350ash

I'll probably be going down again this year with some friends but it's unlikely we'll get much planned more than a couple of weeks before we go.

I got mine from mytyres.co.uk and when I started looking camskill.co.uk had some as well. I wouldn't be surprised to find that both are out of stock now though.

Yeah, I don't suppose the "fun" roads will be much fun at the moment.

Had to do a journey back from Leamington Spa to Milton Keynes yesterday, both places had a good 10 inch of snow and no sign of gritters having been.

 

I was taking it carefull and a lot slower than normall but the 350Z was great, my last car (a megane R26) would have not even got out the hotel carpark let alone home (fwd with LSD and 235 tyres) but my z didnt even get remotely stuck once.

 

Shame the same couldnt be said for a few 3 series bmw's I saw at a standstill.

 

That is all!

I'll be doing the exact same journey tomorrow, just need to decide whether to go the A roads "fun" way or the boring M40 way. With winter tyres on you really have to provoke the car to get it to misbehave at all, very impressive stuff.

good effort ash

 

we never really get much so i keep umming and arring about doing it

Cheers. We don't tend to get much either but after reading all the horror stories on here about how bad the cars are in the snow, and a shed car isn't a viable option for a number of reasons, I thought I may as well do it. Glad I did know!

Make sure you tell your insurer you are fitting winter Tyres, many class them as a modification and as such they void your insurance if not declared. Some insurers charge extra as it means you are intending to use your car more in bad conditions and some won't even insure you with winter Tyres on... best to check

I rang them when I put the wheels/tyres on and they wanted me to pay £24. I argued with them politely and explained why I didn't think I should be paying to make my car safer and eventually they agreed.

Thats a good price - didn't think you could get them that cheap

When I first starting looking there was more choice and for cheaper prices, but I then faffed about for a month before ordering any and the options had gone down and the prices up.

If you start looking early enough next year then you should be able to get a good deal.

Great to hear that they are effective on the Zed

 

Been thinking about getting these myself as the Zed is the only car in the household. Given that Aberdeen temperatures are, on average, below about 7 deg C from Nov - Mar it would be worth putting these on during these months everay year.

Now for the questions.....

 

What brank/model of tyre did you get?

 

Did you order them online? (Had a look around on the net but I couldn't locate anything in Zed sizes (for GT rays).

 

Price?

 

Do you have two sets of rims? I'm guessing it will cost ~£40 a go to have the rubber changed over and balanced so you are talking £80 a year on changing between the two sets of tyres. Easier and porbably cheaper in the long run to buy another set of Rays...

 

Chris

I went for Kumho KW27s, 225/45 R18s for the front, 245/45 R18s on the rear. When I got them there appeared to be a very limited amount of tyres in the correct sizes, I read some reviews about these and they sounded ok.

Got them from mytyres.co.uk

£541.60 in total for the set (including delivery and VAT)

I bought a set of the standard touring wheels quite cheaply off a member on here. My Rays and normal tyres are waiting to go back on when the weather improves next year.

The snow has finally reached the midlands - I woke up this morning to a few inches of snow. Unfortunately I'd left my car at work the day before and took a train home from the xmas party so I needed to go collect it and bring it the 10 miles back home.

As my zed is my only car and I knew I'd need to use it over winter I had some winter tyres fitted a month or so ago. Today was the first time I've had to test them properly. When I reached the car, in a very snowy deserted car park, I was amazed at just how much grip it's got in these conditions. The drive home was fine, accelerating, steering and braking were all very impressive on some pretty poor road conditions.

If anyone needs to use their zed over the winter then I can't recommend winter tyres highly enough!

Returning to Leamington there was/is about 3-4 inches of snow and my road is completely untreated, I just drove to the end and pulled into a parking space without any trouble, which is more than can be said for a Mito, Avensis and Vectra all struggling near-by.

That is so gorgeous , why couldn't Nissan be a bit more adventurous with their colours.

 

 

Pete

I think they were a bit more adventurous with the 370Z, this blue looks quite similar to these:

http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&so ... =&gs_rfai=

And I think it looks great on both.

make sure if you buying single you get the right wheel as i'm sure the fronts and backs are different widths

With the rays the front and backs are indeed different widths.

The standard touring style wheels are the same width front and rear but the wheels are still different.

It's also the auto version, seems they were trying to fix it: soft-top + auto 'box + worst driver, it didn't stand a chance.

Nice pair of cars you've got there and you've got a zed in the best colour too.

One of my friends has a 914, we went down to Le Mans in convoy this year and no one gives the 350z a second glance when there's a bright orange 914 in front. There's a couple of pictures of the cars here if you're interested: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37770&p=565457&hilit=+le+mans+#p565457

Whenever I see LRF4N's plate or username I always think "Land Rover fan" and think you could sell your reg to someone with a nice classic Landy.

 

I'm guessing that's not actually what it stands for as that'd be a bit odd to put on a zed?

LRFAN IS CALLED IRFAN

That makes a bit more sense now then. Still reckon he could get a good price for it though from an actual LR fan!

Whenever I see LRF4N's plate or username I always think "Land Rover fan" and think you could sell your reg to someone with a nice classic Landy.

I'm guessing that's not actually what it stands for as that'd be a bit odd to put on a zed?

I think the reason they wanted to increase my premium was because I was changing the wheels as well as the tyres, if you're just getting winter tyres fitted to your normal wheels then I wouldn't have thought you'd need to tell your insurance company.

I reckon the M3 is a pretty good choice, I'd look at anything/everything else first but in the end for what you're after the M3 pretty much comes out on top.

I would be tempted by a Monaro as well though and even more tempting is an E39 M5 - I want one one day!

I rang my insurance company to let them know I'd fitted some winter wheels and tyres, just in case. They told me that it'd be £22 because it counted as an external modification. I told them I didn't think I should have to pay as I'm making my car safer, and my wheels are original Nissan items anyway, but they still insisted I pay. I made sure to be as polite as possible and asked to speak to a manager and in the end they said they'd waive the fee - it's worth persevering.

Have you seen this one? Wait until around 1:20:

I'm still waiting for a good video showing what a 370Z sounds like with an Akrapovic exhaust fitted (hint hint....).

I've not used any on the zed but I did use some whilst building a race car at uni - the exhaust was rather close to the fuel tank and so we needed to try and shield that part. I didn't realise before using it though just how bad it is to rub it on your skin, I was working with bare arms and when I finished it felt like they were on fire, the fibreglass content isn't good for your skin.

One thing to be aware of is that although it will insulate the section of exhaust you wrap it round, it may result in other sections of the exhaust getting hotter, this is our car on the dyno at uni:

We were running too lean at the time but we'd never had the exhaust get that hot before!

If it doesn't fit over the front brembo's and you get a flat on one of the front wheels then you're stuffed.

IIRC you get a spanner to remove the 10mm bolt from the front wheels if this is the case. Front flat means you remove front wheel and bold, put rear wheel on front, put space saver on rear. I'm sure thats what we'd quoted you do before.

Not that it means a lot for me, 370z's dont even get a space saver

Ah ok! I didn't realise you could remove the bolt, quite a handy thing to know, cheers.

If it doesn't fit over the front brembo's and you get a flat on one of the front wheels then you're stuffed.

Got me thinking now - is that why the "bolt" is fitted to the front hubs to stop the spacesaver being used there, as you fit the rear OEM wheels on the front with the bolt in place.

You can't fit the rear OEM wheels on the front, I found this out when going to fit my winter tyres and I wondered why I couldn't get the front wheel on - I had a front tyre on a rear wheel.