greido

I should have mentioned, the link above is to the post I put up a few weeks back regarding a valuation, hope you find it of some use.

When I got my car I noticed Black was a bt more expensive than the other colours but I'm glad I held off until I got the one I wanted. My car is a Dec'06 and asked the guys on here for their realistic opinions on a value a few weeks back and came back with circa £15k, I decided not to waste my time by marketing it if that's all I was gonna get as I'm not desperate at all to sell it, even if I was desperate I'd be gutted if that's all I was offered If you can get the silver one for £14,500 I think it'd be an absolute steal. I'll be interested to hear how you get on. http://www.350z-uk.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Thanks for the responses guys, I had thought myself that the car would be worth around the £15.5k mark, I suppose like anyone else in the same situation you always think your car's worth more than it actually is. I'll assess the situation after the New Year and take it from there, I'm not anywhere near desperate for a sale so if I didn't get any decent offers I'd hold onto the car, it's not exactly a hardship and I agree with Nate that in the grand scheme of things, the added fuel cost is a drop in the ocean (Though I wish I could fit a couple of pairs of ski's into it too) Thanks again, G

Sarnie, The car is Black with Black Leather, has bluetooth, sat nav etc. G

Here's a few pics:

Though I'm loving my Zed I'm considering selling it, I'm gonna be doing a lot of miles in the next few months and I really could do with something more practical. I don't want to give it away for peanuts and in the current climate I can't see there being a huge demand; does anyone have a realistic idea of what I can expect to get for it? - It's a 56 plate GT, 296bhp, Black with Black Leather, 26,000miles, Registered Dec'06. Standard except for NISMO Induction kit and slightly tinted windows. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how much I might expect to get selling the car privately and if any of you have had any experience of selling your Zed in the current climate. Any input would be appreciated, G

I've just read the ad; it states that it's a UK supplied car but doesn't have leather. I thought that leather had always been standard in UK cars? If that's the case and the seller has told a wee white lie about this, you'd have to take the rest of the info on the car with a rather large pinch of salt and I dunno about you lot but I'd never buy anything from someone I didn't fully trust. Maybe I'm wrong about the leather but I prefer to be sceptical about everything; that way I can only ever be pleasantly surprised.

Further to what I entered above; depending upon where you are you'd be better with going to a recommended independent such as ESR. I've only ever bought pads from these guys but the feedback Big Phil gets on this forum on a very regular basis should make your mind up for you if you're anywhere near the North East. My 27,000 miles service will be due in a couple of months and I'll be going to a Jap specialist I used for years who are also excellent. FYI, my car has covered about 24,500 miles and had front brake pads fitted at 19,000 miles (Red Stuff supplied by ESR) and now need rear pads. Also, all tyres were replaced at around 22,000 miles, though there was still around 4mm left on the fronts. I don't know how the wear I've mentioned above compares with others but I'm sure this will depend on how it's been driven.

Call round a few dealers; the prices can vary by quite a bit and in my experience they'll try to under-cut one another. I booked my last service at the place most convenient to me then called round a few other dealers and got a much better price then called the first one and told them why I was cancelling my appointment; they soon came back with a better price which was 30% cheaper than their original quote (Another dealer had been doing a 'VAT Free' promotion).

I sold an Audi a few months back on PistonHeads and some scumbag managed to change the advert by altering the email address, phone number and reducing the price by a third. I only found out about it when the guy who eventually bought the car got my number from a different ad and told me. As someone else mentioned; PistonHeads have got to get their act together; I reported this and never got a reply from them. My advice to anyone buying a second hand car would be that if a price/deal seems too good to be true then it probably is.

The guy on Pistonheads clearly has his own agenda; he may not like the Zed which is fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but to say it's the worst handling car he has driven is just drivel and as such should be treated with total disregard. As far as EVO magazine goes, compared with all other car magazines it is streets ahead though I do not always agree with their opinions; going back a few years they rated the Mitsubishi FTO as a 2* car which was one of the lowest ratings in the small coupe section. Absolute nonsense, having driven and looked at the competition at the time the FTO was without doubt a class leader. I owned two, admittedly the tiptronic was flawed but the manual was great, I can only assume they drove the tip or were biased against the FTO in some other way? It has been mentioned previously about EVO having a German bias but to be fair, BMW and Porsche do make wonderful and very desirable cars so in all fairness I accept their findings on all the class leaders mentioned above and respect their opinions, indeed my last two cars have been EVO 5*, class leading cars and found both have lived up to their billing.

When I was looking I was determined to hold out for the colour and spec I wanted; luckily that came along pretty quickly, my advice to you would be to have your ideal car in mind and wait until one comes up because it invariably will. My car's black with black leather and is still my favourite combo.

