mwaller

If you have 'excessive road noise' due to feathered tires, the TSB instructs dealers to align the car and cross-rotate the front tires. That is, they'll put the right-front tire on the left-front rim, and vice versa. Badly feathered tires will likely be replaced.
The pulling to the right issue is treated with a replacement part to my knowledge. I don't have this issue, so I'm not very familiar with the fix.
Mika

toykilla

iTrader: (1)

alignment is not fixing the problem.. there have been people here who have aligned there car multiple times and the problem persists...

the tire feathering could indeed be deadly if not taken care of. (meaning replace tires every 5-10k miles)

i notice a HUGE difference in handle and steering response after getting the tires replace.. the feathering is definitely decreasing traction which could lead to accidents and other things

EL Diablo

Scary to think what I have to look forward to.

Blue04

We live in a "sue"-happy country because we live in a country with "screw"-happy companies. (hey that rhymed If Nissan would just do the right thing, people wouldn't feel the need to sue them to MAKE them do the right thing.

Disclamer: I also realize that a lot of lawsuits are because people don't want to take responsibility for their actions, but that's not the case here.

Now go MAKE them fix it before I order mine.

D'oh

If you are referring to the pictures in the link I posted above, then you are confused .

The inside of the tires are worn more than the outside, but that is due to the slight negative camber of the front wheels. The wear pattern along the length of the tread is very smooth, and the road noise was never very bad. Those tires definitely did NOT have feathering, and while they may have been JACKED, it was only because I put off changing them for so long.

On the other hand, if you were talking about some other tires, then you are very possibly correct.

-D'oh!

KONVERTER

iTrader: (2)

Ok im back...

I spoke to my attorney today... he wants to look into "feathering" and if it can be dangerous etc...

we are both going to atleast write a letter to both nissan and the national highway saftey people...

I will keep you all posted...

Rxramon

D'oh!, I was indeed refering to your tires..my mistake....Couldn't you have just crossed them for another 5-10k.

Mine did not look that worn with 20,000 but I had feathering and road noise. The tread on the inside part was wearing unevenly.

All I know is that Im on 21,000 with the backs and they are fine and great, think they can go another 4 to 9. (I love a loose back end with a sticky front, its fun to go fishing)

WashUJon

Great work, man. I'm sure we all really appreciate your leadership and efforts in this matter.

I've got an appointment with Star Nissan in Niles, IL, and we'll see what they tell me when I talk to them next week.

I plan on filing a complaint with the NHTSA as soon as I get word from them. I will also file a complaint with NNA once my car is delivered to the dealer.

I do, however, believe there may be a safety issue, especially with those folks who may not know their tires are wearing like this. If half the inside tread is worn, then how much of that area of the tire is making solid contact with the ground? Surely, that must reduce traction and may pose a safety issue.

Anyway, I'm babbling...

I'd really rather not give up my Z, but I can't afford to buy 2 front tires every 6 months! I just bought a condo and my liquidity is now pretty damn low. I can't very well save any money if I'm wasting money on tires I shouldn't have to buy every 6 months. Its mostly the principle, though. I probably could afford to do it, but then that's money down the drain for no reason. None of us should have to live with this. I'm all for fighting Nissan on this issue in order to make things right! This is THEIR problem and shouldn't be OURS.

Blue350zCali

Please get all your facts straight before posting, a lot of people have had their alignments corrected and still are having the problem.

Beamm

Ok....
[flame, rant, soapbaox, everything /on]
This is going to be harsh but here goes. Flame me, hate me, do whatever it is you want. Here is my $0.02..

To those who said we live in a sue happy country...THANK YOU!!!

Konverter...if I was your lawyer I'd probably tell you to go find a new one.
[everything /off]

OK. Look, you basically have almost no action to take against Nissan. You could try to do maybe one of two things:

1) Claim a tort of negligence on the part of NOA. You'd have to PROVE that Nissan had a DUTY to not have feathering tires and that the breached this duty.

Have you guys ever seen 'Fight Club' and the part where Ed Norton is on the plane telling the lady about the formula that the company uses to determine if they should issue a recal? That is real. It is a deriviative of the formula that courts use in negligence tort claims. It's called the Learned Hand formula (go look it up if you wish) and says that if the perspective costs of replacing something are greater than the possible value of injures suffered from not taking action then the company did not do anything wrong that you can collect on. Unless there is a safety issue here, you lose.
2) Claim fraud. This won't happen. Ask your lawyer about it and about heightened pleading standards. You'll be hard pressed to make this case.

