Vincey2kr1

the thing is, we are wondering if its the tires or the car that actually is doing the cupping. I'm calling my NIssan dealership and setting up an appointment.

Boomer

I don't have the mileage you are looking for, so I am toying w/a theory. Some of you may know, I have been dissatisfied with the OE040s from the start for reasons I don't need to repeat here.

How's this for an analogy. We all know how the Acura NSX and the Porsche 911 eats tires, 6-7000 miles and worn out is not uncommon. A team of tuners in England tried to find out why the NSX had such poor tirewear; but it handled great. They put it on an alignment machine and checked out the settings from the factory. The manufacturer's settings were close to or over 4 degrees of negative camber! The tuner verified the car was within factory specs and hence, the tires were wearig out on the inside edge like the 040s are doing on the Z, but the handling was great! They fabricated a camber kit to adjust the settings, They finally came up with the compromise of negative camber and tire life, they adjusted the rear to slightly over 2 degrees of negative camber and increased tire life by 100%, from 6-700 miles to12-15000 miles and retained most, but not all, of the handling.

My MR2T wore out the O.E. RE71s in 20,000 miles on the inside edge. I considered it unacceptable, but it handled great. Toyota even gave me 2 new back tires. They wore out at about the same mileage as the first ones and I was pissed. I took the car to my local tire and alignment shop and they put a camber kit on the car and adjusted it to .5 degrees of negative camber from 2 degrees from Toyota. The kicker is that I lost the razor sharp handling I had before, but tire wear doubled in longevity.

My point is, are we going to give up precise handling for tire longevity? I would be willing to give up some with different tires, but the 040s are only good for the track and autox mostly. Most of us need a daily driver, not just a racer and the RE040s are biased in that direction to the detriment of tire longevity. I think we need a camber adjustment and new tires for tire longevity. The racers and autoxers in our group may see things differently and I am offering only a theory. I welcome anyone's thoughts on my ramblings.

Boomer babble

Deb

Writing on my wife's behalf, I believe Boomer has said this very well. Why did you buy the car - really. Looks, power, handling the entire package - at a truly affordable price. But look at life from a little reality - how many of you are going to street race, track race, indy race or simply race period? If you are, great, understand that tires on cars set up to race wear out - quickly!

If you simply want an incredibly sexy, great looking car that has power and the ability to more than handle everyday driving situations, then change tires, check/adjust camber, and quit griping about Nissan making a race car and equiping it to race. And do some research into tire wear and what causes each type of specific wear pattern.

Just my two cents.

Deb's other half.

Jim Reichard

Very good posts by Boomer and Deb's other half. I somewhat doubt tires are the problem with the cupping but at this stage I doubt anyone knows for sure. At 2500 miles I have no noise and feel they are decent overall.

Boomer mentions giving up precise handling for tire longevity. Deb's other half mentions Nissan making a race car and equiping it to race.

The problem I have is the car is set up with a bad push so at the least you would think the tires would wear evenly.

We not only don't get to eat the cake, we don't even get the cake.

CoachZ

My tranny is being replaced today, so I mentioned the added noise and problematic tire wear to the Dealer. They contacted Nissan and had 2 new RE040's approved.

Obviously, this wont fix the problem, but I get 2 new tires.

As for building a car for the race track, I'd have to voice disagreement. Tell Nissan that you take the car to the track and see if they warranty the parts that break. The car is made for what most of the consumers will do with the car -- spirited driving in normal road conditions.

The car has the POTENTIAL to be a very good track car. It's not a race car. The tires are not racing tires. They should wear evenly and last for more than 3980 miles.

Josh

ChicagoEZ

This had nothing to do with "sportscars eat tires" BULLSHI! alot of Z's are having this problem.

and i have freakin 90% tread on my tires

just the inside 2 inches from the tires up front ar scallpoed as hell

this isnt normal and i am so fuc%^& sick of ppl saying well what did you expect its a sports car.

To those ppl (YOUR AN IGGNORANT A$$HOLE)

This whole tire thing is a Defect of Our cars take them in and get your tires for free, if they wont then go to a diff dealer

Southlake Nissan in NW Indiana is replacing mine for free, and i asume in another 5000 those tires will be shot
and you know what i aint payin for them either, so nissan is gonna get real sick of buyin ppl new tires cuz the fuc7ed up some minnor detail

ans there will prob be a recall

i have a feelin ill be sayin TOLD YA SO

to all those who are experiencing this scalloping issue WERE NOT CRAZY, take it in and demand that they solve it at their cost

Deb

That should be "YOU'RE AN IGNORANT A$$HOLE". Unless of course you are refering to you being my ignorant *******. Makes one wonder about ignorance in general, doesn't it?

