350z 03-04 reliability and potential flaws?

[bquizzle88]

i was browsing to see if this topic popped up before in the forums but got tired after the 4th page so i decided to just make another post. i googled some reveiws on the 03-04 z's and i saw that lots of owners were complaining about some kind of improper alignment causing problems with the proper wearing of the wheels or something like that. Does that sound familiar to anyone? here are some post i was reffering to.

"2003 350Z's have uneven front tire wear, Nissan has extended their warranty to 2 years. BAD NEWS for 2004 350Z owners with the same problem Nissan does not believe the issue affects 04's. I bought this car 6 months ago brand new, and now have to pay 1300.00 dollars for new tires and service. DO NOT BUY THIS CAR!" -Vladimir Ivashentsev-

"I swore I'd never buy a first year model, but I broke over. It broke me! After several calls, visits and finally dealing with Nissan I got new tires for the front. The noise was bad at 3000 miles, unbrearable at 7000 miles and the tires shot at 12,000 miles due to cupping. I was embarrased to drive it in town or with my friends. Sure they warranty the allignment for 3 years, but there is no cure. The new tires started cupping in 2000 miles and I unloaded this piece of junk for someone else to deal with" -Jane Lew, West Virginia-

"1.Front tire noise and premature wear. Possibly due to incorrect front suspension setup? Maybe front suspension design flaw, or nature of the beast due to a agressinve suspension setup. 2.Transmission grinding issues reported by other owners. 3.Lack of good service depts,or service depts that dont seem to care about customer concerns. 4. Paint that seems to easily chip. 5. Nissan slow or seeming lack of concern to address these problems beyond the 2003 model year." -N/A-

i wanted to get a infiniti g35 coupe but i saw that the z was soo much cheaper with the same engine and whatnot. After reading these reviews on it, i am beginning to reconsider my previous reconsider.

(i used to drive a 03 tl but i had to deal with the dealer soo many times is drove me crazy. i took it into the shop 7 times in 6 months b/c they couldnt fix the car and one problem after another would arise after the latter one was fixed. they always over estimated its completion date by atleast 2 weeks everytime!! talk about inconvinient! and it drove my dad crazy and that why reliability is very important to me. i dont wanna go to the dealer once every 2 weeks again.)i also hear the speakers are really low quality on the z.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and help me with this question.

[Bubba1]

i was browsing to see if this topic popped up before in the forums but got tired after the 4th page so i decided to just make another post. i googled some reveiws on the 03-04 z's and i saw that lots of owners were complaining about some kind of improper alignment causing problems with the proper wearing of the wheels or something like that. Does that sound familiar to anyone? here are some post i was reffering to.

"2003 350Z's have uneven front tire wear, Nissan has extended their warranty to 2 years. BAD NEWS for 2004 350Z owners with the same problem Nissan does not believe the issue affects 04's. I bought this car 6 months ago brand new, and now have to pay 1300.00 dollars for new tires and service. DO NOT BUY THIS CAR!" -Vladimir Ivashentsev-

"I swore I'd never buy a first year model, but I broke over. It broke me! After several calls, visits and finally dealing with Nissan I got new tires for the front. The noise was bad at 3000 miles, unbrearable at 7000 miles and the tires shot at 12,000 miles due to cupping. I was embarrased to drive it in town or with my friends. Sure they warranty the allignment for 3 years, but there is no cure. The new tires started cupping in 2000 miles and I unloaded this piece of junk for someone else to deal with" -Jane Lew, West Virginia-

"1.Front tire noise and premature wear. Possibly due to incorrect front suspension setup? Maybe front suspension design flaw, or nature of the beast due to a agressinve suspension setup. 2.Transmission grinding issues reported by other owners. 3.Lack of good service depts,or service depts that dont seem to care about customer concerns. 4. Paint that seems to easily chip. 5. Nissan slow or seeming lack of concern to address these problems beyond the 2003 model year." -N/A-

i wanted to get a infiniti g35 coupe but i saw that the z was soo much cheaper with the same engine and whatnot. After reading these reviews on it, i am beginning to reconsider my previous reconsider.

(i used to drive a 03 tl but i had to deal with the dealer soo many times is drove me crazy. i took it into the shop 7 times in 6 months b/c they couldnt fix the car and one problem after another would arise after the latter one was fixed. they always over estimated its completion date by atleast 2 weeks everytime!! talk about inconvinient! and it drove my dad crazy and that why reliability is very important to me. i dont wanna go to the dealer once every 2 weeks again.)i also hear the speakers are really low quality on the z.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and help me with this question.

Well, I have an 03 with about 20K miles on it, and many of those miles are track miles, and it's been very reliable. I've only been to the dealer once with mine, (the tire warranty issue), but I also have a private mechanic and I'm meticulous with regular maintenance. I never use my dealer for anything except warranty. I suspect the individual dealer might be part of the problem for those people kept bringing their cars back. I'm not condemning all Nissan dealers, as there are many great ones out there. But some are better than others. That's the case with all make cars.

Consumer report's ownership survey's show the 03 was the least reliable of all the model years. CR noted the weak areas reported by owners included the fuel system (there was a gas filler pipe recall on some of them), audio (the woofers are behind the seats, which give the stereo a muffled sound), suspension (the ride with 18" wheel is jarring, but on a racetrack, it's delightful ), transmission (it's a bit notchy, but works very well if you don't try to beat the synchros) Another gripe is the cheap materials in the interior. The flip up storage bin is cheap, and you have to be ginger with it as it feels like it'll break any moment.

