My former roommate just picked up a new BRZ Limited. I drove it last night. The car is everything the 370Z should have been for me. It's nimble, the suspension is FAR MORE competent in weight transfer, rebound control, feed-back, etc. The brakes feel amazingly well modulated (even when my 370Z's worked for **** it was never this nice, although you have to press a lot harder on the BRZ, I like it. It's easy to modulate).

The exhaust note inside the cabin is very nice stock, very unlike my Altima. Errr...370Z was.

Steering was great. A bit numb on-center, but that's fine by me. Helps on highway driving.

The acceleration was amazing down low for a 4-banger. Sure, nothing to write home about, but it was plenty for daily driving and having fun. Speed isn't what the car is about, but it should be fine.

Sound system destroyed mine.

Road-noise was similar, with more wind-noise.

Paint was equal quality.

Interior is more spartan, but just as well, if not better made, and the seats are literally the best seats I have sat in. They hold you like a race seat and are comfortable enough you could fall asleep sitting up in a driving position in a parking-lot. Amazing seats. In EVER WAY!

Chassis feels great. Maybe not as rigid as the 370Z, but as or more rigid than my C6 Z06. The dynamics felt in the middle between my 370Z and Z06, with it having the rebound control and competence of my Z06, and not the jittery atomic pogo-stick feel of my 370Z Sport/Touring.


I'm obviously obnoxiously upside down ($6-7K?) in my 370Z, but no way am I keeping it when a car like the BRZ is out there. I'm holding out until about 33-34K miles on my odometer and then paying cash to make up the trade difference between the two. By then, the 2014 BRZ's should be out and we will know if they are doing an STI any time soon or not. If they are not, I honestly feel that rims/tires/pads/intake/exhaust will make the BRZ an insanely awesome car, even if the STI package never drops.

Just my take on it after some stick time with it. It's a MUCH more competent car than my 370Z.

As to my 370Z, I left it overnight at the dealer. I hope they drop it off the rack and total that POS. But in reality, the shop foreman drove it with me, and was apologizing profusely by the time the test-ride was over, saying that it was an embarrassment to Nissan, commenting on my rotors and everything looking like I barely drove the car, etc. The dealer is disgusted with all the problems I am having, and has vowed to do whatever it takes to make it right. I hope so. Trading in a fubar'ed car is difficult, lol

Words I have never heard spoken about a BRZ :icon18: If the dealer is that embarrased, any chance for a buyback?

I told them they had 3 options:

-Fix it. Show me how. Figure out WHAT IS WRONG and ELIMINATE THE ISSUE.
-Turn the rotors and shave the pads every thousand miles or whenever they warp until 34K when I trade it in, and I will write in white shoe-polish as much as I can about the car and still see through the windows...
-Buy the car back.

They want to fix it. I want them to fix it. I have little faith. They are starting with the calipers, seeing if one of the pistons has an issue. I think that's a good place to start at this point.

We will see.

What I meant about the BRZ, is that it doesn't feel dead in daily sub 4K rpm driving like most 4-bangers do. It has a little snap for what it is, down low. Far more impressive than my SR20DE was, which is known for decent torque for a 4-banger.

Good deal. Hopefully they eat this one and take the car off your hands.

I hope so, but I honestly do not feel that it is realistic. I don't expect them to, it would be a very nice surprise. I hate the car. It has not lived up to the expectations Nissan sold me the car with, or that it is advertised with, or that others seem to have for it, regarding the brakes, which happen to be part of the $$$ Sport Package I purchased specifically for the brakes, in part.

You just got a bad one. It sucks, and I feel for you. It happens to every car manufacturer.

But it doesn't happen to every car customer, and I'm butthurt over it. :shakes head:

Anyway, whatever the case, I think the local dealer is going to handle it. Regardless of what's done, I'm out of it next year. Hopefully the STI model or "S" model comes out here, if not, the BRZ Limited is still exactly what I'm looking for + rims/tires/I/E. About $2500 and it will be sick.

I/E/Tune on one gets you around 215-225whp from the little reading I've done. Some sways and real tires and you've got a very entertaining little car.

Lemon laws exist for a reason. How many times have they fixed the brake issue again?

Four now, but lemon laws don't even come close. I checked. 90 days down time required, I believe.

After roughly 750-ish (I filled up a couple of times, roughly. 1-3, I don't remember, but it has been since my last oil-change, and I have 1,000 miles to go until the next 3K mile oil-change interval (I run synthetic and usually go 4500) or something miles, the dealership says my Z1 rotors are trashed. They did a run-out dial indicator on them and they are horrible. The vibration shakes the whole car from stops as slow as 30mph.

