Richardew

I have a 2004.5 roadster w/ 10,500 miles. I had been checking for all of the well known Z issues and none had showed up. Recently the tires started making more road noise than usual, and sure enough the are wearing unevenly up front on the inside. I bought the car in Phila. at Metro (350 miles away) and they said that they didn't have the equipment to adjust the alignment. I called the dealer closest to me in Roanoke Rapids NC, and to my surprise the service manager knew all about the problem and the fix - new tires if necessary, adjusting the alignment, etc. Very pleased. The car has been great though, and I just can't stop driving it.
rich

Paul_BB_Guy

I'm curious - What are the last 4/5 digits of your VIN?

jwkirkland

My dealer called me yesterday and told me to come in for new tires and allignment.

0008 are the last 4 of my Vin

ohw

Richardew, what is your built date?

SeanG

Mine are starting to wear excessively on the inside of the tire as well. The dealer is going to make the adjustments when I bring it in to have the top replaced. Build 7/03 Mileage 5,600.

Richardew

My build date is 12/03.

ohw

Is it true that Richardew and SeanG are the first 2 cases confirmed with feathering for 2004.5? I don't recall seeing others.

jwkirkland, is yours also a 2004.5? What is your build date?

WhoNeedsAnM3

Okay, I'll start this by saying that the front tire feathering may be a legit issue, depending on driving style. Additionally, aparently the original through '03 release had legitimate probelms with incorrect or overly aggressive camber (at least for an Americna driven street car), but this doesn't seem to be the whole story in most cases.

On the rear wheels, 10000 miles on a sports car with a lot of power and an aggressive suspention layout isn't bad for tire wear to be showing up, at least if the car is really driven as a sports car. If you hear the tires chriping or squealing alot on turns or launches, you are wearing them down, and will wear the inside fastest because sports cars rely on negative camber to increase their cornering grip. For example, my '95 M3, with almost exactly the same HP, torque, and weight as the Z, and the same tire widths (225 and 245) gets about 4-5000 miles on a set of rear tire before very noticable wear sets in if it is driven fairly hard (but not tracked).

I am actually thinking of adjusting the camber negatively somewhat more to increase my handling since I'm getting better life from my tires on the Z than I have from any other high powered RWD sports car I have ever driven, and the cornering could be better.

I think most of the "tirefeathering" issue is due to a lot of people with little or no RWD/ high torque driving experience griping because they did not know that such cars will always eat rear tires if driven hard. Going from a Honda Civic or 'Acorn' (or a Celica, Neon, etc, etc, etc) just does not prepare one for the massive torque effect on negative camber rear dirve tires. The FWD cars are linear, drag cars in general, and do not (and cannot) match the handling of the RWD's, they also cannot benefit from the super aggressive camber setting as much, and do not ever get such from the factory. As such, they tend to maintain tire life far longer than an equally powerful RWD.

In fact, I'm curious as to what will happen with the Holden/ Pontiac GTO's rear tires. Will they have the same problem, or have they dumbed down the suspention tuning? Given what I've heard about the GTO's handling, I would guess the latter...

I would reccommend that anyone who is concerned about the "short" life of their rear tires aks themselves how hard they drive the car/ punish the tires:
-How often do you floor it, especially from a dead stop? (especially how often do you do smoky burnouts or the like)
-How often do you corner hard enough to hear the rear tires (or nearly that hard)? (especially donuts, etc)
-Do you have any torque increasing mods done to the car?

Next, go to a Bimmer or other performance tech and ask how long the rear tires usually last on a hard driven aggressively suspention tuned RWD car like the M3. I've seen an E46 M3 eat its rear tires in 2500 miles, without donuts or tracking, just hard driving.

Front tires for my M, and every other Bimmer I've driven or seen seem to last about twice as long as the rears, so I'd expect as little as 10000 miles for a really hard driven car to twice that for a more sedately driven one.

The moral: Uneven rear tire wear at 5-8000mi is not a design flaw, it is a design feature. Uneven front tire wear at 10000 miles may not be indicative of a problem, but only of driving style.

I'm sure a lot of people will now want to disagree with me since I'm basically saying that the Z is a RWD sportscar of the German variety, and that it will inherently suffer the same problems. I happen to think its great that Nissan decided to build a real RWD that is not strictly a drag car, and I wish people wouldn't worry when it behaves as one.

SeanG

The feathering is happening on the fronts. My rears are in excellent condition.

Both fronts are wearing on the inside, the tire roar at low speeds is getting unbearable, not to mention the wear at 5,000 miles is a bit extreme. The passenger front is wearing faster than the driver side.

I had 6,500 miles on my old 2003 coupe before I traded it in on the roadster, and it had no signs of the tire feathering.

I thought it was the way people were driving the car that was contributing to the excessive wear, until it happened to my car. Now I know it is a design flaw with the Z. I fear this will be an issue that will continue even with an alignment.

jwkirkland

Naw, my build date was 5/03....I took it in and the dealer replaced the 2 front tires and one of the rims.

