rabbitstew

" used condition with kerb marks and paint damage, " Great!

Its a buyers market atm, so plenty of choice out there. Id read up on them as much as you can about the different years, bhp`s, models & trim etc. Welcome!

This always amazes me. Ive noticed the same thing time after time.

Agree with the roof down & night sky. I really miss that now. Nothing like on a November night, finishing work, putting roof down, heaters on and taking the back twisty road home. All that fresh air, the stars.... its nearly kinda romantic.

Rockingham is a cracking circuit - i spent a year working there a while back!

This isn't even a facelift revup car, it's a standard DE one so you get all the downsides of the higher tax and the crappy interior and lower rev limit with absolutely zero benefits. It was made in very early 2006 at the latest. That's what I meant its not even a facelift one which should have been mid 2006 onwards! And yet its registered in 2007. Not a good sign! If I remember correctly up until about 2006 demand exceeded number of cars but then the financial crash came along and Nissan ended up with a load of old stock cars which they were struggling to shift. I'm guessing thus could be one.

I agree with what the above say. Im a bit puzzled though as I thought the facelift (alloy knobs, revised front bumper etc) was done in 2006 and this is a 2007 reg car. I can only presume it was just late registered, which is a shame as you will get stung with the higher road tax, and yet get none of the benefits from the higher road tax 313 model which came out mid-2007. As for the price, the roadster prices are pretty mad atm. My mint 2007 313 roadster was up at a dealer last year for £12k, and yet on ebay at the moment i see various dealers trying to sell 05 plate & 06 plate cars, even 54 plate cars for £10k upwards. But then again its summer, when the prices of convertibles goes up by about 15%. Still, there does seem to be quite a few out there to look at. The hood smelling strange dont make sense. If its had the hood down for a long time in show rooms then surely it should all smell fresh, and also if its been folded away in the boot a lot, look out for creases etc. I never had any problems with the hood leaking, although I have heard some had it leak from the front top of the door windows. The biggest 3 problems I was aware of is that the the big elastic bands - one each side of the roof on the underside loose their elasticity which puts pressure on the motor and the final stage motor starts to struggle - so the roof gets about 2/3rds back then sticks a bit. This also happens if its too cold. The other problem is the metal support bar over your head on the underside of the roof has a thin piece of metal trim which folds around it which holds the roof tight. This seems to start pulling back and breaks away from the support bar. This can affect the operation of the hood too. If you buy from a dealer, then be aware the hood is not covered under warranty as its not classed as "bodywork", so any repairs to it would have to be done as a "good will gesture" by the dealer. Final thing id say, is if you are looking at a 6 year old car make sure the service history is correct. It may have only done 20k miles, but there are stuff which needs changing at time intervals - in particular check brake fluid change, spark plugs etc...

There are more tuning bits as everyone wants to get their old 276bhp car up to the same power the 313 has as standard. So they end up on changing the pendulum, fitting exhaust system, decatting, remapping, air filters, spending a good grand or so and still struggle to meet the same 309bhp (including built in ram air system) the 313 has as standard. As for the torque thing, the 313 has maybe a couple of ft/lb less than the older models, but apparently has a much better torque curve. Under the skin the engine is 80% new over old ones with a long endless list of modifications to both the engine, chasis, centre of gravity, handling and the car. Sure, visually unless you know whats been done the non-educated viewer would probably only notice the facelift changes and a bonnet bulge. Interesting comparison review here... http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evocarreviews/208132/nissan_350z_313bhp.html All in all, the age old argument between 276bhp older models with lower road tax vs the 313 models seems to come down to 2 things. Either personal preference, or how much money you have. Everyone I know, including myself who has or has had the 313 version prefers it over the old ones. Most of the people who prefer the older ones do so because for the extra money the 313 costs they prefer to buy a cheaper 276 model and save a few quid as at the end of the day, they are all cracking cars. But of course, if we are talking about track laps etc... then theres very little in it.

