Just a quick gripe:

Why is it that in most of the promotional stuff for this car, they don't show that the car has a fixed mast antenna (ie: promo pics, etc)????

Are they planning to get rid of the fixed mast antenna later or not?

 

Oh God, this discussion is so 5 months ago.


We were quite upset that the pics seemed deceptive, but I think everybody has come to agree that the fixed antennae is no big deal. It was installed because of the eventual production of a convertible.

 

Sorry about the slowness of the thread or whatever.....


I know they are going to be making some small changes for next year; did you guys make enough noise to have them make that one of the changes on the list?

 

no, they heard TONS of **** about this. probably the single biggest complaint.

they did it so they could easily make the car a convertable.

whats more, they couldnt put it in the rear glass anyway cause the sloped roof; and couldnt put it in the front window due to cost(the car is pretty damn cheap). the final option was a retractable antenna, which they decided was too prone to failure, which I have to agree.

anyway, you can replace it with a retractable unit, or a smaller antenna from various other cars(S2000 comes to mind)

but me, I have moved past it, and I give it a coat of zaino each time I wax, and its nice and shiny too.

 

I don't buy the sloped window argument from Nissan. The angle isn't THAT much different than my GTP. It has great reception.

 

it wasnt the sloped window, it was the sloped roof. which the Z does have, and also the window is also sloped, small differences are all that matter. the signal would get blocked by the roof.

anyway, whether its true or not(who knows for sure) thats their reason, and I highly doubt their gonna change it now. remember the other half of the reason was so they could swap parts for the convertable.

 

its funny though, the g35c has the antenna in the window, although, I've noticed the reception is just a tad worse than the Z

 

There are tons of other much more serious parts changes to the convertible. The antenna design is a small thing in comparison to all the others.

Face it, it was just a minor cost cutting design decision, just like steering wheel radio controls. All that stuff they had to do to keep the car cheap.

I guess their places to scrimp weren't the places I would have chosen, but hey, its still a great car

 

theyd have to cut a hole in some quarter panels and not others. which is an annoying item. also rewiring the car for different models is also annoying. sure there are a few other areas.

hell I dont really wanna stick up for nissan, I was pissed about it when I found out. but that was brought up and settle months ago. it is how it is, what can ya do.

as for steering wheel controls... that puzzles the hell out of me. but heres the thing, the japanese Z has them. so if the stereo had an input for controls, you could hypotheticly buy the switch, and maybe that left side peice of metal(plastic?) on the steering wheel and have the radio controls. just a thought for those more couragous and driven than I.

 

or possibly you could just buy the g35c steering wheel, since it already has the controls on it and is otherwise just like the Z.

 

Hah, the G35C conversion with AIRBAG would be a very expensive proposition.

On the other hand, the FX45 Infiniti has the same wheel as the Z it appears from photos. The question is will the radios in the Z accept the inputs? We need somebody that has a shop manual or wiring diagram for both to compare, probably. If we knew that, I'd probably attempt it if the wheel wiring wouldn't be too complicated.

Sorry, you aren't going to sell me on the logic of the antenna, other than probably small cost savings. There are many other wiring differences going from convertible to coupe. Holes in a quarter don't make that big a difference, either, when you consider all the other changes. Especially when you figure the coupes would sell in significantly higher numbers.

I put the antenna, steering wheel controls, and crappy tire selection all in the same bucket: minor cost savings. Like I said, nothing necessarily wrong with that, just personally disappointing.

 

I guess they are slightly different, but they probably use the same airbag.

 

As I said, the FX45 appears to be identical, so you could just either:

a) Get the components from the Japanese wheel
b) Get the components from the Infiniti FX45 wheel

Either of those options don't get into thousands of dollars worth of life saving equipment with small explosives attached

 

I agree with you and most of what has been said so far. It's mostly minor cost cutting in each case. Although, when you add each of those little things up, it probably adds up to a bunch of savings for Nissan. They knew they wanted to keep the car as cheap as possible, so they probably tried to save everywhere they could...

But, that also brings up another point. The price of the car will go up, due to inflation at least, maybe other things. As it goes up, and the car's overall time on the market goes up, I assume they will add a few little things here and there. The antenna and the steering wheel controls would be two quick things they could add to give the car a bit of extra juice down the line.