Fred020

How does the MPSS work in winter ? Does it do snow ? Doesn't have to be brilliant. I recall the Rx8 on the factory fit RE050s would not do snow, even on the flat. The slightest road camber would stop you getting out of the drive. Any and I mean any snow and you can't leave the house. Many owners swapped over to RE050a, which, apart from being better in the wet, did cope with a bit of snow.

Affordability isn't a problem. I will probably put MPSS on the front and on the rear when those run out. Or Falkens, whatever the local place has. Tyre "reviews" are daft. Some guy says he can feel the effect of 1 extra psi in a tyre. IMO you could secretly swap his tyre for a half inflated retread and he would not feel any difference until you told him about it.

Once you start reading reviews you go nuts. Every tyre is great and rubbish. Eg. MPSS is orgasmic in the dry but prone to aquaplaning. Then somebody else says the opposite. I suspect it's all in their heads.

Thanks for the link Sam, I read the sticky. Mixing is worse than not mixing. The rears are at 5mm of tread, fronts barely legal. MOT in 2 weeks. If avoid mixing this time by getting 2 x re050as in the front, the problem will just happen again when the rears run out. I will have to mix sooner or later, or toss perfectly good tyres away which would make the penguins sad. Any suggestions of what to mix with RE050as, so as to have as few fireballs as possible ? Not the MPSS they are a summer tyre.

Where is Ekona's sticky ? Can't find it.

Thanks guys. I would rather do all 4 at once but the rears are still quite new. If mixing was a massive risk to health, I think there would probably be rules about it or at least a lot of publicity*. Anyway I will avoid mixing, settle for getting 2 more RE050's while stocks last, then hope all 4 run out at once. * and a fleet of euro bureaucrats writing 4000 page reports.

Sorry dumb question but is it okay to have different brands front & rear ? I am thinking of putting MPSS on the front. Back (and front) are currently RE050A

Looking around, it seems the RE050A is being replaced with the Potenza S001. But reviews and this forum both say the S001 is a bit nasty in the wet. I'll check out the main tyre thread (viewtopic.php?f=60&t=5589) later, can't view it from work unfortunately. Thanks for all the replies. Not sure about this home tyre fitting - can they really do proper wheel balancing out of the back of a van ?

hometyre.co.uk have it in, and helpfully they say it is SZ too. http://www.hometyre.co.uk/shop/view/2530_RE050A £229 fitted. Anyone used them before ? This is for the front.

Okay found them on blackcircles - what a baffling mess their website is - but it says only for Ferrari, or something - has a prancing horse badge and everything. WTF ? bit.ly/162Hcnt

The RE050A has been my favourite tyre on the 370Z and the RX-8 before that. Called the garage today for 2 new ones, and they tell me the suppliers can't source them now or in the foreseeable future, they can only get run flats Checked blackcircles, don't seem to see them either. Anybody know what has happened to the dissinterpearing RE050A ? BTW This is for the front, so245/40 R19 / 94W

Phew got them installed. I can recommend the service at Milton Keynes Nissan (parts). They gave me a discount because of a mix-up which had been entirely my fault, not theirs. For others who happen along, a quick fitting guide. 1. Remove the blade form the car by depressing the tab under the centre of the holder and pushing gently downwards. It's easy. 2. Remove the old rubber from the housing by peeling back the rubber at the bottom of the blade and pulling it out. 3. For each wiper, you get a new rubber and two thin strips of metal that run down each side. Examine the rubber: from one end it looks square, but from the other end, there is a channel in each side. This is the end that points upwards, ie. towards the top of the windscreen. It is also the end that you insert first into the blade housing. Peal back the rubber at the bottom of end of the housing and gently push the rubber in. This is the trickiest bit. At first there is quite a lot of resistance but it gets less. Push all the way. That's about it really. Make sure the very last bit is seated properly and re-seat the rubber end. Cheers, Jim

Okay got them, but how to fit ? I have taken the wiper blade off the car, but how do you extract the old rubber section and insert the new one ? Just force it ? Use a small screwdriver perhaps ?

Hi mgtf1. In my car (Connect Premium), 1/32 is usually the biggest scale which I believe is correct. In large cities a 1/64 scale is available, as well as detailed images of important buildings. The building images can actually be seen at all scales greater than "1/2mi". Zooming right in, you can get one building to cover the whole screen, eg Durham Cathedral. Building images are only visible in Birdview mode. The 1/64 scale is available in all map modes, in cities where it is provided. As a test, just get the map to show any large city then zoom right in. To see buildings, you will have to scroll the map to one manually in Birdview mode, (a faff) or presumably drive to it. IMO the 370Z sat nav is good with a few drawbacks. It tries to be too clever, with a quirky, over complicated display. It does not auto-scale, you are always pressing + and - buttons. Junctions are shown with a diagonal rotation, which is bonkers. Straight up would be better. The voice gives unhelpful tips eg "take the second right turn", and sometimes disagrees with the screen. At low speed eg in housing estates, the screen lags so you overshoot turnings. The POI database is too small to be useful. In my town it lists 3 out of about 17 restaurants. The Michelin Guide is a great idea but again the database is small. Has anyone used it ? As with all built-in satnavs, the maps are out of date. For £70 you can get a standalone satnav which will list every restaurant (and every other business) in every village, with a better thought-out GUI and free map updates. Having said all that I think the 370z built in satnav is wonderful. Just having it built in is so convenient. The traffic warnings are really useful and amazing accurate. Above all it just works really well, and saves you so much hassle, stress and petrol

Good stuff Colin. I someimes wonder if the newspaper ink ends up on your windscreen. Guess not, will try this out asap.

