How can you find out when your Z was built?

 

drivers side metal plaque thingy in the door sill.

 

Did the company who made trannies for nissan just make every other one sh!tty using worthless parts or something? Someone should take a look at one after they have theirs replaced or something...keeps alot of ppl wondering wtf's goin on.

 

2005 here. 10,000 miles and no problems so far. Not even tire feathering. It's my daily driver, and I am a contract PC tech so I spend 75% of my day in the car going from one site to the next. At one point I was putting 1,000 miles a week on it.

 

i'm on my 3rd tranny and i have an 05. 3rd one was put in at 12,700 miles. i have a little over 16k now with no issues. i have a 100,000 mile warranty so truthfully, i'm not too worried about the tranny issue.

all in all, if it was my choice, i would get the Z. i am in love with my car, despite the tranny and axle clicking. it's still a great car.

 

I've been looking at Z's for a while, but every time I think it's time to get one something pops up and I don't (now it's house buying time). After I get the house though I'll be getting an 06 track. Been looking and researching for over 3 years now, so I know exactly what I want. Only "re-occuring" problems noted are trannies and tire wear. The 06 has a slightly re-designed front suspension, with slightly different factory alignment specs, so I assume they finnally fixed the tire feathering. But, the trannys still have the same part numbers, and as attested by a few members here even the 05's still have random tranny problems. So I would only worry about that. I would also recomend buying and registering the car in a state that has a liberal lemon law at first. Texas allows you to force a dealer buy back if it goes to service 3 times in 1 month or 3 times in some set ammount of miles for the same item. It also appears that if you get past 10k miles with no tranny problems you are in the clear, so an extended warranty is not worth it.

 

Buy something else. Come back to nissan in another 2-3 years when there is a complete revamp. Or you could just get the new skyline, when it actually shows up here.

 

Wow there's still IT work in the US? =p

 

im starting to think about the situation differently now. I think that there is a flaw in the engineering of the transmission that is not prevalent enough for Nissan to address. Those with the tranny problems, have the problems again and again. These same people have treated every tranny in every car they've owned the same way. Im sure all of us have power shifted the crap out of some other car that could take it. I just row through the gears on my accord 100% of the time just to prove to myself that a well engineered tranny can take it.

Maybe 90% of the drivers out there will not hit whatever deadly combination of acceleration/clutch/shift that detroys whatever weak a** thin metal piece thats getting tweaked. But, maybe if your style is that deadly combo, you are gonna toast every tranny you ever get. This combo has never been a problem in the other 8 manual cars Ive owned in the past. Perhaps this is not a big enough problem for Nissan to waste $ on a redesign... I dont know.

The only other possible explanation is that some other part on the car is interacting with and causing failure of multiple transmissions. A problem that Nissan cant or wont try and figure out. A tweaked fly wheel? Out of balance drive shaft? Misaligned shift plate? Who knows?

SO, if anyone here has had TWO Z's, one with the tranny failures and one without, then Ill probably buy again.

 

You know what i can relate to this... i have an SRT4 that is being recalled as a lemon and it was brought back for 3 transmission failures and Dodge has torn apart the car in hopes of finding some kind of abuse on my part (05' 8000 miles) its been a few months and it has been decided by Dodge that it will be bought back and since ive made payments on it already i should be getting back about 1k for it. (YES my downpayment on my TT setup) haha. oh and ive had a MT 240Z, MT M3, MT Eclipse, MT 350Z (current), and a MT porsche (dads) and none of those cars have every had a tranny problem so i know its not my driving. we are assuming there is a problem in the adjustments (lemon) and can never be set perfectly

"drive fast, take chances.... its the way to live"

 

Built 8/11? That seems odd. They stopped production of 05's much earlier than that I thought.

 

....driving style has little to do with nissan tranny issues. I'm sorry, it can't. I've had plenty of other vehicles with 1 transmission, no problems. My 91 Toyota 4runner with 260,000 miles rows through the gears smoother than my Z, and it's only on its 2nd clutch. My acura RSX type-S rows through the gears silky smooth, and I admit to abusing the crap out of that car. My 93 acura integra is also another prime example of a reliable tranny. I ravaged that poor car for 300,000 miles and 4 clutches. There were times driving that car that I thought I'd leave the drivetrain on the ground behind me. Now, those vehicles are not on the same level as the Z.....entry level sports cars and entry level suv. Now c'mon. Nissan needs to get their act together. If you guys want a wake up call, go test drive a lotus elise(toyota celica drivetrain), or hit up an s2000. Then you'll understandl what a tranny is supposed to feel like.........just push the clutch down, and rock it into gear.....unlike my Z where you have to ***** foot it in to avoid trouble.

 

The only eplanation is that most americans ***** foot it, so that to Nissan it would not be profitable to redesign around the problem. If it was more profitable for them (because of claims loss) then they would have done something already.

From my estimate, I figure 2-4% (about 100-300 members) had problems. Maybe less.

 

I still have my 03' with 24k miles on it. I had my window regulator replaced twice, and tire feathering done once. My clutch at times makes a funny noise when starting her up in the morning. Other than that, the car is fine and I'm pleased with it.