JetSet

Sorry, to clarify, are he pre 06 uk cars also £200 per year tax?? Early 2006 registered cars are also in the lower tax bracket. I can't remember the actual cut off for the lower tax date but its somewhere around March 20th 2006. There obviously won't be that many about on 06 plates as the facelift went on sale on April 1st and only a few prefacelifts were sold in March 2006. They may well have sold more of the prefacelifts they had in stock but the decision to keep the tax at the lower rate was made retrospectively. Pete

Yeah, BBC are reporting "several dead". Conditions were bad, heavy rain, fog and darkness, ideal conditions for a massive pile up. I guess slowing down isn't an option for some Pete

FYI, I recently spoke to my mate who owned an MOT station in Chester for over 30 years, although he has retired and sold his business he still keeps up to date with the latest regulations as he still does a number of tests each year at his old garage. He informed me that there are no MOT regulations regarding tyres protruding outside of the wheel arches....this is entirely a matter for the police. Also, and a bit off topic, with regards to HID headlights there is at the moment no need to have working headlight washers (so after market bumpers are O.K ), they don't test them. Pete

Why do people insist on long intros, completely lost interest after a minute. Pete

I used to be a decent club runner, 80 minutes for a half marathon and just over 3 hours for a marathon when I was in my 40's. I also played local league football and represented Flintshire at cricket in my younger days. These days I enjoy astronomy, science, bird watching, photography and travel just to name a few Pete

Parked on the pavement (tut,tut) opposite the bus station in Mold today around 13:00. On a private plate C5 ***, looked like a pre facelift model. Pete

I spotted it too Pete

Let's all hope that NZ win by a cricket score . Shame Wales didn't make the final as they were clearly the best Northern Hemisphere team. Pete

Best Mod...Rear LED's Worst Aspect....Poor handbrake. Pete

No chance - having been around a few years now, I've seen the huge number of pre-reg that Nissan have tried to shift in each model inc the current 370z. They arent in any way trying to limit the numbers, they want to sell as many as they can make. Only the special editions were limited - but as the 40th Anni 370z went, there are more of them than other models so hardly limited In reality the demand just isnt there to make it a high volume sports car, Porker have that side sewn up nicely From someone who attempted to buy one brand new back in early 2006 I can tell you that they just didn't have enough to go around. Having visited several dealers I pretty well got the same story from all of them, "3 months waiting list" and "need 2 grand from you today". I would also add that on the couple of occasions I saw almost new second hand ones advertised then by the time I phoned up they'd gone. I'm guessing Nissan concentrated on other markets for the 350Z, U.S.A and Japan would be two of them. Cars are built in batches so they would build all the U.K cars for one month in one go,(I believe The U.K was allocated in the order of 200 a month) they would gather together all the bits they needed, build the cars then move onto building for example U.S spec cars. It was only later on in early 2007 that you could actually walk into a Nissan dealer and expect to get one in a couple of week. Having ordered an Audi TT for Caroline back in 2001 and facing a long wait I asked the dealer after a few weeks why didn't they just produce more cars to meet the demand. The answer was "To keep them exclusive" and "to maintain a high resale value" . To answer Squee, I think the limits are set by things such as market research and how many they expect to sell. These at best are low volume production runs, compared to something like The Micra . AFAIK there was only one production line and only 2 places where the engine was made and bear in mind that this engine also went into other vehicles too. It just may not have been cost effective to build another production line or engine plant to sell 25% more cars. Pete

Shocking news...worst accident I've seen in the 40+ years I've been following motorsport. RIP Dan. Pete

If you look closely at the figures then you'll see there are 2 entries for The 350Z plus an entry for the GT4. Seeing as one of those figures starts in 2006 I'm going to presume that this is relates to the facelift cars. Therefore we have.. 1507 Facelifts 5775 Pre Facelifts 162 GT4's Grand total 7,444 I'm guessing that that figure includes both U.K and Imports (both Jap and Irish and possibly a handful from other countries) so there's no way of knowing exactly how many were imported. I've no idea if Channel Island/Isle of Man cars are included in the U.K figures, probably not I should think. Some U.K cars have been exported to continental Europe too....Nissan certainly limited the numbers of Zed's for The U.K and probably other markets too, they could have sold a lot more but they may not have had the capacity to make them. Pete

I went for these from Maplins http://www.maplin.co.uk/wireless-tyre-p ... tem-390208 I considered the ones on EBay but the sensors need to be installed inside the wheels at £20-25 per wheel. The Maplins TPMS detector simply replaces the existing dust caps. They have a lock mechanism so they can't be stolen by some random passer by. I fitted the gauge into drinks holder on the passengers side. Pete

What a bunch of nutters....although I must admit to starting off with a chuckle but after 3 minutes I had tears rolling down my face, best laugh I've had in ages I guess the various vans following them out contained people with white coats on Pete

