Hello,
I love my Z but (like others) I've developed a tire roar during light breaking. This is probably old news for the board but...is there a Nissan solution for this problem? FYI: I have 13 thousand miles on the car. It's a '03.
b.

 

thats the feathering bug. and technically there is no fix. just something that nissan does to try and help slow it down. you can search many threads. one of which is directly above this one in the forum. grab a six pack and start reading. gonna take a while.

but the best thing to do is get to your dealer for help and many TSB's that can and need to be done. other than that you juts need to be patient. good luck.

 

yeah, there was a tsb where the dealer would do an alignment and give you one set of new tires i think. Hopefully after i get my new wheels and get an alignment, my car will be a little more quiet

 

Thank you all! I called my Nissan guy. They were up to speed on the issue. I'll be doing in for new front tires and an alignment soon. Good thing I have the 18" tires.....the 16s" are on a four month back order!!

 

17"s there buddy. Did you by any chance ever get an alignment since you bought your car?

 

I've balanced twice. Bought the car with 6,000 miles...I have 13,000 on it now. Sounds like even after Nissan gives me the free-bee, I should get an alignment now and again....how often?

 

Balanced doesn't fix alignment. Yes, you should be getting an alignment at least twice a year. Alignment is the number one reason that tires don't wear properly, and just because you bought a new car doesn't mean you don't need to get it realigned every once in awhile. That is why I can't believe Nissan is warrantying tires for people that can't prove they got an alignment at some point during those first 13,000 miles. Enjoy the free tires.

 

No question...two different things. Having bought it used, I might been once removed from Nissan making an effort to suggest that owners align tires more often on the Z than a typical car. Having said that, it appears that Nissan engineering missed something before the '03s hit the show room. My Z went from perfect to 'tire roar' in 6,000 miles.
It's all good. Being that I put nearly 30,000 miles on a care in a single year, I'll happily align the front-end four times year to keep the car happy.
Thanks for the insight and background!

 

alignment, alignment, alignment. I cant say that enough. and then maybe rotate (or rather flop) once a year.

did nissan mess up? yeah i buy that. But come on its a sports car with a very aggressive grab of the road. plus the original potenzas sucked a$$. Add that all up and yeah you will get some quick tire wear. but with the alignments and going to a little harder compound tire, you can begin to stretch out the tire wear towards normal. than on top of that get in touch with a tire place that you trust and have them flop the fronts from side to side re-mounting them every 5-7k miles.

of all of the things on this forum, i have heard people ***** about this, that and the other thing. believe me i was one of them. just check the feathering thread about a year ago. i was all over it. main thing i realized, is this is a sports car, one that cannot have its tires regularly rotated. that does not mean though it has magic tires on it. they will still wear. and to get normal wear,
every car and tire manufacturer out there says in order to get full life from any tire be it a sports tire or passenger tire one must align and rotate every 4-6 months.

with the Z its a challenge to do so. you just have to weigh your priorities. and if money and getting the near full life out of your tires is a goal, then you will have some work to do. To me its worth it.

 

My tires started to feather after 22000 miles. I didn't notice until a passenger complained about tire roar. Took it to the dealer yesterday, got new tires and alignment today. Changed brake pads while they were at it. Much better now. It also eliminated a passenger door squeek and another one that seemed to come from the roof. I guess feathering was causing the car to wobble down the road.

Lets see how long these tires/alignment last.

 

Damn, you got 22,000 miles and got free tires. Nissan is just giving money away. There are 3 things you can expect a dealer not to repace under warranty when you drive off the lot:

Tires
Clutch
Brake Pads

Those are all high wear items and are out of the hands of Nissan. All I can say is, enjoy your free tires.

 

Finally someone that sees it my way. Great post.

 

hey, all of these are great and timely posts in my book. i just left the dealer after picking up my old rims and tires (OEM). put on some potenza s-3's and nismo rims. anyway, as i was leaving i noticed the feathering. pretty pronounced. my car is an '04 but i bought it in april so i'm sure it has an '03 build date. questions is, where do i go to see the nissan tsb's? i'd really like to go to the dealer with the straight skinny on some of the issues i'd like to get fixed up (feathering, left rear speaker short, squeak on front driver-side wheel under acceleration). thanks in advance.

kyle

 

This site has a full set of tsb's available. Check it out:

http://www.350zmotoring.com/modules....vice+Bulletins

 

awesome. thanks for the info. it looks like the tsb is a free alignment out to 24 months with no mileage limit. but...it also seems like the only way you get the alignment is if you already have the roar. probably depends on the dealer. i had the feathering but the tires are already off the car. wonder if the tsb would cover the new tires and wheels. i mean, alignment is independent of wheel and tire type...

 

Did the dealer do it free of charge ?? I think I may be experienceing a lil something myself but I could be wrong