Issues & Defects from factory
 

Hi Guys,

this thread isnt designed to bad mouth the 370Z... i love my car more than my own two arms ...

this is just a thread to see if any other 370z owners have had the same issues i ahave had with mine, and maybe a few others im not aware of ..

- Full gauge not working (last two dots dont light up)
- Boot wont open with out me pulling it whilst pressing the button
- side mirrors make some wierd clicking noise once the car turns on .. (only sometimes)

cheers

For the boot:
http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...ase-issue.html

The dots on the left (empty) or right (full)?

Mine either...I just went back to the dealer and claimed it under warranty. They orderred the parts in and swapped the springs on the hatch for free. This is common. Read the post mentioned above.

Sounds like the elec motors or the folding gear mechanism is missalligned. Take it in and show em.

Hi GTRFAN.. thanks for your help . the two lights are out when its full .. so to the right .. and the rest i will speak to Nissan about tomorrow .. cheers

Yep all warranty items. The fact that you have three things wrong with it will get you further when you complain. Make sure you only address the Service Manager directly and show him the faults.

I'm always missing 1 light on the right for my fuel.

My hatch was fixed as bulletin authorizing a warranty fix came out mid nov.

I'll agree about the hatch. Haven't had a chance to talk to Nissan about it yet.

My big bitch is the speedo. It's about 8 - 10 % to fast - according to a GPS. I mentioned it to Nissan at the 1000K inspection. They said they drove a Commodore behind it at 70 Kph and it was the same. All that proves is they are both wrong. Does anyone else have problems with the speedo calibration.

I have the boot problem too

and speed o meter i checked with GPS when the car shows 100 actual speed is 92

I do have the "hatch release problem". Now that it's cold, I also have a rattle in the cargo area. Other than that, nada.

I think the allowed speedo error is 10% in the US. So, 8 MPH is within that error range - still kinda' sucks. (I haven't checked mine, so I have no clue there.)

Another way to check your speed is to find a flat road and travel at a constant speed and record the time it takes to go one mile. Perform several runs and average the results.

Sec/Mile MPH
50 72
51 71
52 69
53 68
54 67
55 65
56 64
57 63
58 62
59 61
60 60
61 59
62 58
63 57
64 56
65 55.4
66 54.5
67 54
68 53
69 42

When I'm at 109kmph, I'm actually doing 100kmph.

I'm starting to think Nissan got the tyre specs wrong and the overall rolling diameter is whats causing the innacuracy.

The thing is, if the indicated speed is higher than the actual speed, then the rolling diameter (circumference) is slightly too small (and not rolling the car the distance the speedo thinks it's going).

To fix this we can either get taller side % profiles, but I'm not exactly going to do this as the side wall profile already looks too fat for an 18" rim compared to other cars.

Hopefully Nissan can adjust the speedo calibration at a service? I'll look into this when I get 19" and new tyres in the profile I want.

Just my 2c worth of daily rambling

nope that doesnt fix it.

remember with the 18" and 19" rims - they have the same overall height.

I got 19" rims and ran tyres as per Jap/US spec.

ie front 245/40/19 and rear 275/35/19 as opposed to Aussie front 225/50/18 and rear of 245/45/18.

if you do the calculations - the overall heights of the rims are negligible

my speedo is off too! Nissan will not adjust unless it is 10% out. I raised this issue on the forum this year.

So I do about 10km higher and I am fine - ie keeping up with traffic.

When I say Nissan, I mean globally. So you are right about the 18" and 19" having the same issue, as all factory specs will produce a smaller circumference than what is required for a 100% accurate speed reading. We will either have to calculate a larger TOTAL circumference or get the speedo adjusted.

Then again, maybe this design by Nissan and all manufactures is to make us all reduce our speed? hmm

:iagree: That makes the most sense. I guess they figure that with a car that just wants to go faster and faster, we aren't going to get a ticket as easy.

My speedo is also close to 10% over actual speed, this really annoys me. Having to calculate your actual speed if you are coming up to a speed camera is ridiculous. I don't think it unreasonable to expect my speedo to tell me my correct speed. Apparently in Australia speedos are allowed to read up to 10% high, but they must not read lower than actual speed.
Why they can't get it closer than 10% I don't understand. It is to improve the 0-100 times (actually 0-91) ? Does anyone know how it would be adjusted in Nissan did it ? Is it an electronic adjustment ? Can the Dealer Service do it ?
I am hoping that a new set of 19" rims with different profile tyres will make the speedo read a bit closer to what it should be anyway.

Nissan won't do bannanas as I've already tried. They say they'll only correct if more than 10% difference.

I also read somewhere that it's incorrect on purpose so we have to service our cars sooner.
I dunno how that would work though...

It's because the car travels less distance and speed than indicated.

Am I the only geek who studied physics? I am bored at work, so here goes my explaination.



Imagine the entire road surface of the wheel as distance measurement of approximately 2m. (circumference)

The ECU is constantly counting how many times the wheel rotates and how many times per second this occurs via the ABS wheel sensors (or gearbox on some cars)

The ECU then multiplies the distance by the number of times and gets the total distance travelled. It can also calculate speed based on the number of rotations per second/minute/hour

Here's the problem....the ECU has a distance measurement for the wheels that it uses for all calculations. This figure is the innacurate part and is a bit longer than actual wheel circumference.

Ahhh.. Now i feel stupid!

I thought it was magic!!