Unless there is a major safety issue here (e.g. exploding firestones) then you lose. The court doesn't care about people who don't like the higher road noise and having to replace their tires. You bought the car and Nissan owes no duty to tell you how often you have to buy tiers. It's buyer-be-ware. It's a tiny class, might be brought in federal court if any lawyer would actually try to bring it (federal court = bad for plaintiff generally).

I doubt your lawyer will want to proceed and I am hard pressed to see a case in all of this unless someone can prove to me that there is a genuine issue here other than a simple annoyance.

I don't mean to flame or shoot people down all over the place or anything, but we are, by in large, a far too litigation happy country. Just be happy you drive a Z, it sucks the tires are loud but oh well, and go on your merry way. Don't sue people when there is no real issue. I know you think it's a real issue but 99% of America does not, and this 99% includes the judge that would hear the case.

I'm sorry. Flame away at me now.

mcduck

I'll have to be a partial voice of dissent... it sounds like a lot of people have feathering problems, so push for a fix... do not sue Nissan... In the end, you'll only be raising the cost of our cars.

I also, am one of the lucky ones... Noticed original tires feathering about 6K miles, had it fixed at 7K miles (alignment and feathering TSBs enacted at dealership) and put on my new wheels/tires about that time. I now have 15K miles (8K miles on new set up) and have ZERO tire feather now.



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blue z guy... tonywenzel... fromwhat everyone is saying... allighnent doesnt fix the problem...
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It did in my case...


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And when you file the complaint, dont file it as an issue with the TIRES!! (there is a selection - you will see what im talkin about)
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I don't agree with this... it could be a problem with the tires. In my case, the TSB either fixed the problem or switching from RE40s to SO3s fixed the problem. It could be that tires with compounds/tread patterns similar to the RE40 will exhibit this problem while others may not. It's not a great situation, but I would not rule out there being a tire issue... particularly where the RE40 is concerned.


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90% of my driving is on the highway so i am mostly giong straight.. perhaps this is a straightline problem rather than a twisty problem
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Considering our suspension settings, this seems a possibility. I drive pretty agressively on twisty roads which is the majority of my driving. Maybe why I don't have feathering now????


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Because of our suspension geometry, the car is sensitive to the crown of the road. I drove on the wrong side of the road a few times just to make sure.
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Also have noticed this... on left side of road, car pulls left a bit; on right side of road it pulls right a bit....

Good luck with the recall/lawsuit. I for one will not sign on... I have nothing to complain about.

And for the record, I don't think Nissan is trying to "screw" anybody on this. If there is a clearly identified issue, they will probably come up with a fix. The issues so far are

1) that not every Z has this problem so it may be difficult for Nissan to determine exactly what is causing the feathering in some cases and not in others... it certainly doesn't appear to be a certain "production" range of cars

2) when the cause is finally identified, they have to engineer a fix... which takes time.

ShermanA

First, the caveats. I have about 6,000 miles on my car and I don't have feathering (Oct 2002 build date). I'm in Canada and I 'm not sure if any of our cars have the feathering problem (don't recall seeing any complaints on the regional forum) though I don't know why this would make a difference.

I'm a lawyer in Ontario, and I have a few comments on the previous post.

As far as the test for negligence is concerned, the info regarding whether Nissan owes a duty of care to purchasers is mostly correct. Whether Nissan owes us a duty of care to produce vehicles that are safe (when operated in the manner for which they are designed) is unquestionable. Whether the tire feathering issue constitutes a safety issue is not as clear. Also, in situations like this, if you or a class of people (i.e. owners of Nissan 350Z's) sued for the tire feathering problem, you would definitely have to sue Bridgestone also.

Returning to the negligence issue, if Nissan designed and manufactured a product that necessitates tire replacement every 5K miles (assuming it can be proven "on the balance of probabilities" that it is Nissan's fault not Bridgestone's) depends on what a court would consider "reasonable." In other words, is it reasonable that an owner of a so-called "high performance vehicle" with tires that bear a tread rating of 140 (if I recall correctly) should expect tire wear that requires replacement every 5K (regardless of why the tire replacement is required). If not, then it would be considered a design or manufacturing flaw and Nissan would owe a duty of care, would have breached that duty of care, and would therefore be liable.

Sorry for the legal mumbo jumbo. Since every jurisdiction (i.e. state, province or country) may have variations this may not apply.