Guys, I know this is a 350Z forum but I know a number of you have owned RX8s before and I've never heard a bad word about these cars (except for fuel economy) so I thought I'd ask for your experiences and thoughts. I'm looking for some information please; my girlfriend is a Social Worker and needs back seats and covers a relatively high mileage (approx 18,000 pa), we were looking at changing her trusty Civic Sport with something pretty frugal (ie Audi A3 TDi or BMW 1 Series Diesel), after looking at the price of these compared with a Mazda RX8 of the same age (we're looking at around 2 years old) they cost a fair bit more to buy. What has occurred to me is; why not buy an RX8 and install LPG? - Do any of you former RX8 owners know of any good sources of info on the RX8 on LPG? Does anyone else have any experiences with this and know of any installation and running costs? Many thanks, G

Some of you guys have had some sweet sets of wheels, especially the Lambo. Nice. Here’s a list of what I’ve had in the past, some I’ve loved, others were on hindsight, a mistake. 1991 - 1983, A Reg, Vauxhall Chevette - First car, rear wheel drive, I felt like Jimmy McRae at every roundabout in the wet, great wee car. 1993 - 1990, G Reg, Seat Ibiza - Big Body Kit ant Alloy wheels, (to me at the time) It looked great and the engine said 'System Porsche' - I still don't know what that meant! 1994 - 1990, G Reg, Vauxhall Cavalier 1.4L, a bit boring but very reliable and cheap to run. 1995 - 1990, H Reg Ford Fiesta XR2i - Absolutely loved this car, delivered Chinese in it while at Uni; the best job I ever had... the faster I drove the more money I got, unfortunately it kept breaking! 1997 - 1993, K Reg, Ford Mondeo 1.8LX - 23 years old, what was I thinking? - sold it to my dad after a few months. Enough said. 1998 - 1994, M Reg, Honda Civic ESi - Fantastic Car, utterly bullet proof. I've still got this car and use it for track days, I've hit tyre walls in it, it's been stolen and recovered, vandalised and it still won't die! - Now started with a screwdriver! 2001 - 1994, M Reg, Mitsubishi FTO (Manual) - Another great car, great to drive and looked the business. 2002 - 1999, S Reg, BMW 323 convertible - Good solid car, very comfortable but not inspiring to drive, too heavy and slow after the FTO 2004 - 1998, R Reg, Mitsubishi FTO (Tip) - Not a patch on the Manual and proof to me that you should never go back. 2005 - 2000, W Reg, Porsche Boxster S - Loved this car, an absolute dream come true, only towards the end when it needed a few repairs was the experience soured a little. I sold it in June, one of the saddest days of my life. Someone else above mentioned that people thought he was a c0ck driving the Boxster, I must admit I never got that; I just had a few neds shouting abuse and trying to spit on it. Losers. 2004 - 2002, 52 Reg, Audi A4 Avant TDi - Used as a commuter when I had the Porsche, great car, best build quality ever, it had done 124,000 miles when I sold it and it drove like new. 2008 - 2006 56 Reg, Nissan 350Z GT - Different from the Porsche, less of a sports car and more of a Grand Tourer. Lots of comfort, loads of toys and great to drive. Other cars considered/driven before buying my Zed: BMW Z4 Coupe 3.0 - Disliked it as soon as I sat in it, didn't bother driving it. Subaru Impreza PPP - Great to drive, too loud and ugly as sin. Audi TT 2.0 Turbo - Felt like a toy compared with the Boxster Audi TT 3.2 - As above, enjoyed the drive home from the dealer much more than the test drive. Honda Civic Type R - Got tired after 5 minutes of having to Rev the nuts off it to make it go. Golf GTi - I really liked it, my girlfriend didn't. Would be a great 'sensible' choice but I'm not old enough to be sensible yet. Mercedes SLK 350 - A bit too girlie, so didn't drive it. Porsche Cayman S - Brilliant, is an 18 months old Cayman worth twice as much as the equivalent 350z? - No chance, I'd say the 350z is 95% of the car for 50% of the cost (similar to my rational for buying the Boxster when weighed up against a 911). An absolute no-brainer. Porsche Boxster S (987) - Great car but was too similar to my 986 and I wanted a change. Why did I choose the Zed? It ticks every box: great to drive, quick, loads of toys, looks great, very reliable, cheap to run, great value for money. What's next? I've only had my Zed for 3 months and think it's superb so I'll hold onto it for a while. I can't see me getting bored of it but I do like to change my car fairly often. The only things I can think of at the moment are a BMW 335 coupe (Petrol or Diesel), an M3 or another Porsche.