Yes, there was a warranty recall on the front tires, because of a minor alignment issue, which the dealers corrected. It caused some feathering in the treadwear. I got a complete set of tires care off Nissan when it happened, so to me it wasn't that big a deal. Inf act it was a good thing, as those tires ain't cheap.

The OEM Bridgestone tires are noisy to begin with, and the feathering problem made it worse. But there is no law that says you must stay with the exact make/model tire when the original set wears out. Also since these are Z rated tires,and it's a relatively heavy car, they will wear extremely fast and unevenly if you don't watch the air pressures closely. There is an air pressure monitor gauge which is handy, but I suspect most owners, like the complainants above were not the type that check their pressures except at oil changes.

I hope that helps.

[ZBAZ]

I have a 2003 Touring model and have had the car for 25,000 miles of the 50,000 miles on it. When I first bought the lease back at 23,000 + it had a worn front passenger side tire that I was concerned about and found out that the wheel on that side had a ding in it, implying that the car was driven over a pot hole hard or onto a curb making a right turn or something because everything pulled right. I had the front end worked on and have had ZERO problems with it since that time with 25,000 additional miles on it. At the tail end of the tires life I replace all the tires with 245/45r/18 with new wheels and new tires and have been rotating the tires now every 5,000 miles with little to no wear on the tires and expect to see over 35,000 to 40,000 miles out of the next set of Falken 452's. The staggered wheel idea seems great until your replacing tires that cost a $1,000.00 a whack every 13,000 to 15,000 miles if your not playing around on any tracks. My 2003 is solid as the day it was bought by me after the front end work was done. When the tires got down to wear bars the noise this car produced was like nothing I ever heard from any car. So loud that is was disgusting. I thought it was other things but the tires really needed replacing and the day it was done all the road noise went away completely. Of course you can still hear the rocks and stuff but that grinding noise you hear OMG!

The crappy stereo was replaced by an aftermarket unit. The sub speaker behind the drivers seat became the housing area for all the extra amps, wires and hiding various electronic components and the new sub is mounted in the back under the roll bar arch in the back.

I have a 6 speed and have never heard any grinding noises you are referring to and find the transmission actually a pleasure and very smooth. It took awhile to get used to the 6th speed (OD) actually and my fuel economy went up to a very acceptable level once I was using it more on a regular basis.

I have a great Service Tech working on it when I can not or do not want to deal with issues or ones that are above my confidence level. Having Pete around to give me the best mechanical service helps a lot. Finding a GREAT SHOP to work on your baby is the key I think for most folks. The stealerships are not always the best place to service your cars or trucks anyway. There are good specialty shops but you got to do your homework

My paint chip issues was solved easy enough with CLEAR BRA and whenever you have a flat front end like the ones in this case your going to see road wear and rock chip damage not just on this specific car but any flat front car or truck like ours. The Honda S2000 also has a very flat front end and if you do not think they don’t have rock chip issues like us your kidding yourself. Just the nature of the car or you need to buy a different style car with another type or shaped front end. You can buy a leatherette front bra to take car of the chip problem

Quote »(i used to drive a 03 but they always over estimated its completion date by at least 2 weeks every time!! talk about inconvenient! and it drove my dad crazy and that why reliability is very important to me. i don’t want to go to the dealer once every 2 weeks again.) i also hear the speakers are really low quality on the z.[/quote]What problems are you still having? You didnt say "i had to deal with the dealer so many times is drove me crazy. i took it into the shop 7 times in 6 months b/c they couldn’t fix the car and one problem after another would arise after the latter one was fixed." What new problems specifically that started after service because I have a 2003 and want to look out for the issues?. Again if you where not happy with the service the STEALERSHIP was providing, why not bring it to any other place other that the dealer your not happy with. Like I said THE KEY IS TO FIND A RELIABLE MECHANIC I THINK You gotta find a good guy there out there you can count on.

There is also aftermarket items that replace the OEM parts and change the problem and completely correct issues like OEM upper and lower ball joints, bushings, shock, sway bars, tie rods and other suspension parts to help with reliability. There are ways around little issues like you are talking about. If you like what you have you can always build around it and upgrade to better components like upgraded brakes, rotors, suspension parts like shocks and assembly pieces but as mentioned before you can spend a lot of money upgrading.

I for one bought the 2003 for the price and I fell in love with the car from the first day I saw it. I have not heard of a lot of the complaints you have mentioned. You could always by a near new G35 that is a 3 to 4 year lease back for a fair price now for sure if you don’t like the Z. I considered the G-35 because its great looking too but wanted a sports car not a touring sedan kinda if you know what I mean. The G35 is way smoother for sure!

Good Luck and JMHO,

BAZ...
Modified by ZBAZ at 2:54 PM 3/24/2007

[bquizzle88]

*well all the problems occured after my accident. so it not really common in my car. they just couldnt fix it right. the only realy problem with my car that ALL other models will have is that the transmission is bound to fail on you sooner or later. *******did you catch that my previous car was an 2003 ACURA TL?******