Z's in the winter?

[Jah_Happy]

I drive mine year round as long as the roads are clear and not covered in salt. I went with the Michelin Pilot Sport All Seasons which have been great. Just be careful and let them warm up.

 

[MacCool]

The tires will crack if the ambient air temp is below 40? I would imagine the surface temp of the tires will climb as you drive even in cold weather.

I can assure you, the tires will not crack if you drive them while the ambient temp is below 40.

 

[MacCool]

You have summer tires, so you shouldn't drive under 40 degrees, or they can crack and ruin the rubber compound. Other than that, just keep the salt washed off.

See post above

 

[Thefunk]

I can assure you, the tires will not crack if you drive them while the ambient temp is below 40.

Right?

 

[Supremekai]

I also had my underbody coated with corrosion free.

 

[ZillaZ]

I drive mine year round as long as the roads are clear and not covered in salt. I went with the Michelin Pilot Sport All Seasons which have been great. Just be careful and let them warm up.

Thats what I used on my Vette. Glad to hear they are good ones for the Z too. Pretty sure they will be what I go to next after these Bridgestones. I definitely will be getting all-season tires.

 

[ZillaZ]

Went for a couple rides this past weekend in about 10 degree below freezing weather. Snow flurries one of the days. Z did fantastic. Roads were mostly clear though so it should have done fine and it did

Found this beauty and bought it for myself as an early Christmas present and hung it in the garage.

 

[Mugzilla]

Same.. As long as there isn't any salt on the roads I'm rippin the Z as often as I can. 7700 on the clock, was hoping to hit 10K before the end of the year. Super fun car!!

Tucked mine away until all the salt washes away.

Bought a 2005 Buick Lacrosse with 78000 miles. Grandpa ride!

 

[TheyCallMeStino]

I'll drive mine till the roads get salty, then it's over to the 2006 Civic Hybrid with 200k (at least it gets like 40 MPG)

 

[Zenogias]

All year long, that's the beauty of living in the PNW. Barely snows, very little ice, no salt. (We use sand, but even that I see only a few times a year.)

 

[METROdigital]

All year long, that's the beauty of living in the PNW. Barely snows, very little ice, no salt. (We use sand, but even that I see only a few times a year.)

The state also uses Beet Juice, but still the idiots persist.

 

[takemorepills]

How's the traction control on the new Z?

On my new Titan, it's surprisingly good. We had icy roads this morning, so I goosed it on ice, and the newer traction control Nissan uses is like the hand of God. On my old Titan, I could drive it sideways all day long, not scary to me, but I wouldn't let my son or wife drive the old Titan on bad weather days. I would definitely let them drive the new one. The new one will even slow itself down on slippery curves when using cruise control. It'll begin accelerating again once the truck is driving straight.

If the new Z uses a similar system, I'd say with DWS06 tires you'd be fine. Especially if you aren't hooning.

Now that the GTR is discontinued, I think Nissan should equip the new Z with AWD. The Z platform had AWD for over a decade on it's Infiniti brothers. I had an AWD Q60, it was amazing in bad weather, with DWS06 tires it was better than any of our past Subarus.

 

[MacCool]

Now that the GTR is discontinued, I think Nissan should equip the new Z with AWD. The Z platform had AWD for over a decade on it's Infiniti brothers. I had an AWD Q60, it was amazing in bad weather, with DWS06 tires it was better than any of our past Subarus.

A forlorn hope, I suspect. They didn't change the 370Z for 11 years, and now that Nissan is even deeper in financial straits, I certainly don't see them spending the time or money to re-engineer and re-market a niche vehicle with demonstrated marginal public appeal.

 

[ZillaZ]

I personally like RWD sports cars much more than AWD any car. I get that its better in weather and I live in a place that gets all 4 seasons and yes it would be nice to drive my Z in 3 inches of snow with confidence but it's OK - I would rather just have an RWD with all-season tires and drive my truck if the weather is too bad. If I didn't have two vehicles for such things I get the attraction to having an AWD.

 

[takemorepills]

I know the drawbacks of AWD. The Z is already too expensive, and my Q60 was unjustifiably expensive, that's why I bought it as a lease return that Infiniti ate the depreciation on, making it affordable to me.

Nissan already developed and paid for the AWD platform, on the Z it just requires telling the factory to use the AWD floorpan and firewall from the Infiniti versions. Having an AWD option doesn't those of you who prefer RWD. I'll point out that my AWD Q60 was RWD biased and could hang the tail out any time I wanted to.

Anyways, I know it's unlikely. The Z is already too expensive. But, it would be a mic drop in the industry. BMW coupes and the GR Corolla would be the rational for doing it, a long with "fixing" the rather poor launch performance of the RWD Z. No one accuses the Z of being the ultimate handling machine, so AWD would not be perceived as detrimental to it's GT style dynamics.

Really, what Nissan NEEDS to do is start shipping more $43k Sports to dealers. There's so few Sports trims being made. In a bad economy, that's a bad move by Nissan, and I really like what one forum user did with his Sport, he added the Performance rear diff to his Z. That's a great approach to those of us that like to wrench on a car and save money.

And EVs can piss off. Nissan needs to take this window of waning EV interest, double down on what they do well, use that to recover financially, and if they must, they can then spend money on EVs and hybrids.