They could not find any tq spec that was wrong, the entire front-end was taken down/re-tq'ed, what could affect the brakes. Nothing was out of spec.

They agree that neither the pads, nor the rotors show signs of hard use other than being severely warped (no blue spots on the rotors, no excessive brake dust, etc.).

The calipers were all checked and function fine.

Nissan Corporate is getting involved.

I'm going to ask that either they show me what is causing this issue (produce the defective part for me to see, or educate me to the tq-spec, whatever, that is off, if any can be found), or give me pay-off and take their POS and let me go on my way.

I can see no other resolution other than them turning or replacing my rotors every 500-1K miles. I drive the car 26 miles a day to work and home, 3-4 days a week. The other 3-4 days, it goes 20 miles a day just to the gym. Plus road-trips. Now that it is vibrating so horribly, I am aware each and every time I am on the brakes. I use them less than I thought even before. This is horrible performance for a car which has a whole page in the product literature devoted to the Sport brakes, and which features multiple pictures taken on what is obviously a track of some sort.

I have not heard back from Corporate, so thus far, all of my dealings are positive. The Nissan dealer says there simply is nothing at all they can do except replace the rotors/pads for me, and that's obviously not the issue.

Here are the rotors I trashed in a month of home/work/gym in the flatlands of NW Louisiana:
Akebono 370Z/G37 Sport Package Performance Rotors
Slotted only.

I was running these pads:
370Z StopTech Brake Pads (Sport Model)

That's probably the way to go.

That's the only way to go.

-Fix it and SHOW ME HOW. Because there is SOMETHING WRONG, and it's tangible. Show it to me.

-Acknowledge that you CANNOT show me what is wrong. Accept that this product is not performing as advertised and nothing you can do (since you cannot find a flaw to correct) will fix it. Buy it back for pay-off. I used the car for the amount and interest already paid, and I'm cool with that. It has since developed irreconcilable issues and is no-longer the product advertised. I want pay-off.

-Treat me poorly, force the dealer into a situation where they have me in there ever 500-1K miles to replace or turn the affected parts. Accept that there will be backlash from me, as well.

Those are the only 3 courses of action that I think could be taken, and I strongly hope and suspect the first or second one is what Nissan will opt for.

I just DO NOT drive this car hard enough for this to be an issue. If you can get 5 minutes of lap-time out of it on a track, it can take MUCH MORE than I put it through. I'm thoroughly disgusted. This is the 4th time in 22K miles.

I really hope they just buy you out so you can be done with it.

Yeah, something is flat out broken somewhere in there. I'm really curious as to what ends up being the culprit if everything was checked. I just can't see it being heat related with the short commute. I'm at a loss. If everything else is in spec and you're not dragging a piston, what else is there? It's not the rotors or pads themselves since you've swapped them with aftermarket with no change in outcome.

I know I wish Nissan worked that way

I hope they do, but I have serious doubts. I have a feeling that this is going to be a nightmare for both myself, and Nissan.

Brake dust appears even on both front rims, and no blue spots or any other signs of heat are present on either rotor.

I'm assuming they've checked out the ABS computer and all the other electronics as well. We're running out of parts it could be.

They did not say, but the ABS light is off, and it doesn't feel to be pulsing the pedal at any point.

Could it be, and it just gets mistaken for the other vibrations coming from the rotors?

Oddly the pedal doesn't really vibrate that bad at all. I'd say about 25% as much as the wheel, unless my Piloti driving shoes somehow insulate that and nothing else, lol

I've felt ABS before, and there is nothing like that going on.

The ABS pulse on this car is the weakest I've ever felt. I honestly didn't know I was in ABS on the track until I ran the pads down to the backing plate and could feel the tiny tiny little bumps on EVERY stop.

Well, maybe so, but wouldn't the dash light up? I've seen/felt it it provoke a bit on gravel, so I figured I would notice it.

Regardless, my pads are not being worn down. My factory pads came off but a few hundred miles ago, and had tons of meat left on them, even after the dealer shaved them previously.

If the unit was bad, there's no guarantee the light would go on.

It does go on when I provoked ABS on a gravel road not long ago, but I don't have a clue, or I would have told them how to fix it, so I'm not in a position to debate it, really. I do know the stock pads were not very worn down at all after 20K miles, just glazed.

I'm just going down the list of parts. The electronic stuff was just about the only part of the system that hasn't been replaced.

I have no idea. Dealer has no idea. Nissan Corporate has been contacted. The only other variable is the driver, and I'm sorry, you don't get 17K + miles out of the factory Potenza's and have the same amount of pad left on the front as you do the rear pads, if you are beating on the car excessively enough for it to legitimately be the driver's fault. Especially warping them 4 times in 22,XXX miles.

