We spent 2 weeks in Japan and had a tour of the Nissan Tochigi plant. Tochigi is where they make the Zs. This is one of the smaller plants for Nissan, but it is the one they use to produce their high-end products. I attached an image of a list of cars made there. The plant is about 60 miles north of Tokyo. It has a four miles high speed banked oval track and a test course. We asked if we can try the track, the answer was an absolute NO – in Japanese. The plant takes up about 2.9 million square meters.

To get there, we took the Shinkansan (bullet train) from Tokyo to Utsunomiya, then switched to a local train from Utsunomiya to Ishibashi station, then a 10 minute taxi ride. The whole trip one way is about 2 hours.

The plant tour was about 2 hours long. It was great to see the Z made from start to finish. Sorry guys, we were not allowed any pictures inside the plant, which was to be expected. I attached a picture of the guest hall. Also because the tour guide speaks only Japanese so we cannot ask a lot of the questions due to the language barrier. The tour is still very interesting to see.

Some things we found out at this plant:
1. They make all different models on the same production line at the same time. For example, the line has a ZR with left hand drive, then a 4 door Fuga (M35/M45) with right hand drive, then a 4 door with AWD, etc. They are all different colors too.
2. For every 100 chassis they made, they pull one off the line to use for QA/QC. The chassis is checked by a team manually and it is destroyed afterwards.
3. Great care was taken to check the gaps between all panels before the trims are installed.
4. The doors are 1st installed for checking the gaps, and then they are removed for interior trims installation.
5. They do run the engines to a fairly high RPM and the car in high speed on rollers when doing emission check at the final stage before the car is shipped.
6. It takes about 22 hours to make one car.
7. The Z was produced at Tochigi starting around September of 2004. I thought they were moved there a few months earlier.
8. There were a few 2005 Zs waiting to be shipped, they all have the new head lights, tail lights, and console as shown in one of the threads here.
9. The workers there work very hard to keep up the speed of the production. It's not a easy job.

We were so close to the cars that we could touch some of the parts at times. All in all, that was a great experience. If you have a chance to go to Japan, this tour is highly recommended for the Z lovers.

 

I am so envious of you. I have been wanting to see this plant for a long time. I passed up an opportunity to see it this Nov...bought a Grand Touring ZR instead. Maybe I'll be able to see it next year. I hope...

 

I'm in South Korea. I should definately take a trip and check it out.

Great idea!

 

You don't have any pics from inside the plant?!

Edit: maybe I should read the ENTIRE post not just pieces of it...that sucks they wouldn't let you take pics inside.

 

This is one thing I disagree with. You sacrafice quality for speed and production #'s. I'm responsible for staffing an entire manufacturing warehouse, and the production lines there go ridiclously(sp?) fast AND they make the employees work 12 hr shifts, AND its not climate controlled so it is 110+ in the warehouse usually every day. When I do my hourly rounds, I notice several quality defects with things not being tightened to specs, products falling apart on the skids, etc. All they're worried about is getting it together and the next one is already waiting for them, nobody wants to fall behind. BS in my opinion, but I am not the plant manager so I don't make the production decisions.

 

That is really awesome! I'm jealous. Someday I'm gonna go to Japan...

 

8. There were a few 2005 Zs waiting to be shipped, they all have the new head lights, tail lights, and console as shown in one of the threads here.


you mean 06's?

 

The Nissan President (car) looks like a Buick Roadmaster. You should have walked past the parts bin a picked up a set of new headlights

 

Dream350Z:
The workers works a 9 hours shift there with two 10 minutes breaks and one hour lunch/dinner break. The plant was very hot when we walked thru. In some of the work stations, they have tubes that feed air conditioning to the workers that can work within a smaller area, some have multiple tubes. The team leader does QA on the work of their own team before the cars are moved to the next station.

CUxtopher:
No, they are 2005, NOT 2006. I asked them specifically about that because of the new lights and console. They said the 2006's will be made in October. May be the production years and marketing years are different.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I work for a US subsidiary of Hitachi and have been to Japan as well. They definetely look at quality differently than most US companies. My Z is my 4th Nissan. Never been disappointed.

 

I was in Tokyo in June. Should have opted to go to see the Tochigi plant, instead I went to the World Expo 05 in Nagoya.

 

We also went to the Expo at Nagoya, but it was such a disappointment. Advanced tickets for the good shows were long gone. Line-ups were huge and the weather was hot, make that Really hot. Took us an hour just to get in the main gate. Not recommended. Here's a picture of the people outside the main gate.

 

I was there two days, could see almost every pavilion that I was interested in except Toyota. Hitachi, JRL, Mitsu, Gas and Toshiba were fun. Lines were just torture. Longest was for Toyota - 5 hrs, next was Hitachi - 3 hours. I had fun and learnt a lot of new things, especially on robotics.
The crowd was just nuts, its supposed to be World Expo - but everything is in Japanese. The crowd would run to pavilions when the gates opened at 8am. It was almost like a stampede. Tickets were not cheap either $45 each day.