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370Z specialist in Essex?


Makinen

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Hello all, 

After almost a year of looking for the perfect 370Z GT, luck smiled on me and I found a 15K mile, 2013 face-lift beauty with full service history. I have had it for two days now (picked it up Thursday morning in the middle of a storm outside Norwich) and all I will say is I keep looking out of the window to actually believe it is mine. 

Anyway, emotion out of the way, there is one main question: I am based in Chelmsford, Essex and I am looking for a specialist I can trust with experience on Zeds within a reasonable distance. I was given a three month warranty from the used car dealer and I would like to ensure a humming noise when creeping forward idling in first which goes away if you slowly speed up or down or press the clutch is normal before the warranty runs out. The car is otherwise amazing and still smells like new inside, just beautiful and tight and new but someone trusty with experience on them giving it a full check would give me more peace of mind. Plus when the time comes for the next service, I would like to know how far I need to travel to get it done at a place I can trust.

 

P.S. here it is just before I picked it up for my first drive :-)

IMG_20180816_092659.jpg

Edited by Makinen
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After all of your recommendations, I visited Kaizer Motor two days ago to take a look at some noises on the car plus a smell of burning once you stop after a long drive and also for an alignment. I was really pleased with their professionalism, but I was a bit worried that even Szilvester could not tell if the smell and the fact that the exhaust gets so hot is normal or not because in his words "there are no 370Z's around to compare and tell what is normal or not"! Apparently the car is so rare that even specialists don't know them and I am a bit worried. Also they did a diff oil change trying to alleviate a humming noise when idling in first gear but that did not fix it.

I will definitely be going back there for my scheduled service but I am a bit worried something is wrong with the car and nobody can tell me what it is :-(  If it was running lean and getting the exhaust that hot, would it not affect the oil and water temperatures as well? They did check for traces of ECUtek remaps from the previous owner but did not find any (and to be honest, the way the car feels and the profile of the owner do not justify messing with ECU tuning)... I will probably open a separate thread on this and keep an eye for fire or melting materials underneath...

Edited by Makinen
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  • 2 weeks later...

If Sly was not phased by your worries I am sure he would have said if he felt otherwise.

 

Given you are new to 370 ownership and assuming it is a manual, from my experience and what I have seen mentioned numerous times on the forum over many years, it is not uncommon for both the 350 and 370 to emit "smells" from the clutch after a run, especially if that was spirited!

 

Not sure where you are feeling the exhaust heat, but yes in both the cabins of the 350s and 370s the tunnel alongside your legs does get warm. Otherwise, given every exhaust system gets hot whereabouts are you feeling that heat?

 

Again with manuals, the gearboxes in the 350/370 have been described as 'agricultural', and that is particularly noticeable until it is fully warmed up and/or you are in slow moving traffic. The release bearings are known for being noisy, but as your 370 is relatively low mileage and Sly did not mention an issue there would suggest the "humming" you hear was not abnormal.  I bit surprised to hear the diff oil (as opposed to the gearbox oil) was changed to see if that cured the humming noise given the noise is audible to you when idling and the diff is obviously not turning.    But once you get on the open road the gearboxes come alive and personally I found them a delight to use whereas many modern manuals are so slick there is no real driver involvement, so for me was part of the enjoyment of Zed ownership.

 

Best suggestion is to get yourself along to a meet where there are other 370 owners and get them to see if they think any of your issues are significant or just typical for the car...which is what I suspect.

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Or just drive to wherever you got the car from and ask that they let you take another 370 out for comparison purposes .......... :)

 

Humming noise sounds like a noisy release bearing to me which is not uncommon on Z3* cars, burning smell will 100% not be down to the car running lean (it will blow up or go into limp home way before making the exhaust noticeably hotter) but may be due to something coming into contact with exhaust, maybe even a small oil spill when it was last topped up. If it was me I wouldnt worry about either but Im not known for my mechanical sympathy ;)

 

 

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