I don't think anyone with an '05 is claiming they have feathering. Where did you read this?

 

There was a quote on the My350 forum that stated an 05 came in with 3400 miles and tires were feathering. Don't know who. Oh! I am supposed to hear from the Regional Specialist about my 03 feathering problem. Somebody save me cause I'm holding my breath!!!

 

>>Oh! I am supposed to hear from the Regional Specialist about my 03 feathering
>> problem. Somebody save me cause I'm holding my breath!!!

Don't hold it too long as I was told ( in a stutle way ) to go jump in the lake since my two year warranty extention has run out ( purchased 12/30/03 )and they will not do any more about it, feathered tires or not.

 

Talked to a guy today that is use to driving/owning Ferrari's and he said that you have to replace all 4 tires on a Ferrari every 4-6K miles (guess that is normal) Looks like were lucky if we only have to replace the fronts every 10-12K miles. I hope this post makes some of you ex-Honda civic owners feel better about driving a sports car

 

Dude you are killing me.
I owned a 1994 RX-7 that was as close to a race car as you can get without having a number on the side and I never had tire feathering with that car. The problem is that Nissan put to much negative camber into the non adjustable tie rods. This leads to great handling but the tires wear out and feather. Nissan approved the design for non -adjustable control arms. This is where the problem is. Nissan screwed up. It's a simple as that.

 

I had the RX7TT (one of the first ones in Atlanta) don't remember the tire wear, but on my Acura NSX the rear tires would only last 8-10K miles. I agree that the feathering is a problem on the 350Z but for the price of the Z I can afford too put new tires on it every 10K miles and still enjoy driving this vehicle. If you don't want to deal with that then you should get a vehicle that is easier on the rubber. Nissan gave me free tires for the first 2 years and now I'm on my own. Big deal

 

So in essence if I were to upgrade suspension components there's a good chance I could eliminate the possibility of the feathering when I buy my 05?

I've been reading about it and I'm fairly confident nissan may have taken care of it on the 05s. However, I plan on modifying it, wheels/tires, sway bars, possibly the S-tune suspension setup, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were adjustable control arms available (but please don't flame me I haven't heavily researched that part yet)

 

Nissan should be made to state the expected tire mileage on the sticker with the MPG rating.

 

Pit, we've discussed this before, but what the heck. What you say about certain cars (sports cars) being more destructive of tires is correct. However, if this is such a truism, and if Nissan knows that most of their buyers are just ordinary people who think a Z would be a cool car to drive, then I think they have an obligation to inform, much as mydogscool says.

Why did Nissan give you two extra sets of fronts. By your own reasoning, they didn't owe it to you. They did it because they know they are wrong.

 

They are wrong and the tires would not be that big of a deal if you got 20K miles off the fronts and 30K miles off the rear with even wear. I agree that it is not a Porsche. I got around 5K miles off the first set and the roar was loud. I got 9K miles off the second set and the roar is now loud. I feel that with the right tires and rotating them left to right at around 4-5K miles I should be able to get around 15K miles off a good brand of tires. I agree that if this is your daily driver or if you drive around 20K+ miles per year, it would be a pain in the ***. My wife drives her Z around 8-9K miles per year so she should get close to 2 years out of the front set. So it won't be such a big deal for me. Bottom line I have to agree there is something wrong with our Z's. But the 350Z is such a great looking value, I can work around this design flaw. The owners of the Acura NSX did a class action suit agains't Acura and Acura came up with a fix that screwed up the handling of the NSX.

 

I have purchased a set of Continental Sportcontact 2's, and judging from their tread pattern, I will be able to flip them from right-to-left and vice versa. That practice alone will double your tires' useable life.

Ironically, I've been able to lengthen the life of my uni-direction Toyo T1s by driving it on a track as it wears out the high spots. It's just a side product of all the fun. I have 16,000 miles on my Toyo's now, and that includes 3 track days. I know for a fact that I'll get at least 20,000 miles out of them, even with one more track day in a couple of weeks. People are replacing their tires due to roaring, not from relatively short tire life associated with high performance tires. If you get rid of the high spots, and thereby significantly reducing the roaring, you can keep your tires, as well as your sanity, a lot longer. That is why so many folks who drive their car aggressively or do canyon runs frequently proclaim reduced feathering.

I think it's unreasonable to replace tires every 10k miles, even if it's a sportscar. I know my car can handle better with toe-out settings, but if you improve the handling of any RWD car by going toe-out, you'd end up wearing them prematurely. Even with toe-in settings, the Z feels more crisp than 90% of the cars out there. I don't have any problems giving up some of that crisp turn-in for longevity.