So I have no clue what it is.

This is the only issue I can find with what you've described about your driving, and it doesn't account for the severity of the warpage or the fact that you said you toasted a set in one panic stop. If you said you had a "little" vibration, I'd point at this as the cause. You're way past "a little vibration".

It's a normal daily commute with 1 red-light at the end of an off-ramp in 2 locations, both with a gradient. What exactly am I expected to do about it? Throw it in reverse and rock the car backwards until the light changes? The car should be able to handle it.

My Z06
My WS6
My G20
My Kia rental

They did just fine.

Also, yes, that toasting them in one panic slow (I did not even stop) has me seriously puzzled. That was the start of the whole thing at 10K miles. A panic slow from normal freeway speeds as someone moved over into my lane.

I was pretty clear about the fact that I don't think that's a contributing factor to your issue. When I'm in that situation though, I use the handbrake.

I understand.

Handbrake. Doesn't that just manually activate the rear pads on this car? Regardless, I will use it in the future, but like you said, I seriously doubt this is the issue. The brakes never really get hot by any measurable sense. I mean sure, I wouldn't grab one, but they never smoke and their surface is shiny and bright, no blue spots, etc. I just don't heat them up much I don't feel.

Handbrake is inside the rear rotor drum.

It's a separate brake, kind of like a little brake drum. Either way, that's not the issue. Something is majorly out of whack. The abs unit not releasing pressure for some reason was the last thing I could think of.

Well, I hope they either sort it out, or buy the thing back, and don't drag it out one way or the other. I would like to get back to commuting.

Not at all. We have a seperate set of brakes that work with the handbrake. I know cause i've replaced mine lol.

Tech hotline is involved, they say no other '12 z cars have this issue. My front factory pads with 20k are worn identical to the rear, neither I, or anyone at the dealer is placing blame on driving style. Nissan corporate wants a dealer tech ride along with brake switch one and two monitored. They want to replace all of my stoptech and z1 stuff replaced with OEM, which is fine, my rotors are trashed. My whole car vibrates when I apply the brakes, now. Every component tq spec was checked, calipers checked, etc. Noone has a clue. This is ramping up to be a nightmare, I'm afraid. We will see. So far so good, but damn I don't want to have to keep dealing with this.

Well, I went for a test-ride yesterday with the master tech in the car datalogging brake-use. He said I did NOTHING that would cause the amount of warpage (whole car violently shakes now. Firing a 9mm Glock 19 actually feels better than holding the steering-wheel almost, it bucks so hard against you when you apply the brakes and try to turn).

I can now feel the "warp" when coming to a stop. The last 5-10 feet, the car just lurches to a halt if you gently squeeze the brakes.

Once he submitted the datalogging to Nissan, they AGAIN blamed me, even though the service manager and master tech have both told them over and over that the wear on the tires and pads regarding material loss do NOT equate to driver abuse, and the rotors show NO signs of heat other than horrible warpage.

They are forcing me to pay out of my own pocket to replace with OEM parts, the Z1 slotted rotors and Stoptech pads that the car ruined in <2,000 miles, which were put on the car at the request of the service manager.

Then the dealership will keep my car "for a few days" "to be driven by managers/master techs" to completely utterly 100% eliminate me as the problem (Tech Hot line says they have 0 instances of 2012 370Z brakes issues, and thus implies that I am the most hardcore violent driver in North America which owns a 370Z...sorry. No. I got over 17K miles out of the stock 140 treadware tires, and at 20-ishK miles, my factory pads front/rear were the same thickness...that theory don't fly with me.)

I have owned:

1988 mustang 5.0 (240whp)
1993 Crown Vic (5.4L swap)
1995 LT1 Trans Am
2001 WS.6 Trans Am
2002 Infiniti G20
2011 C6 Z06
2012 370Z

The ONLY OTHER CAR that I had which warped the rotors was the WS.6, it happened one time at 8X,XXXK miles, and after they were replaced/turned (I forget), I drove it to 149,XXX miles and sold it without another issue. None of the other cars had ANY brake-shudder issues.

So maybe Nissan needs to go back to 1988 and come to Ford with their hat in their hands and ask how to design disk brakes.

Or maybe they need to just stop trying to **** their customers in the *** and accept that maybe the car has a ******* problem.

Nissan is officially the most inept entity I have ever dealt with. If I had known that Nissan neither supported, nor cared about their products, I never would have even given them a chance to earn my business.

Still dealing with Nissan. Hopefully they can repair our broken relationship. The service manager who told me to use slotted rotors is now vehemently denying that he ever said such a thing. I smiled and quietly walked out of his service department.

Too bad there was no one that warned you about that.