Cheers,
Sherman

WashUJon

That's exactly what I was saying (and since edited out, for ease of reading).

Michael-Dallas

My facts ARE straight. Read the link I provided. Try to understand what an alignment is. My alignment specs are different than Nissan specs. Why? Because I track my 350 and I want to maximize the contact patch. You guys care about tire longevity, I care about maximum traction through turns. The point? Nissan's alignment specs may not be the correct one for your purpose.

If tire feathering is caused by incorrect toe and everybody thinks the tire feathering is a "deadly defect," then what about camber? IIRC, the fronts have just a slight bit of negative camber built-in AND IT'S NOT ADJUSTABLE LIKE TOE IS. So why isn't everybody jumping over hoops over that as a deadly defect?

AGAIN...

If you have a feathering problem, then start w/ a clean slate (w/ new tires or rotating tires side-side off the rim). Then get an alignment done. This time... ask your alignment guy to dial in a hair of toe-in and adjust as necessary. Sometimes it takes a few tries to find the right toe setting for you.

If you read the link I provided, then you will note that under acceleration in a RWD vehicle, your front wheels will have a tendency to toe out. So even if you're aligned w/ zero toe up front, you will get toe out, and that's the cause of the inner tire feathering.

Michael.

Beamm

Exactly my point (even though I didn't flesh it out all the way...I had to run to class)...it would be hard to get a jury to buy the fact that for a high performance vehicle that 5k/tires is excessivly low (epsecially when my dealer told me to expect about 7.5k per set). It would be very hard to establish that there was any breach of duty.

And even if it wasn't reasonable does Nissan owe us a duty to produce a car that doesn't excessivly wear tires? Just because someting is unreasonable doesn't mean that they had a duty not to do it (e.g. it's unreasonable for me to charge someone $1,000 for a carwash but I also don't have a duty to provide cheap carwashes so I'm not negligent, although it may be a contracts case). You argue that it would be a design or manufacture flaw, but I could argue back that Nissan doesn't owe a duty to design cars that don't wear tires too fast, rather they only have a duty to design cars that are safe. If you want to argue that they intentionally designed a car to wear tires then you're into fraud (and intentional torts) and it gets much stickier. It's a fine point to argue but it would almost certainly come up at trial.

Also, what about contributory negligence? Nissan could argue that everyone is partially at fault because of the way they drive and modifications they've made to their cars. This limits recovery.

Further, anyone who did not have stock rims and tires on their car would either (1) be excluded at the start or (2) possibly dismissed from the claim by the judge.

And then we get into the issue of jurisdiction and venue and it's just a mess. In Canada do you have removal and all that good stuff? Plus there are limitations on recover, non-economic damages, &c.

Finally, you didn't comment on the issue of the Learned Hand formula...what's your input ont hat? Do you use it in Canada?

Sorry for length and legal junk but these are important issues to understand (and resolve) if you want a class action.

ShermanA

Beamm,

I have never heard of the "Learned Hand" formula and I am fairly certain it doesn't exist in Canada (or at least Ontario). As far as fraud is concerned, I agree that it is very, very difficult to prove and would be almost impossible in this case. You are also correct with respect to your comments on contributory negligence - in fact, whomever would be theoretically liable (i.e. Nissan or Bridgestone or both) could say that the claimants drove their vehicles in a manner that exacerbated the tire wear, and that any award should be reduced by a certain percentage.

Anyway, please do not construe any of my comments the wrong way. I am not saying that one shouldn't pursue legal action, only that it may be difficult to succeed.

Cheers,
Sherman

KONVERTER

iTrader: (2)

well maybe sueing is the wrong term here....

but basicly just getting nissan to really address this problem... thats what Id like to do ultimatly...

weither it be re-doing the front suspension etcetc..

but people taking their cars in to nissan dealers for this issue... keep track of what they do / say...

cusdaddy

I know I'm only one person example, but I have 8200 miles on my Z with no hint of tire feathering. I wonder what % out of all Z's experience this problem

KONVERTER

iTrader: (2)

do you know what the feathering really is? and where to look

i didnt at first...

bobS

Ok i have been browsing this board for a while......i'm ordering my z in may (around there at least) Im planning on swapping out the stock suspension for aftermarket (whatever it may be) So my question is....Are people with aftermarket suspension experiencing feathering? Also.....i think a pole should be set up for everyone on this board to see how many people actually have feathering. Oh and i'm most likely getting a 2004 unless i find a very low mileage 2003 that i can buy right off the lot.