Thank you. Saw a tip in the paper last week, in an article about preparing cars for winter. "If your wipers are squeaky/ineffective", it said, "clean them with a rag soaked in dilute methylated spirits or vinigar". After cleaning the screan and wipers with white vinigar, I can report that they work perfectly and silently. No more squeak, judder or missed areas.

Sounds great. Where can they be ordered from ? The only sites I found with those stock numbers were in the US.

Howdy, Just looking for some help with the Connect Premium satnav. As you know it comes with "points of interest" and Michellin guide already programmed in. I want to have the system tell me about rest areas or restaurants too, so I can plan where to stop on long journeys. I mean places like motorway services and Little Chef. You would think this is a no brainer, but no, it is difficult or impossible. After programming the route and selecting "start" to begin navigation, I have tried pressing the Dest button -> points of interest -> select one of the 5 quick reference items (one of which I previously made "rest areas") and that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. The database does not seem to include "rest stops" on A roads, such as Little Chef and other chains. Also it constantly presents you with French Hotels, Finnish petrol stations etc. with no UK filtering. Also the database seems hopelessly small. Of the 20 restaurants in my home town, it knows about 2.

I don't get that feeling, though the wing mirrors are rediculously over sized. Great care is needed if you are coming up a slope (such as a sliproad) with a small roundabout at the top of it. Cars coming from the opposite side of the roundabout are completely invisible until you almost hit them.

Looks ok. I object to daytime running lights in the UK on principle.

Great. A note on visibility: If you put the drivers seat high up, then the the rear screen, as seen in the rear view mirror, has its top edge cut off by the ceiling trim at the rear, meaning your rear view extends only a couple of hundred yards behind the car. In other words, Nissan made the ceiling trim too low just there, a surprising blunder. If you put the seat too low, the huge side mirror can impede your side view at roundabouts. It all depends on your height. Have another sit in a 370 and check it out. I am giving you the bad news up front! Another oddity is the small size of the boot. It could have been twice as deep, but Nissan put a subwoofer unit under the existing boot floor, and filled the space around it with big blocks of polystyrene. Lift up the false floor in the boot and you see what could have been useable space loosley filled by polystyrene blocks. It's clearly a design shortcut, and Nissan could have come up with a better arrangment. Not a perfect car as I said. But the above niggles are small compared to the other benefits of the car.

I took it back a fortnight ago and they didn't take it seriously. They just cleared some engine codes and washed the car. Waste of a 2.7 hour round trip. To be fair it was a warm day and the problem is obvious only on cold days. This time, a letter is going to the manager. Hopefully they will take it seriously.

Not sure if your music collection contains "Back in Black" by AC/DC. But it should, and loudly.

Problem worse now with colder weather.

Hi Ecosseven. Before buying a Z a few weeks ago, I had concerns very similar to yours. I read those reports too. The engine gives a lot of vibration through the gearstick at high revs, but I would not call it "harsh". Neither would I agree with one Telegraph reviewer who said it makes a sound "redolent if inadequate lubrication". The gear stick vibration is extreme though, at very high revs, and Nissan should really address it. I would call it "unrefined", but gear knob vibration, however bad, does not equate to "strained" in my mind.Coming from a Mazda RX-8 (great car), I like to rev the full range too. I was used to banging the engine off the rev limiter on a daily basis . In the Z you don't seem to do that. There isn't a reason to because so much power is available further down the rev range. In my 6 weeks of ownership, I have only been above 6k 2 or 3 times. I therefore haven't found the engine's behaviour at extreme revs to be a drawback. Around town, the the low speed ride is suprisingly smooth. Above 40 mph, the very firm rear suspension makes itself felt. On a bad road it can be a case of "ride em cowboy!", but those roads are quite rare. It is bad. One compensation is that the engine is quiet, mitigating overall cabin noise. Compared to the Mazda RX-8 I owned previously, the cabin in the Z is probably the same or quieter at speed, becuase the Mazda engine and transmission were louder. It is a drawback though, and the car isn't going to get quieter with age. No. The handbook forbids running the car on normal unleaded. Section 9-4 states that if premium is not available, you may partially fill the tank with unleaded, but you must then "avoid full throttle driving and abrupt accelleration", and you must also fill up with premium as soon as possible. I find that the car can do over well over 30 mpg on the motorway. On my daily commute it gets about 26 MPG. An improvement on the 21.8 I had from the Mazda, but as that car used normal unleaded the savings are small (but welcome). Petrolprices.com is your friend. 4. Servicing costs - don't know. 5. Insurance - don't know. It doesn't seem too, although as with all "sports" cars, you will feel road irregularities through the wheel. 7. Tyre costs - don't know. I am expecting a full set to be £700 - £800. I expect to replace the rears maybe every 14000 miles and the fronts every 18000. I have a harsh view of modding: it is never an improvement and it just makes the car less desirable. Millions of man hours have gone into designing, testing and redesiging the car. You aren't likely to trump their efforts with a trip to Halfords or even a local light engineering company. Leave well alone. I am biased though, preferring a quiet exhaust. Overall, I am delighted with the 370Z. It is not a perfect car. But it is wonderful to drive and own, so far. And I am enjoying the up-to-date gadgets too - satnav, USB connection, auto headlights, auto wipers, cruise control, voice control. And the looks are great. Have one or more test drives to address your concerns. Also make sure you an put up with the extraordinarily large wing mirrors - some find these a bar to side visibility.