Anyway, take it easy big fella - I'm just saying let's be sure we understand all the expectations and reality. I did say check to be sure alignment is correct - I didn't say it was just because it's a race ... whoops, I mean sports ... car. If there is an alignment problem (feathering indicates toe-in, cupping can be balance, and even wear on the inside or outside indicates camber, feathered wear on inside would indicate a combination of toe-in and camber - perhaps only one needs adjustment), then make sure Nissan and the dealer knows. I can tell you that 10 years experience with a 300 ZX 2+2 tells me these cars are hard on tires.

Yes, a lot of Z's seem to be having this problem - is that typical or atypical? Is it the car or the way it is driven? I don't know for sure. But let's have cool heads and work with this. My dealer says that he aligns every new Z he gets because they all come off the boat (his opinion, not a fact!!) with bad alignment due to factory, shipping, etc.

I always enjoy the level headed reparte of this board.

Deb's Better Half

Deb

I truly didn't expect anyone to take "race car" literally as in "race professionally on a race track for money". However, to listen to the folks on this board, it does seem that there is a lot of "racey" driving taking place - perhaps a little more than "spirited" - but again, that is perception and semantics to a point. It's kind of like motorcycles - you can race a cafe bike on the street and you can drive a Harley FXDWG hard. The cafe bike is made to race and is set up that way with very soft tires, etc. You don't "race" it on the track, but I've seen some race-boy-wanna-be's on the road thinking they are on the track. I can go through a front tire on the FXDWG by driving hard and braking hard faster than it should - I've done it. But I expect the super low mileage when I drive like that. As I said before, the 300 ZX can wear Michelin Pilots out fast if it's driven hard - I've done it. I also realize that improper wear patterns are grounds for concern and everything should be checked when this happens - including your expectations, perceptions and driving style as well as the car parts themselves.

Please guys, don't get too literal with everything.

Deb's Other Half

Z33Fan

Check the poll I'll post, to see if there's correlation between 17's vs. 18's and improper wear.

kyle jones

Guys,

Please use the search function as this has been brought up before ....

....that is, it appears that the Z doesn't have an adjustment for either camber or toe.

Thus, if owners are getting abnormal wear on the inside of the fronts (and uneven wear on any modern car should be considered abnormal and not defended due to the type of car we a talking about), then it is likely (i.e. I'm making an educated guess and I could very well be wrong) that this is an indication of a problem with the suspension geometry.

If Nissan were making a limited number of these cars with the primary purpose of putting the car on the track, then I don't think this would be of much concern. However, Nissan has stated that it plans on producing 30,000 Z's per year for North America. Thats mass market, and when they sell mass market then they will be looking at guys like me - simply want a nice looking car to drive 'normally' in (no racing, track or street). Chewing tires up every 5000 miles is too expensive - both in terms of the cost of new tires, and more importantly, in terms of the cost of my time spent with the issue. I'm already debating whether or not to cancel my order, and I'm sure that plenty of others will do so as well if they get wind of this problem. Nissan needs to take care of this matter quickly or else the 350 could follow the same path as the 300.

kyle jones

BTW,

from reading posts on this and other Z forums relating to this issue anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the 17" tires wear out like the 18" tires, only that they tend not to deteriorate as quickly as the 18's.

Also, it seems that many, but not all Z owners who have reach 5000+ miles have experienced this problem. This makes me think that we are dealing with a quality control problem. That is, perhaps the suspension design is OK, but that the abnormal wear is found on cars whose suspension was not installed properly and consequently not in spec???? (just thinking out loud)

Z33Fan

Agreed. I just thought the poll would provide some level of visual comparison between the types of wheels and tires available, and whether noticeable wear has occurred.

ChicagoEZ

I apologize,

please dont get what you consider witty with me cuz in all respect out of ten possible points you coulda scored that whole bit you did was like a 5.4, and my grammer on here IS retched, it has nothing to do with my ability or comprhension skills
im not gonna be published and i get my point across clearly, and the fact that i dont need to type like an intelectual being, i just am one

droideka

Glad to see some of you are getting resolution for this problem. I personally am NOT going to ask for the 040 replacements. As soon as I can no longer listen to my OEM tires, which is getting close at 6300+ miles, I'll simply replace them with S-03s. If I burn through those in less than 5000 miles on a daily driver that does 30MPH, two hours a day, five days a week in traffic, I will dump this f**king car.

SKiDaZZLe

when you dump it, will you still come here and complain about everything?!?! hahahah j/k... 3000mi on my s03's and not a sign of uneven wear. too bad the new 19" s03's will go on by the weekend.

m

droideka

Absolutely. For at least six months. Then, being the infinite moron that I am, I'll buy another first-year car and cry like a baby all over again. It's a viscious cycle.

Deb

I'm too old to be witty or to worry about keeping score. Thanks for the 5.4 though ... my wife usually only gives me a 2 (and that's never for being an intellectual being).

D's o'1/2

ChicagoEZ

well, they replaced the fronts and the noise is GONE. ohh well free tires never bother me

Vincey2kr1

Did they align the front end or say they did?