Here's my sources for what I stated, Road and Track and Car and Driver:

Sports Car Comparison - 2011 Nissan 370Z vs. 2011 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo GSR - RoadandTrack.com

Best-Handling Car For Less Than $40,000: 370Z vs. Evo, Mustang GT, GTI, Miata, Mini JCW - Feature - Car and Driver

According to Car and Driver the 370z did have braking issues, read the article...it does not have Brembo brakes and No Oil cooler...hard to fathom and this will be corrected in future models.
I own the EVO GSR 5 speed manual...the EVO MR they tested is the automated manual. The GSR is quicker 1/4 mile 13 flat and 0-60 4.3 according to R&T stats listed above. The Z had a slightly quicker lap time in the C&D review but brakes had "the worst brake fade in our standard 5 stop 70-0 mph braking test" distances varied as much as 29 feet even with the Nismo pads...

I wouldnt trade the AWD, Ive owned many rwd sports cars. I want 100% usability in any season as Im a traveling nurse and cant afford not to show up.
Im not saying the Z isnt a great car, it is, but Nissan really dropped the ball for 2009-2011's with the omission of oil cooler and cheaper/inferior brakes.
Most of us dont track our cars and so not really a big issue but in hotter climates such as Texas the limp mode/lack of oil cooler becomes an issue with spirited driving as some posters on this site have said.

My 370Z actually quit on me, I had no intention of trading at all, then oil consumption became so BAD they ended up lemoning it. I also was starting to get the throttle lag/cut...she was a good car the first 8 months, but the last 6 were hell...so all in all 14months of ownership, the bad outweighed the good :/ The only other car that had my attention was the 5.0, i was secretly already having an affair with this car and it had me at TQ. The moment the Nissan lemoned my car i was across the highway from NS ford, 2hrs later drove away in 5.0. All in all, i do and dont miss the 370z, the extra room is great, the power is amazing, i can haul my mom, pops and son around...its a totally different dish that am inlove with ;)

Its already confirmed by NISSAN that the 2012 models will come with oil coolers as standard equipment

Nissan sport brakes are excellent...switch out the pads and issue resolved....the problem was not with the braking system but with an incorrect spec'd pad.

Lot of Z hatin' going on in this thread. I'd hoped the conversation would remain civil. Oh well.

Yeah, I think they are good brakes, too.

We've discussed in some other threads that the main problem is cooling. The stock calipers retain a lot of heat and don't get any airflow to cool off, so they can heat the pads up quickly. When the brakes overheat, they tend to give up without warning which can be very dangerous.

Obviously the solution is a higher temp pad and brake fluid, but routing some cooling direction to the calipers definitely helps if you are a track junky. I think Resispa has some custom cooling, and I'm sure travis has a custom setup as well.

You need more than just pads to fix the brakes. The brake fade was experienced with the $500 nismo pads...


The caliper retains A TON of heat. I'd love to sit down sometime and run a thermodynamic analysis on the calipers to figure out what's up

There are a lot of people that have run track sessions with Carbotechs and a good DOT 4+ fluid without any failures, though. It could just be that the NISMO pads are not worth anywhere near $500.

:iagree:

It's funny to me what a big deal is made out of the oil and brakes issues.

They mostly matter to people tracking their cars, and out of all the performance models listed, most owners of all of those cars do not take them to the track or push the performance of them nearly enough to matter. So, these largely boil down to "whose is bigger" discussions.

For the populace of owners that do track, there is a list of mods that one has to set out for track readiness. In the Z, this includes 400 up front for an oil cooler (don't know about the 2012s yet) and maybe something to address the brake issue. I know people who've tracked, and haven't heard of them experiencing the braking issue. Plus, Motul 600 fluid is what, 20-30 bucks?

If things like "racing heritage" or "racing image" factor into your decision for buying a car, the Z34 is not the top of that list.

But if you want a low-slung, gorgeous 2-seater that is insanely fun to drive on winding back roads and can be converted for track use, the Z isn't a bad choice at all, imo.

This. It's one of those things where if you track your car, you probably are going to look at engine and brake cooling ahead of time anyways. No mass produced sub-$50k street car is genuinely "track ready."

All this talk about various long-standing issues (e.g., oil temps, brakes, etc.) just reminded me of one other factor that pushed me away from Nissan -- the Z's paint quality (or lack thereof). When the dust settled from my layoff/divorce and it was time to buy a nice car again, I ruled out getting another Z pretty quickly because of the winters here. I thought about getting an Infiniti G37x to replace it. It's the Z's sister car, after all. Plus it has Infiniti's intelligent AWD that pretty much directs all the power to the rear wheels unless it detects slip, at which time it automatically shifts power up to the front wheels. Best of both worlds, I figure. But then I remembered the paint on my 2009 Z. My Z had way too many chips, and that was in spite of being in Georgia where it rarely snows, and also in spite of having full front ClearBra. I shudder to think of how much worse it'd have been had I driven my Z here on Canadian winter roads with gravel laid down everywhere for traction. Right or wrong, I just don't trust Nissan paint quality anymore on any of their products. Is their paint quality on Infiniti models better? I don't know. But I did ask GT-R owners about their paint quality, and apparently it's no better. If Nissan is going to go cheap on the paint on their halo sports car, I have no reason to believe that they'd up their game for Infiniti. Or maybe they would, I can't say for sure. Either way, I wasn't willing to take that gamble. The paint on my STi has held up exponentially better than it did on the Z thus far, btw. I'm not trying to hate on Nissan either, in case anyone's wondering. I've been loyal to Nissan since I was 16 and my Dad taught me how to drive stick via his '84 300ZX Turbo. My 370Z was the 9th Nissan I bought in my 24 years of driving. But I gotta tell it the way I see it.

$500 for the nismo pads!? :eek:

I've seen the same that Steve has locally, good track pad and brake fluid with no issues


Am suprised at the Z hate too, theres not another car i would rather have at its price bracket...except the 5.0:stirthepot:

I really don't see any Z hate. It's just Z Fanboys getting their panties in a bunch if someone talks about another car, or worse, suggests that there are other cars out there that can do things as good as or better than the Z. The horror!

I loved my 370, still do, and I love the Z line. But that doesn't mean I'm going to cover my eyes and ears and go all out fanboy. Most people that know me know I'm passionate about Zs and love to work on them when I can, and if I could get a good deal on a 370Z Roadster I'd be all over it in a heartbeat.

ALL cars understeer from the factory for safety purposes. The Z and probably the Mustang are close to neutral, so a bit of throttle to spin the rear wheels can cure understeer. Evo and especially Sti also understeer like a pig, but you can't cure it with a bit of throttle because the AWD and electronics will prevent you.

Exactly, if your REALLY that hard core of a track head OEM stuff would already be on the replace list anyways