I have 15K miles on my Z and no feathering whatsoever. However, a neighbor of mine had the problem on her Z and Nissan could not fix it so they bought the car back from her.

 

Yeah, I was one of the first on this board to have my tires replaced.

I never whined about it, sports cars do it... big deal.

NSXs chew through their rears in >5k miles.

Who are you again?

 

People, this is a very real problem and not everybody has it recur after alignment. However, many do and the fix is not an adjustment to the toe. My car hasn't been fixed yet, Nissan refused to try to fix it after three chances, and they will be getting another chance again soon since the BBB has ordered them to fix it. This tire wear problem is not normal for the z, or any street car for that matter.

I've owned several different sports cars...Corvettes, Porsche 911's, RX7's, etc. On these cars I have run everything from DOT R compound tires, to max performance street tires, to all season high performance tires, and no combination of tires and car has ever exhibited the problems some 350z's have, or been so damn sensitive to toe settings. On most of the other sports cars I've owned, I even drove around with a touch of toe out all the time since I wanted better turn in for autocross, and still no "feathering" problems ever appeared. And the slight toe out that many z's came with is what Nissan is blaming the whole "feathering" problem on. One obvious difference between the 350z and all the other cars I've owned is the amount of caster it has, which is 8+ degrees. My car has 8.4 degrees on the left and 8.0 on the right, and its also apparent that the left side shows worse wear patterns than the left. Excessive caster is known to cause the problems that many people see on their 350z's, which is a heel/toe wear pattern.

There are rumors floating around about Nissan adding caster and camber adjustability to the z for 2005. If this is true, and you can knock the caster back to somewhere in the range of 6 to 7 degrees, I think the problem may be solved. If they then retrofit all the other z's, at least the ones that have the heel/toe wear problem, then they'll be headed in the right direction.

 

I've gotten my front tires replaced and dealer also re-aligned my car..but now..the 2nd set of tire is also worn unevenly and making the same rumbling noise. However, the dealer is blaming the new uneven wear on my driving nabits and saying that i caused the alignment to go out ..so said i had to replace the front tires on my own..and get another alignment...
Has anyone else had this same problem??

 

the fact that every single car mag which has conducted a long term test has experienced feathering gives me the feeling the problem is common to a great majority, if not all, Zs.

 

Nissan and many of its dealers will use any excuse they can to avoid having to work on your car for this problem. In my case, they tried to say my entire warranty was void because I autocrossed a couple times. However, the problem exists on tires that were not on the car when I autocrossed it. In addition, Nissan's marketing materials suggest that it was designed to be driven on a racetrack, and the warranty does not state that use is timed events or on a racetrack will void or cause exclusions from warranty.

I ended up filing for a buyback using the BBB Autoline program, but they ordered Nissan to fix the car instead of buying it back. While its not the outcome I wanted, they now have to try to fix it again rather than flat out refusing to work on it.

Do you have another dealer close by that you could try?

 

NNA ,at the time i got fixed didn't let the dealer do the alignment unless he had the correct machine & correct model. the people at nna said non of the dealers in the bay area nor. cal had the corect machine.that was May'ish '04'