I guess I will throw my opinion in here. This Z is my 38th car, and my 6th Z car. SO I have owned my fair share of different cars. Overall I love my Z. Not many cars have the look that this car does, and the ones that do cost a lot more. When it was released its performance and options were hard to beat in its price range. And owning a Z is more than having a sports car, there is a heritage behind the Z. Its something I fell in love with back in high school when I got my first 280zx turbo.
Are there cars out there that are faster, or handle better. Sure but it comes down to each person and what they like. I feel that most sports cars have their own unique thing that sets them apart, it just all depends if that small difference is enough to keep you happy.
Some people have had a great experience owning a Z and some have had nothing but problems. Its the same with any car. There is not a car made out there that is perfect for every person. And just like any car out there some of them run perfect with no problems, and some just seem to want to break down all the time. That doesn't mean that the car or the company as a whole is junk, it just means you were the unlucky person this time around. Talk to enough people and you can find someone who has had a bad experience with every car type out there. There are people that wont own a Honda or BMW because the one they had was nothing but problems. Then you can talk to 10 other people who swear that they are the best cars built. It all comes down to the luck of the draw.
For me the only things I have to complain about my Z are this:
1. Depreciation, cars as a whole are poor investments. There are very few cars that hold value. And the ones that do usually fall into the rare or classic type category. But with the Z Nissan is the one who killed its value. They got greedy with the Z and kept raising the price of it, then when sales dropped they cut the price back down. Which was great for people who did not buy yet, but for those of us who did we watched our cars value drop by $4000 over night. If you add that into its normal depreciation you would have a car that's less than a year old but lost 10-12k in value. Very hard to swallow for some of us. You would go from sitting good in the car to being upside down overnight. Which is exactly what happened to me. I bought my car 2 months before they dropped the price. Now I sit so upside down in the car that unless I keep it for a very long time I will be buried in negative equity when I trade it. But that is life sometimes you win sometimes you loose.
2. Clunky noisy gearbox. Altho its a very strong gearbox, its lack of refinement is annoying. It can make the best manual driver look like a noob until he gets the hang of the unique way the Z must be shifted. Add that in with the amount of noise it makes at idle and it can turn off a lot of people. But if you are familiar with Z cars you know that this is something common in almost all models of the Z. They were never known for having a silky smooth transmission.
3. Lack of premium materials used in the interior. With the price point the Z is at you would think that they would have made more of a effort to use better materials, and pay more attention to the fit and finish of the interior. I love the layout but hate the cheap feel of most of the components. And if you spend the extra money to upgrade to the touring you don't get much. 2 leather power seats and a cheap bose audio system. I wish Nissan would take a page from VW and refine the interior so it is a nicer place to spend time.
Other than those things I don't have much to complain about, I could go on for a long time with all the things I love about the Z but I don't think anyone wants to read page after page of my opinion of how great the Z is....lol.