A few questions because I’m bored and curious; What did you drive before your Zed, how does it compare and what made you choose the Zed? Also, when the time comes; what would you replace your Zed with and why? I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on this. Cheers, G

I've never driven an M3, how does it compare to the 350Z you had?

I’ve had my Zed for about 7 weeks now and it’ proving to be a good companion except for when I need to get a bit of interaction with Nissan dealers; I've had a few dealings with dealers now and all have been a bit of a joke; it seems like customer service isn't too high on the list of Nissan dealers. My first experience was when I booked in for a service (Parks, Coatbridge); 1. They scratched my rear bumper, they offered to take it back and fix it but I managed to polish most of it out myself. 2. Despite me leaving my service book on the passenger seat, I came back to it in the book, unstamped. It took them almost 2 weeks to post it to me after they stamped it. Joke. 3. I got the car back dirty (I've never had a car serviced and it wasn't clean when I got it back) All of the above is, in my opinion unacceptable. One thing I would say though is that the service was very cheap, I managed to call round a few dealers and managed to get them to drop their price by £75 by telling them I could get it cheaper elsewhere (Arnold Clark had a VAT free promotion – Had bad experiences in the past with AC so would never go back there). My second attempt at going to a dealer (Alex Noble, Edinburgh) is related to one of the problems Lexx had (He put up a post a few weeks ago); my Bose system was jumping on a number of my CDs so it had to get sent away last Saturday (Seems like a common fault, why can’t they fit a replacement?), it's now back at the dealer and the only time they can fit it in this weekend is 08:00 on Saturday - The only time I'm awake that early on a Saturday is if I've not been to bed yet. They are telling me it's going to take an hour to fit? - Sounds like a nonsense? Surely they simply fasten the connectors at the back and slide it in? - Please let me know if I've got this wrong but this sounds like a bit of a joke. Dealers apart, I'm enjoying my Zed. I read on another post a few weeks ago that the only thing wrong with the Zed is the badge, unfortunately, I can't agree more. If they are going to build a car like the Zed they surely must stop providing Micra standards of Customer Service?

Cool, thanks for your response. I'll give it a bash.

I know the 350z is limited to 155mph, does anyone know the potential top speed if derestricted? Has anyone had theirs de-restricted? Gordon

Hi, I’ve got the Nissan in car Bluetooth handsfree kit and Bose stereo; have any of you guys managed to connect this set up with an iphone? – It works perfectly with my Nokia N95 but rumour has it that the iphone Bluetooth connectivity is ropey at best. Thanks, Gordon

Luke, The Hot Marques days are open to any car worth more than £10k, I've only been once before and that was four years ago; when I was there I was driving a Mitsubishi FTO which was pretty underpowered compared to most other cars there; from memory there was a mix of Porsches, Evos, Subarus, Lotus Elises', Honda Civic Type R, VX 220s, Honda Integras and Caterhams. Some were seriously quick but there were others not quite so fast; Golf GTi's, Audi TTs and a Seat Leon.... all these looked a little cumbersome compared to the more focused cars on display but I'm sure the guys driving enjoyed it. From memory there was only one casualty; A guy driving an Evo far faster than he could handle, he smashed it straight into a tyre wall. When I go on the track with my 350 I plan to take it fairly easy, certainly won't be pushing too hard. There are some good Knockhill You Tube links, some are from Hot Marques days so you could have a look at them for an idea of what it’s like. The last one I remember seeing was from a guy in a white Golf GTi Edition 30, he was absolutely flying. Gordon

The pictures have turned out really well Adam, thanks for posting them. It was good to meet you guys, Sunday was a good day; really enjoyed the drive. I don’t know if this is something you guys do but I'm thinking of doing a 'Hot Marques' track day at Knockhill on Saturday 19th July (If it's dry). Let me know if any of you guys are up for joining me. Gordon

I don't know how good it is but I googled it and from the website it seemed good.

Jim, Hypertech use the Hunter Winalign System. You'll get them on 01324 812212. G

My front and rear brake pads need to be replaced, what are the best pads to go for? – I’m planning on doing a few track days but nothing too mental. Was thinking of getting some Mintex Fast Road pads or would I be best sticking with standard Nissan pads? The car has 18 months warranty remaining, would this be affected by the non-Nissan pads? I’ve been quoted £282 inc VAT to have the fronts and backs supplied and fitted by Nissan, how does this compare to what you guys have paid in the past? For the pads alone, I’ve been quoted £200 inc. VAT from Nissan. I’m gonna need a couple of rear tyres soon too, is there anywhere you know of that I can get a bit of a deal on these? I’d appreciate your thoughts on the above. Thanks, G