Hi and welcome to the forums. I don't use mine as a daily driver, but plenty of folk do and find it plenty comfortable. I find the comfort and road noise non-issues. For me and I'm about 5'10 175 lbs I find the seats comfortable for long trips and the road noise is only excessive if there is a bunch of sand or gravel on the roadway.
Winter driving ... I would definitely get snow tires -- there are some very informative threads on here that go over some nice winter setups.
Paint ... People complain about road chips and so forth, but those are gonna happen with almost any cars ...paint ain't what it used to be I guess. That said the color can make a big difference in the amount of upkeep required. The silver and platinum graphite are easy colors to maintain and don't show swirls like the red and black. On the other hand, lots of folk enjoy detailing their cars and would be at a loss if there were no swirls/minor scuffs to buff out with their new PC
.
Do you have a link to that JD powers survey you reference? I've heard that the Z scored well in quality. Other than a few flakey e-key issues, ecu whining (which I haven't heard much about lately so they must have fixed it for the '10s) and aftermarket oil cooler issues, I haven't really heard of any systematic problems.
That's my $.02, I'm sure you'll hear some other opinions
