you have on your 350Z, you will still will get feathering on the 2003 and 2004 models.

I have Good Year Eagle F1s with 6k miles on them with an alignment from an independent tire shop that specialize with sports cars.

I have minor feathering at this point. I will cross rotate my front tires when I can't stand the noise. Thank God I have a 240 watt stereo to mask the roar!

 

I'm at 21000 miles on the OEM tires on my 03. Local shop says I have 5000 to 10000 miles left in them. And I do have minor tire feathering.