Did Nissan get rid of the feathering on the 04's?
 

The feathering and some of the other issues of this car??

I am not sure but my tire is starting to feather again. This will be my second time.

BTW I have an 03

And ehat am I reading are they calling the 04's the 2004.5 because of some changes made over the earlier 04's?

My 04 is beginning to feather with about 2300 miles on it so I guess not. Unfortunately mine is not a 2004.5 as I screwed up let someone else buy it out from under me, but thats life. I still love the car and hopefully there will be a fix one day.
Thanks Mike

My car was manufactured in 11/04. I don't have enough miles on it to see if the car is going to feather yet, but if it does, I am going to drive the car through the glass showroom wall of my dealer and shove my keys up my salesmans @$$. I'm not dealing with that crap. I paid cash for my track, so if it starts feathering, I'll sell it and throw in the few extra grand it takes to buy an '05. Nissan's actions in regards to the feathering problem have been reprehensible, and I don't have time to play their games. I LOVE my Z, and I can't swing for a C6. In my opinion, Nissan has cornered the market with a 30K-ish sports car, but I sure do hope they get their act together.

For now, I'm loving my car though, and I hope that I get to continue enjoying it.

DiRN, you bring up a good point...Has there been any pattern established of which cars will feather and which ones won't? It seems odd to me that the problem is so sporadic given that the car is mass-produced. You'd think it would be a consecutive series of VIN #'s or build-dates up through a certain number, and thus probably cars shipped to a common geographic area ( more common that just "The U.S. that is.)

true, the feathering is not on all Zs...
mine's problem free with 11000km

As far as I know, there's no pattern. All cars have sporadic problems, especially first and second year cars. Don't spend your time fearing a problem that probably won't happen.

LOL! Do you have a time machine? :p

My 04's build date I believe is 7/03 and I'm at 4880 miles. Picked it up at the end of August 03. So far, no feathering yet.

While I agree that some people genuinely might not have feathering, I think a large percentage that "don't have it" simply don't have enough miles or aren't fully aware of what feathering is. I remember reading a post of a guy who complained of terrible tire noise around 25-30mph, and claimed his car was free of feathering.

DENIAL...it's a powerful tool.

NzZ

LOL! Well, I've seen the pics of very bad cases of feathering with cupping on here, so I know what to look for. We've had cars before that developed feathering too due to alignment probs. I've also had a car that developing cupping all over the back tires due to worn rear shocks, was POS 86 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. I recall that happened with less than 50K miles (maybe even <40K) on the clock.

I was one of those that thought I was free of the problem;but at 11,000 I got the roar(25/30 mph)It was probably always there .The tires are showing very little wear everyplace else.I wonder like every one else when are they coming out with a real fix???The service rep acknownledged the 04's were having the same probem and Nissan was working on it.They are either incompetant or they plan to drag this issue untill they are pressed buy the consumer.

I agree that are probably are plenty of people who have it and just don't know. But I'm guessing that there are also people who don't have it and claim they do just out of paranoia over typical road noise.

Couple of things I've noticed.

1) I really didn't pay much attention to the road noise on my '03 Track until I joined these Z forums and saw all the feathering posts. My Z was noisy from the time I drove it off of the lot with less than 10 miles on it. The new car smell compensated for my bleeding ears. I did a couple of 1000 mile trips when I first got it and I have to admit the road noise was noticeable - my wife picked on it very quickly. Soon after I got word of the tire feathering through the Z forums I found my fronts were severely feathered at 3000m. Had the TSB(align and swap) done and the noise was reduced a little. At 5000m the roar is worse than ever.

My long winded point is that the noise is masked by new sports car psyche and it progresses very slowly so many drivers may not even notice it.

2) By a not so rigorous statistical review it appears that the Track model has more propensity for the feathering than the other models. I base this on a five minute review of posts like this one looking to see what models are associated with and without the feathering. I did find a few exceptions but there did appear to be a trend. The stiffer Track suspension maybe associated with this.

3) I noticed several posts where folks have claimed that going to another tire brand/model appears to help. The aggressive edge design on the Potenza's may be an aggravator. This is my current choice.


"listen to the roar"

AFAIK, Track models have the exact same suspension as every other model.

So what is the 2004.5 ob. it means 2nd run of 04 I would think but is that true or is it just something someone came up with? Did Nissan consider it a .5 model as well? If so then there may be a fix...

My 04 is perfect!
build date is 07/03
I've got 3,500 miles

Some Z's got problems and Some dont. So far I dont:D

So can somebody post pictures of typical case of feathering? Search isn't working.