Glad to see a sensible cyclist. Working in Cambridge, unfortunately i see millions of cyclists with no lights - and the amount of near misses in winter is shocking. It does seem to go from one extreme to the other however. Some cyclists i see (usually the road racing types) have exceptionally bright lights, on their head, flashing away like police strobe lights which can be extremely dazzling and distracting for car drivers. I seem to recall that its actually illegal to have flashing lights on a cycle and that they should be mounted at no more than a certain height from the ground, so it might be worth checking.

Wow that brings back memories, ive got that album on cassette somewhere!

Roadsters rule! Welcome!

Earlier in the year the police had a massive crack down in Cambridgeshire and i worked out the statistics then and it worked out something along the lines of that they stopped 2000 motorists who they "suspected" were drink driving and something like 3 were. I cant remember the exact numbers now but it was a massively small amount along those lines. So in general it seems less and less people are drink driving. It might be that more people are staying in drinking rather than going out, or if the "1 in 5 people drive whilst on drugs" is correct maybe the tipple of choice has switched from a pint of bitter to the crack pipe?

I have to say I have not been able to read any of the articles about this case as I know it will just make me physically sick. Its beyond believe how anyone could do this sort of stuff. Did someone say they got 30 years? When that guy in the US got 136 years for releasing a secret word document?

Really makes you wonder about some people. When I bought my zed, most of my mates were "wow, thats a serious nice car" except a couple who gave me all the jokes about hairdressing & where do you keep the sissors. Once they found out how much I paid for the car, that didnt help as they just didnt understand why I wouldnt have bought a porsche or masserati or range rover or all sorts of other things which they regarded as more desirable than the zed. But I just ignored them as they drive crappy mondeos & can only dream of being able to afford or even be allowed to have a 2 seater car. I didnt help matters again when I got the 123d Coupe. Apparently the 1 series is a girls car or even worse a hairdressing girls car.

My god some of these when people just casually stroll out into front of the traffic causing people to swerve all over the shop! eeeeek! Co-incidentally my dash cam arrived today so will be fitting this w/end with a bit of luck!

The folk festival was all over everywhere last week, but id not heard anything about the cambridge rock festival until Wednesday night on the way home when Radio Cambridgeshire was talking about it. First id heard of it and im in Cambridge every day!

Spotted this morning on the A45 heading past Raunds in Northamptonshire Grey 370z Coupe, private plate Y** UDG. Nice shiny grey colour.

Ive been looking into go pro cameras for use on my motorbike and have just bought a contour roam 2 instead as its half the price of the gopro and is a lot smaller. I figure it will be easier to mount on my motorbike helmet, or elsewhere on the bike. But for in car, this £35 ebay special thing looks perfect - i might have to get one too! Only pain will be having to rip half my dash out again to wire it all up stealthy.

Welcome!

As others have said, i usually find getting a smaller than correct sized impact socket, bashing that onto the nut proper hard, then using a breaker bar usually does the trick. I had a mate who had lost his locking wheel nut the other week and I had to get 2 of his wheels off like that. Came off well easy.

For £12k you could probably buy 7 or 8 of them now, they are very cheap to buy. To be honest, theres so many cars out there now you can pick up for £12k. Porsche 996`s are like 6k, Im sure I saw 997`s were even within that price now. Escort Cosworth. How about an Elise for 7grand? VX220 Turbo for £12k. You can pick up E46 M3`s for 5 or 6grand now. Endless amount of choice really. I remember my missus never liking the zed and said I should get something better. When I asked her what, her answer was an Audi TT. Sigh.. and not the TTRS either, just some ancient Audi TT. Women eh?

I remember first firing up my 313 zed when I got that, with stock exhaust. It sounded awesome. Esp the increased idling speed when its cold. It used to always make me smile in anticipation of that drive.

Thats an amazing price! Well done!

Spotted this morning, heading out of St Neots on A428. Silver coupe. MK54 DS_

I drove by Silverstone yesterday morning and ive never seen so many Ferrari``s, Porsches, Aston Martins and other super cars all stuck in the massive traffic jam as people tried to pull off the main road.