I took my car in yesterday morning (Tuesday) to have the feathering issue resolved. I told the service adviser that I would not accept the tire swap TSB "bandaid" that others have had done. I wanted new tires. Adviser says he has to get approval from the service manager. He comes back 30 minutes later telling me they are going to replace the tires.

I then ask the adviser to inspect the wheels and show the only existing small scratch on the wheels and tell him I expect the wheels to come back in the same condition. He says they do their own wheel work and they do not have to send them out. You guys can probably already tell how the rest of the story unfolds.

5:00 PM Tuesday, I do not get the call from the dealership as promised. I call the adviser directly and ask when I come get my car. He says they had to send the wheels out to a third party to ensure no damage is done to my wheels since I have track wheels which are more susceptible to scratches. I ask where the wheels were sent, he says he doesn't know and he was too busy to find out but would call me in the morning. I say I would like to pay for the one exisiting scratch to be buffed out if the wheels had been sent to a professional wheel shop. He says he'll call me back in the morning.

No call by 9 Am Wednesday....I call Nissan service and ask when I can come get my car...still get the run around....they cannot tell me if the wheels are in but the adviser mentions to me that I was in luck since some other 350Z had new tires put on today and the wheels were scratched, but he assured me that it was not mine. This is when I start to worry. Get a call 30 minutes later from Nissan saying the vendor delivered the wheels back to the Service department and they where damaged. They agreed to send them out to be "repaired" and it would take 2 days. They offer me a loaner car. I go up there and ask to inspect the damage on the wheels. The damage was not to bad, just marring of the lip and no chips.

My concern now is that they claimed to have new tires put on, the ones on the car did not appear new. It's very hard to tell. The outside of the tire wall has a red dime-sized dot on it that was not there before. I couldn't get close enough to run my hand accross the tread. My old tires only had 5000 miles so the tread was not worn.

Is there any way to tell for certain if the tires are new? I'm afraid that they might be used or my orignals just inverted and swapped. Also, they now cannot give me an ETA on when the wheels will be repaired and say I may have to wait until next Monday. This seems excessive to me. Any advice here would be appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

 

You can check the production date on the side of the tire. It will be inside of an oval. There are a bunch of numbers. I'll try and find a pictorial example of what I'm talking about. When did you buy your car? My car was built in 11/02 and the tires were made in 10/02, according to their mark on the sidewall.

Here's how to read the DOT label that includes the manufacturing date:

U.S. DOT Tire Identification Number
This begins with the letters "DOT" and indicates that the tire meets all federal standards. The next two numbers or letters are the plant code where it was manufactured, and the last four numbers represent the week and year the tire was built. For example, the numbers 3197 means the 31st week of 1997. The other numbers are marketing codes used at the manufacturer's discretion. This information is used to contact consumers if a tire defect requires a recall.

Chances are that if the tires are new, they won't have sat on the shelf too long, especially considering the number of people who are replacing these tires. So, they should be pretty new. If your car is a few months old, like mine, then the tires should be new. Also, the old tires would have probably been built in the same week as the rear tires. Check to see if the fronts are now a newer date than the rears. That's one way you can probably tell.

 

If you look at the numbers on the sidewall of the tire, you can tell the tire's build date. If I remember correctly, it's the numbers after the speed rating letter. It tells you the week (out of 52) and the year it was built.

BTW, the same thing happened to my Track wheels when they did the tire swap. The dealer offered to repair them for me. It is a very small ding on the outermost part of the rim that is barely noticable. They sent mine out to a place that had a "performance tire" machine to remove the tires and it still happened.

What is it with these rims? Why can't anyone seem to remove them without damage?

 

I'm scared to get my tires changed because of the feathering even on my Performance...

 

Thanks guys....I appreciate the feedback. I got my car in Nov '02. and I will certainly be examining the numbers when I get the car back.

 

Wat does "TSB" stand for? and how can I tell if my Tires are in the feathering stage? currently 5K and counting.....thanks

 

one more thing...if I am also a victim of "feathering" how do approach my Dealer in getting this resolved, is Nissan aware about this, and will they respond without hassle?

 

Technical Service Bulletin

Lots of info on this board about feathering. Easiest way to tell is run you hand over your back tire tread first to compare. Then do the same thing in both directions...it's kind of like petting your dog against the grain of their fur as someone else put it.

 

I took my car to a responsible tire ship to have the TPM mounted from my old rims into my new which were already mounted on the car.

they did a great job of the tire change, but declined to align it because they said they did not have the proper machinary to do a 18" rim, and it would clamp to the rim and damage it.

not all shops might be so forthcoming with that info, so you might wanna be sure that they have the proper tools and knowhow to work with an 18" rim.

 

MC350Z,

Where did you find the color codes for the Track wheels? I've done a search and can't find any info. Or, better yet, would you mind providing the codes?

Sorry for the off-topic question.

Sherman

 

My dealership marred my 2 front 18 inch performance rims when I got the tires replaced. I ended up selling the whole set of rims and got a check from the dealership for 500 bucks instead of them repairing the one wheel and replacing the other. Now I got track wheels.

 

The TSB is for TIRE NOISE so that is what you are going to have to tell them. Obviously, the noise is from the feathering but technically, the TSB is for NOISE and not feathering.

Here it is:

Ntb03006
IF YOU CONFIRM: An applied vehicle shows the following symptoms when braking moderately: • excessive tire "roar" or "growl" noise, mostly when braking at speeds below 30 mph. ACTIONS: Verify the incident noise as described above. • Check alignment. Adjust (if needed). • Rotate front tires from side to side, dismounting tires from wheels. See this bulletin for detail.

 

I always ask if the dealer has a tire machine w/ a rim protector. Most dealer should have this--meaning they can install many tires on your rims with out scratching them one bit. some dealers including Tire stores will use a regular tire machine and cloth or rag as a protector--THIS WILL NOT WORK! Ask them if they have a "rim " machine. Basically they set the tire on this machine and a lip or edge goes into the edge of the tire and rim and spins it out to remove the tire, there should be a rubber protector underneath the "lip" to prevent scratching.

 

Hey My_Tampa_Z
I'm in Tampa too, my dealer scraped my 18"performance wheels too, I wasn't interested in having them repair them, so they are replacing them wheels off of trade in Z's that come in - got one replaced prety quick but now it's been over 4 months,still no second rim/tire - - and now It's time to mount new tires (s03's), my rears are shot at 13k - - wonder which dealer you deal with, mine is on fletcher.

 

Went the one on Hillsborough. ALso, I have the track model where the wheels are a little more hard to come by. I have 5000 miles at 11 months. No problems with the rears. The thing that pisses me off the most is that I had read about everyone getting their wheels scratched/marred and I told this to the service adviser. He assured me my wheels would be fine that they had all the right equipment. They later told me they sent the wheels out to a vendor....who ended up doing the very damage they were trying to prevent. I am not sure what to believe at this point.

 

Ditto to all comments above, my touring is at the dealers now. I wonder what their fix will be.