A Nissan person told me their engineer believes the majority of tire feathering issues are due to the driving habits of the owner and/or improper alignment. In other cases he said it is due to large negative camber in conjunction with the tire tread pattern. Later '04 Z's have a different inside block pattern that, when they wear, will not create "tire roar". In some cases feathering can be traced to improper alignment by dealer personnel. The engineer states that with the new block pattern and w/o extreme driving the car will not eat the tires and they should last 15-20K miles. He also stated that excessive wear can be minimized by side-to-side tire swapping [which may lead to rim damage!]. When I asked about '05, the Nissan person told me that he has "no hard evidence" the problem has been corrected.

Again, this is the opinion of the Nissan gentleman I emailed, not myself (I'm not going to mention his name for privacy). As a prospective buyer, I am very interested in any pro-active action Nissan takes to remedy this problem as quite a larger number of 03 and 04 owners seem to suffer from it (more so with 03 models). If you have a later 04 Z or if you have had your tires replaced with the new block pattern tires, it sounds like you should not be experiencing tire roar. Is this so?

 

how many of you lemon-lawers will buy another z if nissan legitimately fixes the problem?

 

What is the brand & model of the new block pattern tire?

 

My dealer showed me the replacement tires he will put on my car next week. The same RE040's with a mild change on the outer blocks. Instead of each block being an island, they are all connected along the inside edge. I can see how this may lower the level of roaring, but not eliminate. I also view this as a bandaid.

 

RIGHT! Blame the owners.

If this is true, I'm even more irritated with Nissan. They've not fixed this yet, and until they admit they haven't, many more tires will be eaten up.

My car had the tires cross rotated the last time at 19K, and the alignment was supposedly perfectly on spec (according to the dealer). These tires feathered within 6K miles from them being replaced.

 

I already settled my LL case and I can tell you I never, and I mean never ran my car, and the dealer replaced the front tires three times in 21,000 miles. Too many 350Z owners have the problem. In fact, the service manager of the dealership I bought the car admitted that the 2003's were coming in mis aligned from the factory.
This is clearly a Nissan issue and they should be held accountable. If by the way Nissan thought for one minute that I had abused my 350, they never would have settled. My car was a cream puff.
If you truly have "the itch" to buy one, then do so, but please do not minimize the problem current owners have.

 

Nissan has replaced and realigned my tires twice.

My driving habits are fine according to Toyota's specs!
At 17,000 miles the feathering/cupping has returned on my 3rd set of front tires.

Nissan has no clue on what settings the front end suppose to have. And if they knew, goodluck with a "Nissan Trained Technician" getting them correct!!!!

Today I took my car to a tire/brake shop a friend of mine recommended. They align BMWs, Mercedes and Porches.

My alignment was way off. Not even close to Nissan's magic numbers.

They cross rotated my front tires and realigned all four tires again.
I have a much better comfidence level. We'll see how it looks in 5k miles.

I also had them install Hawk HP brake pads all the way around.

Thanks...

 

The problem is NOT the tread block of the Bridgestones. My Michelin Pilot Sport A/S are feathering after only 10K miles. If anything, the new tread pattern will only delay the problem.

 

Something to add to the mix....
I had my car out for about 2 hours of very hard driving on primarily curved roads.
I checked the front tires when I was finished and was surprised to find the tread wear (feathering) issue had been reversed to a noticable degree.
Does this support NNA's claim the front suspension is set up for driving conditions that press the system to the extreme?
Again, something to add to the mix.
The tires are the second set of OEM tires on the car, but not the newer design.

 

Interesting point. My Z gets a nice dose of "twisties" on a semi-regular basis. And I would categorize my tire feathering and/or heal-toe tire wear (what ever it maybe) as moderate.

Before I took the car to the dealership at ~7k for the TSB tire swap/realignment the inside tread blocks were moderately feathered and tire growl was noticeable from 40-0 mph breaking. Nissan has claimed that this type of abnormal wear is attributed to, say, normal straight ahead 65 mph driving (commuting-type driving) when the alignment was set for aggressive driving (track-type driving).

Since this time (now at 12k miles), I now observe the inside/outside tire block wear problem and growl occurs under non-accelerated driving conditions. It is no longer heard 40-0 mph breaking. This condition is also adequately addressed in this thread.

I have decided to live with this because, as previously stated, in my case the wear is moderate at most. I have 12k on the original set of tires and expect to get 17-20 out of them. From what I understand this is a reasonable mileage for a sports car that gets driven aggressively on a regular basis.