Hmm, check the registration date, if registered before March 26th 2006 then you could have one of the extremely rare low tax facelifts . There are some videos of this car knocking about, one of them with Clarkson at the wheel Pete

Could be a joint, even the slightest movement within the joint will set off a vibration. If possible get under the car and check for any play. Usually the car becomes undriveable after a thousand miles or so. Pete

Unmodified U.K 350Z spotted today at dinnertime parked in amongst the door banging brigade in Tesco car park Mold on a 53 plate. Pete

What size are your tyres? One of the causes of the TC kicking in is that the rolling radius of the tyres is greater than the 5% maximum deviation from standard. I've had my Zed for aeons and the TC has only ever kicked in three or four times. Pete

You won't get those so cheap . Yeah, I also got the rear LED's from a member on here who sold up on impulse and bought a 911. Got a very good deal as he'd only just got them from Alex. The difference they make is quite astounding, following a line of Zeds on the Wales run you can pick out the cars with LED's from hundreds of yards away Pete

Very low reference speed there, mine's reading 29 with an MPG of 27.9. That's not a one off reading as I've never reset the computer since I had to change the battery 7,700 miles ago. All that mileage around town really hits MPG on a heavy car like The Zed. Pete

The 350Z didn't sell because Nissan vastly underestimated the demand for them from 2003-2007. As anyone who was looking for one will tell you they were extremely difficult to get hold of, the dealers had huge waiting lists and expected a big deposit too. Second hand ones hardly dropped in value and went very quickly....some people just gave up and went for something else. The 350Z popularity is also reflected by the number of Jap imports, which were fetching 17-18k (for a 53 plate) back in 2006. The 370Z is a different story, wrong car at the wrong time, the factory was already tooled up and ready to go when the fuel crises hit us, had it not been ready till 2010 I'm sure the 370Z wouldn't have seen the light of day. Just very unlucky timing Pete

First time I've ever seen a white 350 roadster . Only saw it at the last minute but I did see that it had a boot spoiler, possibly a Nismo, sadly impossible to see the reg so I've no idea if it was wrapped or resprayed. Looked really great especially with the roof down Pete

I'm not really bothered either way as I don't use motorways all that often and in any case find 75 to be a comfortable cruising speed. From what I've seen of Motorways in the last few years they are much, much busier than back in the 70's and in some of the congested areas around cities you'd be lucky to maintain 60 let alone 80. Considering that the government is also keen on introducing a 20 mph limit in built up areas, which if you look at the figures is where the majority of road deaths occur (cyclists and pedestrians in particular) then the time savings benefits may not be that great but overall deaths could actually fall. Pete

An astonishing 29 degrees here right now. Some of the local weather stations are currently seeing some very impressive temperatures, Connah's Quay 31.6 and the Vale of Clwyd 30.0. Time for a quick run out to the shops I think Pete

That's the road that runs from Betwys-Coed through Penmachno and joins up with the Ffestiniog moors at Pic 15, the one where Bob looks to be sitting on top of a miniture house . Not for the faint hearted, narrow bumpy, loose sheep, blind bends and even worse blind brows. Not too many passing places either. The other single track road is a real stunner, runs from just outside Bala over the mountains to Lake Vyrnwy , not been over there in 20 years but it still looks just like I remember it. Nice set of photos Pete One of the few roads I have not tried in the area for the Wales drives. Would love to use the B4407 that runs roughly parallel to that road which is a corker for one or two Zeds, but unsuitable for a convoy of ZEDs unfortunately. In fact the loop including B4407, then the evo triangle round onto the B4501, A4212, and B4391 (the latter two roads and the evo being familiar for those who have done the Wales drives) offers a great variety of great driving roads that I guarantee will offer a lot of 's for those who love the Welsh roads In fact with this weather I am very tempted to take run up there just to enjoy that route again and of course my favourite 13 miler through the Elan Valley And as we all love pics: A4241 towards Ffestiniog Evo Triangle In the Elan Valley Across Lake Vyrnwy Dam Elan Valley - beginning of the 13 miler (2009 recce - excuse the ***** after air was taken as maintaining 60mph along here is a great challenge in a ZED ) Yeah, the B4407 is a stunning drive, not much traffic and in most places good visibilty. However, as you say it's a bit narrow but it is in most places not that difficult to pass oncoming vehicles. For me there would be two main problems with using this road for a run, too many sheep and getting stuck behind slow moving traffic as there really is nowhere you can overtake until you reach the junction of the Penmachno road when the road widens to two lanes. Here's a video I found on youtube, the small building Bob was sitting on comes at around 3:40....I think its a shelter/trough for the sheep up there, it's a pretty desolate place in the winter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbIc7w0tgy0 Pete