Bought my 2007 350Z last Friday. I'm so in love with it. Once they brought it around for me to see I fell in love and the more I drive it the more I love it. I have been told by a couple of people that own them I can expect to buy new tires every 15K. Is this true? Have they been buying the wrong tires?

Early cars had tire wear issues due to stock alignment settings which were repaired under warranty. Later cars did not have this issue. That being said, not all tires are created equal, your $(( pep boys specials will not last as long as your $400 michelins. Proper inflation, maintaining the alignment and not abusing the tires also has an effect. Run over inflated and drift every corner on your way to the gas station and you will eat tires no matter the brand.

Would my 07 been one of the ones with the problem?

Nope, early as in 03, maybe 04's. Yours is what we call and HR car, the engine is actually more similar to the 370. You also got the hydraulic throwout bearing on the manual trans instead of the standard slave found on earlier cars. Your car being a convertible odds are good it's an automatic anyhow. If you do have a manual it is an unfortunate fact of life that one day your hydraulic throwout bearing will fail and the trans has to come out to fix it, honestly not a bad job but if you are paying for labor it ain't cheap.

Yes mine is an Automatic. I did see where some people were saying they were having the issue on 07 and 08 models but it may of just been alignment issues. The tires on the car do not show any strange wear patterns. I'm hoping the dealership I bought it from did not put different tires on it to cover up any issues. The carfax said nothing about any issues or repairs ever done to resolve any issues related to tire wear. I'm not going to worry about it until I see it happening. I'm hoping it will be a non issue. I did see a couple of things that said installing the Nismo suspension on cars that have problem will resolve it. Looks like it is a $1500.00 purchase that just bolts in. If I have to I will explore that route. Should make the car handle even better.


Thanks for the reply and the info.

Something else that you probably thought of but a lot of first time Z buyers didn't; sports cars are typically sold with a nice grippy tire and, all other things being equal, the more grip the shorter the lifespan. This isn't a Chevy Malibu or a Ford Fusion that's going to get medium grip longer wearing tires. Just look at the treadwear rating on the OEM Bridgestone tires your Z came with, 140, that's not much at all. You can certainly buy lower, higher wear rating tires but then you're just handicapping the performance of the Z.

I personally think that a lot (but not all!) of the abnormal tire wear panic was from buyers that weren't used to higher performing tires and, as Dave said, running overinflated & drifting every corner. There were alignment issues early on but they were sorted out before your Z came along. Do some research before you buy your tires and you come out fine, but don't expect to be able to rack up typical passenger car numbers on a performance oriented tire.

Thanks Mr Badger

I was looking at buying a Mustang or Challenger and other sports cars but I have long respected and loved Nissan and I had forgotten all about the Z for some reason. I started looking at them and when I saw this car it was instant love. So I didn't do much research before I bought it so it made me concerned when I read about this.Thank you for the info and I will follow your advice when it comes to buying new tires.