Geekboy78

this post will be no help at all to the OPs problem, but may make some of you laugh at how scary things can be to a non-techy person. i got a very loud rumbling noise from my rear left wheel when i got to about 50mph. the car was running straight, no change in how it felt, nothing. i had only had the car a few weeks so was worried i had bought a pup and was in for a big chunk of cash. decided to have a quick look under there after having jacked the car up, and couldn't see anything. no wobble in the wheel, everything seems in line... so what was it? it was just as i was about to put the car down again i noticed a threaded little bolt hanging down with no nut on it. only then could i see that one of the nuts keeping the the plastic tray in front of the wheel had come off, and the noise was the plastic shaking about. hence why it only happened at a higher speed. one wingnut later and it was fixed. you techy people who know things don't know how much us untechy people worry about things which turn out to be nothing!

i was about to drive it to japex in kings langley, but got in the car, turn on the ignition and the light was off. it had been running fine, there were no problems with how it sounded or felt or fuel efficiency or anything. then, i get in it to drive to work this morning and it doesnt start. first time ever. it turned over, sounded like it may have been flooded, so i just kept it going and it picked up, started and then feels fine. basically, i have no idea what was wrong with it, if anything is wrong with it and will get it over to japex some time soon....

i am in and about london and hertfordshire. i was hoping it would be a simple matter of one of you going 'nah, that's fine....' sadly not. i saw a post somewhere about people with readers. do code readers work on any cars? i have a mate who may have one....

hello there, after my joy at getting my first z about 6 months ago, i was on here picking all sorts of brains about all sorts of things. as such, with all your help, my boot lid was lightened, non-scary squeaks were diagnosed and a brilliant servicing garage around the corner (japex in kings langley - loving your work guys!).... since then, 6 months of brilliant fun and no hassle. until last night. on my way home, the MI/CEL came on. ARRRGGGHHHH i thought. but the car felt fine. accelerated right, not mis-firing, temp ok, oil pressure ok.... she felt fine. however, after pootling home at not many mph, i sat outside my house on the wifi and jumped on here. after reading a few posts that suggested it may not be that serious, i felt much better. i also read the following to learn how to get the code off manually. http://www.350z-uk.c...-advice-needed/ i tried it a few times, and couldnt get it to work. reading more, i realised i needed to be better with the timing, and someone also suggested videoing it. so that is what i did this morning after having drove into work - again, no problems, although i was a bit easier on her than i usually am. did the pedal thing, timing it with my watch, and got the thing to flash. but i didn't get what i was expecting. it flashed slowly twice, fast four times, fast once then went solid and didn't change. can't seem to upload the video to here, so i uploaded it to youtube instead. any and all help very much appreciated.

thanks guys... wasn't able to post back due to being in the back of beyond and not having great phone reception, but your (incredibly speedy) help was appreciated. i just closed the windows so i couldn't hear the squeak and batted on... looking at getting a P3 service done, so will get it sorted at the same time... thanks for your help guys.

saw a very nice looking blue 350z roadster just near where the M3 becomes the A316, heading towards london yesterday, about 9pm.... nice wheels, cool exhaust. gave me a little hazards flash hello as he passed. if it is someone on here, you have a nice car dude. :-)

Hey. I've taken my z on holiday to the south of France, and it's absolutely loving the driving, as am I. Possibly a little too much. I've been driving it fairly hard up and down mountains - its great fun on those cutback corners! But since a recent blast, the rear suspension is squeaking. Sounds like driver side only. This is definitely a new sound, and does it on most bumps now. Sounds like a squeaky spring. From reading other threads on here, probably bushings or drop links? I know nothing and am not technical... I'll need to check it out, no doubt, but my real question is.... How urgent is this? The car feels perfectly fine. No difference at all. If I stop hammering it can it wait a week until I get back? Do I have to stop hammering it? Does it need to be looked at immediately? I'm in a small French village, so don't really fancy my chances of getting it properly fixed! Help very much appreciated. Thanks people. :-)

it is easy - and i have flitted between lots of things already - but i am a pretty sensible guy. for me it is all about value - if i was able to hugely change the performance of the car for a reasonable price, i would. as i can't then that becomes a lot, lot less valuable to me. if i can fix my stereo for nothing, that is incredible value. if i can replace the satnav without too much hassle then, again, that is great value, as is touching up the paintwork myself, trying to refresh the interior handles etc.... i will be diy-ing many of these things until i am out of my (constantly growing) technical comfort zone... again - this place is invaluable with guides. whatever i want to do, someone will already have done. i always remember what my grandad used to say - price is one thing, value is everything.

