I am getting ready to purchase a Z. I am trying to decide between the Base and the enthusiast. I know there isnt much price difference but just wondered if it was worth it to spend the extra money. the only real benefit the enthusiast has that i want is limited slip. i was wondering from experience if it would make that much of a difference in hooking up. ive never had a rear wheel car before so just looking for some advice.

 

do all Z's come with TCS?

 

forgot about that. another advantage of the enthusiast

 

I have an 04 Silver Enthusiast model. The limited slip does help some, the factory unit is a viscous limited slip. There are better aftermarket units available of course, one way to do it would be buy a base model and have one installed yourself. I like the xenon headlights that come with Enthusiast also.

 

well once you get the car you will find yourself hitting that fun button alot to turn the TCS off.

 

HID is now standard on both base and enth.

Really the big differences are;

No LSD
No TCS or VDC
No Cruise Control
Base is a little Lighter.

Thats really about it.

I Guess the base is more of a "Driver's Car"

 

get the enthusiast.

other than lsd and tcs it's got cruise control, controls on the steering wheel, aluminum pedals, dash mounted storage, luggage box and a bunch of other lil stuff that might come in handy at times.

plus base trims r harder to find.

 

enthusiast doesnt have vdc

 

Right, It has TCS, But I also noted that VDC is not an option, as it is on other models too.

 

get the performance edition it, has the most performance features without that f ing bose system (allways trouble)

 

I went with the enthusiast because I wanted the diff. I know you can put an aftermarket in but I would rather spend my money elsewhere right now. The TCS is nice to have to but like someone said earlier, you'll end up turning it off a lot. Nice to have though if you get stuck out in some bad weather though.

 

The question may be decided for you: it will be very difficult to locate a 350Z Base. New or used.

 

saw 9 at dealership yesterday.

 

Enthusiast without a doubt.

 

I have an '05 enthusiast. I took this over the base for the reasons stated, that is the LSD & TCS systems. The base is a good alternative if you intend to upgrade the stock LSD and don't want/need the TCS.

 

Funny this thread came up, Me and a friend are going tonight to pick up his brand new redline base model from the dealership. he went over all of the options and features and decided the base was the best bang for the buck since there is so much aftermarket stuff out there.

 

Keep in mind, so far as I have seen on this board and others Cruise Control is a factory only option, there are no kits to add it later.

Does the base come with the home link mirror these days?

Chris

 

Around here it's all about how much money you spend. The more you spend the more uber leet you will be regarded by the community. Buy the most expensive model and also give the dealer a healthy tip. Can't go wrong!

Sarcasm aside, to answer your question.... the open-end differential won't hurt your launches. You will generally only be able to notice it while accelerating hard and cornering hard at the same time. The viscous LSD also eats a little more horsepower than the open-end. The open-end would be a good differential to start with considering you've never driven a RWD car, then again the vlsd isn't much more aggressive so you probably won't have problems either way.

When all else fails test drive both and see what you think. You likely won't be able to push the car hard enough out of the box to even notice the difference.

 

Enthusiast for the kill.