I actually have some iForged Evo's coming in and will be selling my stock 18" rims, and new tires compliments of Nissan later this month...

ohw

Well guys, look at the bright side, there are no reported feathering cases for any Z built in 2004 yet (may be I just missed them). And there is no changes to the suspension pieces between the ones built in late 2003's and 2004's. May be Nissan has this figured out? Keep our fingers crossed.

Richardew

I kept checking for tire feathering and it didn't become obvious until about 9000 miles. Most folks with 2004.5 cars probably don't have 9000 miles yet so the jury's still out. My car was a 12/03 build.
1. As mentioned above, the feathering is with the front tires.
2. My previous RWD cars (miles driven) - '93 Supra TT (50K), '89 911 Cab (30K), '95 911 C2 (25K), '96 911 C4 Cab (112K), '01 E55 (40K). I don't lack experience in high torque RWD cars! I have never had anything like the tire feathering on any of my previous cars. The rear wear is acceptable. My rear OEM tires will last 20-25000 miles. It has been my experience that the fronts last 2-3 times the mileage of the rears. I usually change them the second time I change the rears. I like to keep a lot of tread for driving on wet roads when necessary.

jnanadev

Let me know how much you want to sell them for and when you get ready to sell.

Richardew

JW, they told me that they will extend the warranty for the front alignment flaw to 75,000 miles. As long as I feather I get new fronts on Nissan. What will happen if you change tires and rims? Do you lose this protection? I'll be ready for new rears in the next month or so and I'd like to switch tires and maybe rims.
rich

jwkirkland

good question, I assume so....

rclab1

Nissan did not fix the Feathering issue yet,
I have a 2004 Roadster and
at 7000 miles I had a
Alignment done and new front tires.....

now at 12000 miles its back.....

face it fellas,,,,,no one will agree with me
but every 4k to 5k miles later,
the Tire Roar will come back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

everyone has the REPEATED PROBLEMS.....!!!!!

ITS SAID OVER AND OVER ON THIS FORUM....

cLASS ACTION LAW SUIT IF YOU ASKED ME,
BUT NISSAN LAWYERS HAVE A GREAT WAY
TO DENY IT.....

this is what they told me,,,,,

after the Re-Alignment,,,,,,
if you hit a bump of any kind on the road
it will come back

zmann

I've got 13k miles on my 04 roadster (build date Aug 2003) and I just confirmed by a physical examination of the tire that I have it, too. I have noticed the increased road noise for some time, but only recently had a good enough explanation of how to "feel" it. Absolutely uneven wear on the inside tread blocks of the tire. Very distinct feeling from rear, which are smoot and even whereas front is unven and lumpy. I will be contacting service dealer tomorrow to a) ensure they know about the problem (taking it only to one who does) and b) scheduling it for service. I'm disappointed that this is what it is; I've known it for a while...I guess I've just been in denial and I finally decided tonight after reading your thread to go inspect mine :-(

Oh well, at least they know now what is going on! They better get it fixed for me...I'll report back on which Nashville area dealer takes care of it and does a good job.

earlfargis

The '05 lower adjustable control arm fix is supposed to correct the tire feathering. Will there be a recall of '03s/04s? Stay tuned.

zmann

Dealer confirmed I have the problem on my 04 Roadster. Waiting to hear what they will do. Since TSB is only 03's he has to go through Nissan to get approval to fix mine. will keep you posted.
srm

shopdog

The issue isn't with the rear tires, it is with the front tires. It isn't true feathering either. It is more correctly called a cupping problem. The problem isn't due to negative camber or incorrect toe in adjustment, though both can and do aggrevate the problem in our cars. The problem is a combination of way excessive caster, soft OEM tires, and a suspension resonance that's inside the normal highway forcing rates of our American roadways.

Caster on the Z is about 3 times what is considered normal for this type of car. This causes a scrubbing motion of the trailing edge of the tire blocks along the inner tire edge each time the suspension jounces in any sort of turn. Caster is not adjustable on our cars. Nissan would have to re-engineer the suspension to fix that. They obviously don't want to do that, because it would cost them a ton of money, but it is the real fix for our problems.

The resonance problem is a result of the interaction between spring rate, dampening, and unsprung weight. All suspension systems have a resonance frequency, but normally the frequency is engineered to be outside the range of normal road forcing events. Unfortunately the 2003 and early 2004 setup has an undesirable resonance frequency for our highways. At forcing rates which couple to the suspension resonance, things can become quite violent. This repetitive pounding causes characteristic cupping of the sort we're seeing (an out of balance tire, or out of round rim would cause the same sort of problem, and are the usual causes for cupping on other vehicles).

Nissan did change the spring rate and dampening for the 2004.5 roadsters, that shifts the resonance frequency, so the cupping pattern should at least be *different* on the newer cars. But until the caster problem is corrected, it may not be gone.

Soft (sticky) tires are desirable in a performance car, and just switching to a harder tire compound has not fixed the problem for those who've tried it, though it does take a bit longer for the problem to appear with harder tires.