Mike Ribeiro

This past year has been a disaster.

First off my car was hit THREE times in a matter of two or three months can't even remember. All three times, I ended up not even being there when it happened. Only one time did someone actually leave their information to help me pay for it and I got their insurance involved after she ran into my car in a PARKING LOT while trying to pull out and needed the whole front left fender replaced as well as the wheel with an alignment. The other dent in my rear ended up being me and my friend doing a horrible paint job on it and the other hit was on the rear left quarter panel that is still there to this day.

Then I​​​​​​I ended up having wheel bearing issues and ended up changing all of the wheel bearings all around after getting a good price for the labor instead of just changing the one problematic one.

Then I had a overheating saga and nonstop issues that have gone on for 9 months and it seemed to be the radiator cap both times but ended up completely swapping out the whole cooling system from all the hoses to clamps to thermostat to radiator to overflow caps, etc. Only thing that wasn't changed was the water pump. It must have overheated close to 10 times in the past year and when I say overheat I mean the temperature gauge going up a lot before pulling over. Only the very first time did it really overheat and I didn't know what was happening when my car was lurching nonstop on the highway as I was completely ignorant to what was going on but eventually pulled over. Ended up driving back with it lurching again. I still hope nothing major happened after that first incident. And I say 'seemed' to fix the issue with the radiator cap cause when it was changed the first time it lasted about 3 months before overheating again, then a shop replaced it again and it hasnt overheated since. Thinking of just buying the original nismo cap that the car had on when I bought it. These AutoZone caps are probably just garbage.

Then I had an engine running lean right before my registration was due and I couldn't get a smog test so therefore no regsitration and had to drive on a permit. No shop could figure it out and bought o2 sensors and a MAF sensor only for it to be the PCV valve hose that was torn and a small leak coming from my cold air intake pipe at the top seal. Even ended up buying a knock sensor harness, when deep down I knew that wasn't the issue and just a ghost code that came along with the lean code.

Then I had suspension issues. Was told the bushings and ball joints were already bad in the past, but as soon as I fixed my engine lean issue, I hit a speed bump going down a ramp at a casino. Why in the hell is there a ramp at the bottom of a ramp I will never know, but that ended up throwing off my steering wheel and alignment. So with the suspension issues I already had, I decided to just do everything at once. I decided to just buy the control arms, get an alignment, and also get new tires all around since I had a thumping tire for months before this. So I go to buy my own parts and apparently the ball joint doesn't come with one of the lower front control arms, only the compression arm(rearward arm). I thought only one of the lower control arms had a ball joint, but come to find out TODAY, both lower arms on each side need ball joints. I ended up paying for labor for installation of the arms last week and now I'm going to need labor again to press in the ball joints and take the old ones out. Why the hell does no one sell the lower control arms with the ball joints on the lower forward arms but only on the rearward arms? To make matters worse after the control arms were done by this shop, I started having an issue braking or felt like something was rubbing and immediately thought they did a **** job and so that set off another quest of what was wrong and through lots of research I was able to save on diagnostics and narrow down the issue and tell a shop what it was and to inspect it. Through my research, it was the wheel speed sensor (abs sensor). Was getting weird braking sounds at the very last part of the stop and I figured it was either my rotors that I've been told were already bad or just the abs kicking in. Ended up buying rotors and pads during this issue as well.

As Ive just mentioned, I bought the brakes and rotors all around and luckily I did end up needing them cause the rear right pads were completely metal on metal, which I found out on my recent trip to California. It finally decided to give out on me and make the worst grinding noise when coming to a stop when I was 250 miles from home. What a year this has been. Was able to make it back luckily and get it all changed out immediately.

Now I'm dealing with this belt/bearing/pully issues and whatever is causing that whirring sound while driving over 45mph. I also ended up changing my driver side synthetic leather seat in the middle of all these issues as well as my passenger side door handle, as well as installing a new air filter and spark plugs and that was more money for all of that that too. My friend that helped me change my plugs said the plugs were saturated with oil and immediately thought I had bigger problems and that the initial overheating with the lurching damaged one of my cylinders or head gasket. We still don't really know, but car seems to be fine. I never ended up getting a compression or leak down test to confirm the head gasket or blown cylinders. The oil on the plugs is probably just from a leaking valve cover gasket though so that's another issue in the back of my mind through all of this. I also had an oil leak as well as a failed oil pressure sensor during the overheating episodes in the middle of all of this too and my friend then while checking it ended up cracking the oil pan but was nice enough to replace the pan and pay it for me.

Sorry for the long winded post but this has been the worst maintenance year of my life since owning this Z in 2012. Car has 122k miles and is an 03 performance. I just refuse to give up on this car. Anyone else would've sold this by now. I blame a lot of these issue on the Vegas heat. This place is a joke in the summer.

So on to my current 3 issues.

First one is likely related to a belt, but I checked the belts and nothing seems to be wrong with them just from a quick look without taking any of them off. The shop said they were really bad when I knew damn well they didn't even check them even after I told them too initially. The problem is when I first start the car and I feel like it happens more often when the air conditioner is in the 'on' position prior to starting the car, there's a half second whistling sound and goes away. I'm thinking it's something to do with the belts, probably the AC compressor belt.

The second issue is probably the AC belt also or a loose bearing on the pulley. When the AC is on and I accelerate with some force there's a high pitch 'roaring' type of sound that accompanies the normal revving sound. It can usually be heard towards the end of the rev a lot easier as it's more pronounced then.

Third sound, no idea what it could be. When driving around 45 mph and higher while having the foot on the gas, there's a 'whirring sound' similar to what a wheel bearing or cupped tires make, but I had all my wheel bearings changed a year ago. Also it can't be the wheel bearings because when I take my foot off the gas pedal the sound goes away. The sound only appears while the gas pedal is pressed over 45mph.

Hope someone can help me. This year has been a disaster but at least I've learned so much about my car, which is priceless.