It's ok Ronnie, he got his facts wrong:

Lets say for instance you are cruising at 100kph, if you, at any given time, lift up the storage compartments in the back (behind both driver and passenger seats) and unscrew the panel, you'll find what is causing the speedo to go out...... leprechauns.. two of them.. they actually sit in there and screw up the signals being sent to the ecu. I find the best solution is to leave cheese outside the car, when it's dark they'll jump out to feed, thats when you hit them with a shovel. Sell em on ebay for some quick cash, good for a sway bar.

:icon18:

The outside circumference of the tyres will progressively reduce as you wear down the tread pattern.

Thus, the more you drive the slower you go, ergo , one day you'll be doing "60kmph" down the road and wondering why grandpa in his motorised wheelchair is racing you off at the lights and beating you! ;-)

G

Anyone know how the odometer works? Off the gearbox or ECU or? If it suffers from the same source of inaccuracies then I would really be cheesed off. The speedo is one thing, but if you are up to 10% out on the odometer I think that could be serious.

Imagine all those crimes where the cops calulate how far it was to get to the murder scene and back in time, the odometer could be kilometres out and so you get off scott free!

G

I remember when the '03 350Z came out, it had all kindsa bugs; then the '04 had fewer; then the '04.5, my year model--Touring Coupe--had most of 'em corrected (my beaZt's very reliable!). Then, in the '06 model, there was the oil-consumption issue, but the years following were great. Now comes the 370, starting the process all over! What's wrong with Nissan's engineers?! Nissan was classified as a "hit'n'miss" car manufacturer by CR. I think they really know what they're talking about!

WTF?
Nissan engineers are fine, you cannot account for over 10k US sold vehicles plus however many more worldwide and expect a perfect vehicle. This is not a hand built car, even some of those have minor issues. Also, you are on a website dedicated to the car, with maybe 1% of owners here who even remote issues, there are bound to be problems with any car. I can bet you anything that your perfect model year 2004.5 350z has issues with some customers.

Get off your high horse and start thinking, this forum is for the 370z, not the 2004.5 350z is great without issues.

2004.5 > all? i'm lost

:shakes head:

something about this post makes me want to shake babies!

if i [accidently] have one, you can shake it all you want :ugh2:

"Full" guage.... I think you mean FUEL guage. All my lights light up when I fill it right up.

Boot.... others have had this problem... me, nothing... never had any problems with the hatch (boot).

Side mirrors...? That's a weird one... never happened to me.

My 2 cents.

he means the last 2 or 3 leds on the fuel guage don't light up

Yes, I know (please read carefully)

Dammit. I knew I screwed up... I've been using carrots instead of cheese.



Correct you are! Measurements are based on new tyres only, so this science can never be 100%.



Here's another question...Where does all the worn off rubber go as you never see piles of rubber dust on the side of the road? The wind? We breath it in? I dunno.

You do see piles of it on the side of the race track. On the street the wear is so low that the deposits aren't typically measurable.

My biggest issue with reading over the actual speed is that it encourages speeding. We all know that 100 is not 100 so we get used to doing more. It's hard to do 108, so we settle for 110, which is actually a couple of Ks over - assuming 8%. Then you start getting complacent about exceeding the speed limit and the limits don't mean much any more. It's OK to do 70 in a 60 zone but that's even more over the limit.
If the speedo read what I was actually doing, I'd have a hard limit - the speed limit. At the moment, I just don't care that I'm going to fast because the speedo always reads way to high.

My 0.018USD worth.

I just think of it as a way to avoid speeding fines. I usually just cruise at the 100 mark, but I'll go up to 105 sometimes which is really about 96-97kph and sit there. I feel like i'm speeding but not.... we all win.

I have to agree with you there BluZ, I take less notice of the speedo as it appears so far out, and usually settle on what feels right especially on the highway. I know it's not the right thing to do, but I was wondering why all and sundry were overtaking me when I picked the car up from Sydney.

I think if the speedo is 9% out like that it makes you 'estimate' what speed you are doing which isn't very safe. I'd rather it be accurate. We aren't going to just sit on the highway doing 91km/h when the speedo says 100km, we'll be guessing all the time. If the speedo says 100km/h and you are doing just 91km/h then it makes a big difference over a long distance trip. I'm worried one day i'll get a ticket for being a few k over because my speed estimate wasn't correct. I used to hear about other makes and models having their speedo out by that much and used to think 'how crazy is that'. I never expected the Z to have the same issue. Is there a way it can be adjusted in a service?

This issue affects most makes of cars and I now reckon they do it for safety reasons rather than a miscalculation.

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=327056
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/po...ex.htm?t=79433

They want us to drive slower and the menu in the ECU to change the correction factor will be set in the factory and hidden....maybe even from the dealer service?

Although as said, this safety theory goes out the window as everyone will speed to compensate for the inaccuracy...

I’m over this topic. :icon14:

Yes, we are all getting over it, hence the leprachauns and such, however, my additional 20c worth.

whenever manufacturers specify the measurements of components (from wherever they get them) there is always a margin of error that needs to be stated. Nothing manufactured is ever 100% to spec. If I specify a screw of 10mm length and 5mm width it always 10mm length +/- 5 microns, or whatever. The smaller the margin of error the harder it is to meet that error, i.e. the manufacturer has to throw out those that don't mee the specs - the smaller the margim of error the higher the manufacturing costs.
Now, If I know that I cannot produce a speedo that shows less that the 'true' speed for legal reasons and I want to keep costs down then I will specify the components be made to show 'true' speed + 10% with a margin of +/- 5%. Then I am keeping my costs down and know that the speedo will (almost) never show less than the 'true' speed. i.e. it will show from 'true' + 5% to 'true' + 15% at the outside margin of error.

Somple - costs are low and I am now within my legal obligations. Hence, speedos show around 'true' + 5 - 10% on average.

math rules!

G