However, considering the extreme tire wear reported by other owners I can’t help but think that something like improper caster setting (which can’t be adjusted) is aggravating the problem along with a misalignments at the factory.

 

I have the new design RE040's installed on the front (at 36k miles). I do a lot of highway driving, 1800 miles a month so should know if the new design has any long-term effect on cupping and noise in about 3 months.

FYI. I still have the original tires on back (at 36k) and should be able to get another 8k before hitting the wear bars. That's very good mileage for a "sport" tire. However, the first set of tires I have to buy will NOT be RE040s.

 

That is great, please keep us posted.

 

Brought car in for feathering at about 4,000 miles. Dealer swaped tires and aligned. At 7,000 miles feathering back. Dealer just put on new tires and realigned per latest TSB (8/19/04). Got a copy of the pre/post alignment and original (4,000 mile) alignment was within latest TSB spec. Think they changed total toe from 0.03 inches to 0.06 inches. Given the minimal changes in front end alignment feathering will be back and this fix will not work on my car. It seems like Nissan should have known this would not work ahead of time.

Have heard wear can get so extreem tires ride on bald two inches of inner edge of tires, with the rest of the tire off the road. Have also heard that such has caused several accidents, paticularly on wet roads. That would make this a safety issue. Can anyone confirm this?

On seperate front, last Janurary had oil changed and dealer scratched passenger door , front fender and nose. Front fender replaced and door bondoed and nose etc repainted. Will this negatively impact value of my baby and if so how (what rationale) do I get renumerated beyond the basic repair? Also paint still does not match however dearler claims will be able to match. Can they match the paint?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Interesting comment. I have had my Z since 12/03 and only drive it on weekends primarily on mountain roads in California. Although I drive a lot of freeway miles to reach the twisty roads for the fun of driving them. I now have 13,000 miles with only minimal tire growl when stopping from about 25 mph-and then not all the time. Nissan did the tire rotation at about 8000 miles only because the inner edge of the tire felt feathered when rubbing from back to front.

 

Ediezz,

Not sure what minimal tire growl is. Tires should not show any premature wear. Premature tire wear and growl on a new car is not acceptable.

 

Took my 04 roadster (June03 build date) into the local dealer for my 12 month service, told them I was hearing a 'roaring' noise at low speeds and the other feathering problems of uneven tire wear etc.
They knew of the problem, but said they had never seen it on an 04, only on the 03's. I seem to recall (what a word!) some others having the same problem on 04's. Please let me know if you've had the problem on an 04.
Also when did the 04 coupes start rolling out? Since they haven't changed anything that they will tell us about why should we think the suspension was corrected to prevent this problem from re-occurring?

Nissan case number 4655946, if you've reported this problem on an 04 please include the file number for support, we can get them to support their product!

Top replaced already, now the tire problem. Ugh! Will probably stick with Toyota in the future!

 

Are you implying you have seen a new TSB (8/19/04) on this issue?

 

Case No. 4478797

My '04 Enthu coupe had the tires replaced at roughly 10k miles. The dealer checked the front alignment, and since it was VERY close to the target toe alignment, he didn't change a thing. Because my friend (also w/an '04 Z) has a more severe tire feathering problem, with close alignment specs to mine, I was more than happy that they didn't tweak my alignment, and possibly worsen it. Therefore, I expected the problem to resurface. After getting new front tires, I immediately switched to Toyo T-1S, to see if it's another tire brand would mitigate the problem, and now with 18k miles, the feathering/cupping is back. It's roaring while driving <30mph, and it gets louder when braking. This is so ridiculous!

While I never thought it was the tires that was the main culprit, I must say that the feathering has practically nothing to do with tires since the same problem resurfaced on another brand of tires.

I'm going to bring back the car for inpection in the next couple weeks. I don't want new tires, I don't want a re-designed tire, I just want this problem to go away.

 

NOT implying a TSB on (8/19/04). 8/19/04 is the date the realign and tires were performed by dealer, and to my knowledge the work is current with all TSBs to that date (8/19/04). Appologize, post is confusing on reread.

 

I have not followed this thread for a while....it makes my blood boil. I have the NISMO S-Tune suspension installed by myself, purchased from a Nissan dealer and aligned to the specs that come with the suspension. I have not really checked for a return of feathering, but my tire roar is getting worse. I reported this to my dealer, and subsequently NNA. I shortly received a letter from NNA that my warranty was void regarding all suspension components because I have installed the s-Tune suspension. Anyone had any good progress with this lately?

Thanks,
Steve