Good question. If enough people find it enough of an issu to complain to the right people, maybe it will get some attention. If all anyone does is **** and moan about it here, though, that's all we'll ever be able to do. Somebody with some contacts get on the horn, please.

 

I disagree completely, the car is a much improvement on ride quality over my former car (which is supposedly softer since it is not a true sports car)....93' Prelude Si stock.

 

I'm not complaining, as I knew what I was getting into, but on any crappy freeway it bounces like crazy. And a lot of freeways in California are pretty crappy right now. (Ok, so I am complaining about that.)

In fact, I started to feel a little nauseated after about two hours of driving. Anyone prone to motion sickness might want to consider that.

I drove over a road that was being redone, with the top layer of asphalt scraped off and pot holes everywhere. I think I shook something loose in my head.

Being able to make quick U-turn is great too.

 

I would not describe my ride as Porpoising. It is definetly a bounce, which I believe is caused by the stiff springs and hard shocks. I do not fault the Z as much as the road surface. If the road surface is smooth the ride is wonderful and everything I expect from a great sports car. Unfortunately, all our roads are built by the lowest bidder and maintained by the governments responsible for the roads.

Check my pics:

http://www.2koolkats.com/glenn/

Glenn

 

ACK you drink in your car

 

Yeah I notice it too. Especially driving at night it gets annoying because my headlight beam area is noticeably jiggling like jello when I drive home from Carlsbad back to La Jolla, CA.

I also have a tendency to clench my jaw lately when driving cause the jolts are pretty hard. It feels kinda like high-speed chatter.

Sure it's a sports car... but it's pretty rough.... rough enough for me to reconsider driving in really long distances.

Has anyone determined if this is a defect or just the behaviour of stiff suspension? I'm not a suspension guru so I'm rather confused if this is what I should expect. I mean... can you have a moderately comfortable ride w/o sacrificing cornering ability? Or are these two "features" mutually exclusive?

 

I too have the unusual bounce that some here have described. I think the issues must be differentiated, the suspension is not overly stiff (OK maybe a little) is just that in some roads the bounce frequency between the front and rear is such that the car’s center is bounced up and down at a very uncomfortable frequency. The problem can be alleviated by speeding up or slowing down. In my book that is a design flaw. I love this car and everything about it, but it has a flaw. I like a stiff ride and my other Z (Z32) is very stiff, but the 350Z is road frequency challenged. I can live with this, but it should not have been there in the first place.

 

: I also have a tendency to clench my jaw lately when driving cause the jolts are pretty hard. It feels kinda like high-speed chatter.

Hehe I do that too. But watch out, because it'll wear down your teeth, and you'll have to get crowns. I'm trying not to do it already.

 

Hahah righto. At first I thought I was just nervous... then I realized I was doing that cause of the jolting so now I tell myself *relax*

Good to hear I'm not the only with strange driving behaviour in the Z. Heh.

 

my car bounces like crazy sometimes too on the interstate...
im still trying to get used to it..
i mean it goes like this

 

Just when I thought I'm starting to get use to the rough ride, my gf notices it to and complains that its very uncomfortable. Kinda makes me scared to think that I just got the car no more then 2 weeks and just picturing the long road ahead of topsy turvy is kinda discouraging. Okay, this weeekend im going to assigned all of you guys a mission to visit your local dealer and see if they could come up with a fix for the suspensions, either altering it or replacing the damn thing and see what your dealer would be willing to do. Just imaging the road ahead guys, thats a long long way and we aint getting any younger so bumps are going to feel twice as hard. See if you guys can get an answer as to what can be done, I will be visiting my dealer as well.

 

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....threadid=10706

Check my thread to see my solution to the bouncy ride... It's very interesting info.

 

Interesting, indeed. It also gives everyone some ammo to use when talking to their dealers. Just complaining may not get much, but if you have some actual evidence of what the problem may be an an idea of a possible solution, this could really get the ball rolling. I'd suggest to try z461's weight trick and see for yourself if it makes a big difference, then go show your dealer and use the spring rate argument. Seeing is believing. Sure the car may handle great, but I find it hard to believe that a small tweak to fix the porpoising/road frequency problem would hurt the car's handling. A simple spring swap may do the trick or a combination of spring and shock to keep the handling characteristics of the car the same, if not make them better. At any rate, I believe there are enough people concerned about this and certainly enough bad roads to warrant Nissan's attention. Keep spreading the word!

 

Now I'm tempted to toss my buddy into the trunk and drive around. That's about 150-80 pounds of unadulterated chunk.

I'm interested to reproduce what you did. I'll probably talk to my dealer this weekend or early next week.

 

I'm not an auto engineer but ...... in reference to this Bouncy Ride ... well beside tire aspect ratio, ride comfort may be related to spring rate and shock compression rate (bump) and rebound rate. Nissan cars have always had a high shock compression rate (amount of force require to compress shock without going into detail of the velocity of compression etc).

My wife used to say that I drove her Maxima very harsly compared to my Solora until she drove the Solora back to back over the same road as the Maxima. The Solora had a better tune ride (comprise between all three). My 350Z makes the Maxima ride seem too loose!

I'm not going give a fix here because everyone has a different idea of what they want and consider the problem fixed. Some like vanilla, some french vanilla others mexican vanilla....

Then again we may get Nissan to tune the suspension differently .... NOT!

 

Yeah, I've noticed some bouncing on my Track but it's not super pronounced... although, it certainly is noticeable... I find it really interesting that most of the car magazines pushed the point that for a sports car, the overall ride is rather compliant and liveable. Perhaps the pre-production models had softer settings... Who knows?? I have noticed that it bounces a tad more than my daily driver (4wd turbo celica) which has a TRD suspension kit... but it also handles better than my celica on dry roads...

 

Yea Stiv.. that confuses me as well. I believe that we have the root of the problem, the stock shocks have too stiff a compression for the stock springs. I believe aftermarket stuff sus mods should do the trick.. I would go as far to say that lowering springs may actually make the car ride better!

 

There is definitely too much bounce in the suspension. I too have driven a good couple of sports cars and none of them were this bad.

It feels like the springrate is way to high. The car seems to have almost no suspension travel for light weight changes. An example is how little it drops when a driver sits in it.

I think an interesting "experiment" would be to see if the Infiniti G35 coupe springs would feel like in the 350Z. You know that "being an Infiniti" the ride has to be "softer" then the 350Z.

Maybe the combination of softer spring and leaving the same shocks might just do the trick to eliminate the bounces.


So now, who do we complain to to see if Nissan will do something to "fix" this?