if you think that counts as infighting... on a web forum... wow.... trust me, i have been to much worse places than this! lol you lot are all very sensible and pretty polite.... and if you are not, then it must be in a techy/engineering way that i do not understand! as for what you know, between you, you know pretty much everything. tonnes. being on here has been a massive help - given me confidence to try things for the first time (fixed my boot), shown me that the small niggles on my car are small niggles on everyone's cars (weird hissing noise in the back, skipping left channel on the CD player) and given me brilliant solutions to help...(i've even been shown how to clean a car... tried it twice and am getting better. still takes me 4-5 hours though!) i'm very, very grateful.... for example, fixing my boot, fixing my stereo and NOT be spending money on getting my car chipped as it will not work has already saved me a few hundred pounds - which can all go in the 'new tyres' fund i am sure i will need... thanks chaps and chap-esses.

well, this has been an eye-opening thread, and thanks for all your opinions and help. the decision i have come to is.... i don't need to worry about anything at the moment. i do not do laps or track days, the car is plently fast enough, stops plenty good enough, hanldes plenty well enough and sounds plenty fun enough as it is. i would like to improve all of those things, but as it seems impossible to get any noticeable change in performance without spending £500-£1000, and the other changes are around sound etc, i have to prioritise other things. i will focus on making the car an even more enjoyable place to be by fixing things that are broken, mending the smaller bits that are wrong, and possibly replacing the sat nav system. but until i have done some saving, i'll leave the actual mods alone i think. so my roadmap will be something like this 1 - fix OEM CD player 2 - replace OEM satnav 3 - work on scratches and paintwork 4 - replace scuffed interior trim then, after all that is done, i may look at 5 - replace head unit 6 - change sound with plenum spacer/exhausts/air filter 7 - uprev to remap with new bits on. that should keep me going for a while. in between, i am going to get better and better at washing the car so it looks even more amazing...

that is brilliant! having been to a few andy c gigs in the dim and distant past, the dancing is not far off... the clothes? less so... lol amazing.

thanks for all your help... i have enough to be thinking about for now! cheers GB78

i have rays on it already, so am happy with those. may get them painted if/when i get them refurbished. exhaust decats? that taking off the cat converter? glossary says it makes the the car more noisy... is that a problem for MOT etc? throttle controller? what even is that? is that the same thing as the remap adjusting the amount of throttle you can get in the early gears? so far, seems i may be saving and doing everything at once... sound slike these things on their own make a little difference, so i may prefer to get them all done at the same time and feel a big difference in one go!

that's really helpful, thanks. so my next question is... would all these things need to be done at the same time? could i do the air filter, then wait until i could afford the plenum spacer, then wait to get the exhaust and then finally do the uprev remap? if i can only afford to done one bit at a time, would i be causing the engine damage? or is it better to wait and get it all done at the same time? could i do the plenum and the uprev... then remap the uprev when i add the filter and exhaust at a later date? seems from uprev.com that there is a possibility of re-mapping the ECU with my own pc? more and more questions... sorry... oh, and thanks....

thanks for replying... you may regret it! lol pads and rotors? pads i assume to make it stop quicker, but rotors? are they the calipers? what would be the benefit? like i said, i know nothing.... CAI? i know from the glossary this is a cold air induction kit.... but what does it do? the plenum spacer i understand changes the flow below the car, the exhaust again i understand little about how and why they work and the remap to change the ECU to take advantage of all these things... am i right? in terms of changing the feel of the drive, if i could get a bit more acceleration ( do not care about top speed at all... just like getting there quick) and an even more tingle-making noise, that would be great. not huge fan of changing things from looking stock, so things under the hood or stealthy would be great.... so assume the CAI and plenum/exhaust would need a remap?