If anyone wants $50 off their next track day at Thunderhill, send me your email address. Your $200 investment will save you from prematurely replacing your tires. It's a good investment for your driving skills as well.

BTW, if anybody here has some feathered tires in the 245 or 255/35/19 and 275/35/19 sizes, I'd be glad to fix it for almost free (mounting and balancing would be paid by you)

 

I can't argue with any of that. You've found a happy place and are willing to accept an issue that some others won't. Sounds like life to me.

My 2004 developed the first signs of feathering at 2,700 miles after one year. I sold it because it was a garage queen and it didn't make sense for me at that time. The feathering, and the dealership's denial, just made it a good time to move, especially since I got a good price for it. I'll say this - I've owned over 60 cars in my time, inclding my wife's, and if they were all lined up and I was told I was going to die in 1 hour and all I could do for that hour was drive one of those cars, it would be the 350Z. In the 59th minute, I would be going 158.

 

I am also so mad at Nissan that I will never buy from them again. I tell everyone what problems I've had with the tires. I even went as far as to put a big sign on the back of my car warning potential buyers. A little bold, but it gets the point across. This will cost Nissan in the end if they don't step up and fix this problem.

 

Tell me if this is weird? Got a new pair of front tires today, Z is at close to 15K miles. This pair lasted 11K miles. Here is the weird thing. You know how the new Bridgestone RE040's have the solid thread ridge which is different then the RE040's that came stock on the 2003 Z's? Well my first replacement RE040's had the exact thread pattern as the OEM tires that came on my Z and they were installed 11 months ago, so I thought they just had some of the old design left over. Well this new pair of RE040's are the same thread design as my original OEM tires "no solid thread ridge" like the RE040's on the 2005 350Z's that I've looked at. The dealer sent my Z over to the local Firestone to have these tires mounted and then brought it back to the dealership to have it aligned. So what's the deal? Are their two different thread patterns available on the RE040 tires? Or does my local Firestone just have a 1 1/2 year old inventory of RE040's? Also is one thread pattern any better then the other? I figured they went with a new thread pattern on the RE040's to help eliminate the feathering. Did I just get "kinda" screwed??? Maybe I'm just being too ****? Buy the way in the past 14 months and 11K miles my toe setting change a bunch. I think I will have the alignment checked on these new tires every 3-4K miles. I've never had a vehicle that had the toe setting change as fast as this Z. I've owned Toyota's that you could drive for 80K miles and the alignment setting would never change. Weird!!!

 

i cant believe this thread still is around. i was lucky and got my z lemoned for a defect in the suspension(aka. feathering). this was about a year ago and this problem seems to have escalated. isn't there a class action going on to bring this problem out to the public?

 

Are these 05 z's?

 

Anyone have any suggestions for different tires on the front other than the 040's? Also, I put the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S series on the rears around 15k miles. I'm at 33k, and the center tread is already worn down to where I need new tires. The edges of the tire have plenty of tread, and the air pressure has been consistent. I'm thinking I need to try something different on the rears too. 80% of my miles are earned on the freeway, so I would like some feedback on the best tires for this purpose.

Thanks

 

I have re done my suspension, Tein Flexovers 1" drop Bridgestone S03's f245/35-19 b285/30-19 and I still have some feathering issues, I guess I will swap the tires right to left and try an alignment; to remedy the situation… I have choose to deal with it as well…

I love my car too much to settle for another sports car that I don’t like… The only car I’d want over the Z is a 911(preferably 996TT), which is in a totally different price category… I’ve herd some 911’s have this problem too…

Does anyone have any solutions? Any success stories? This thread is too large too check…

 

I went with the Eagel F1 GS-D3s and so far very happy. only 1K miles right now.
They have gotten very good customer reviews and tread design looks like it may not be very conducive to feathering. Competitiively priced and MUCH quiter than the Crap-040s. Owners of other sports cars are complaining about noise also. However, I went with Hotchkis springs and sways so I'm expecting some increased camber wear. Hoepfully no more feathering.

 

I won't be going to read the last not sure how many pages there are, but seems like the fact some people are still having issues. Now I did read in this thread something about control arms? has any suspension component differed from an 05 to an 03 model? I plan to pick up aftermarket wheels later on, but I highly doubt that'll remedy the issue. I'm very willing also later on to change suspension components to rid of any suspension issues. Now are my question is can anyone confirm that they have a success with any aftermarket products that cured the problem or maybe even the 05 stock components?