I’ve now been driving the my 2005 350z roadster for four months, so thought it was time I sent a letter home to you guys on the FCCUK. So, here are my thoughts. These are structured in roughly chronological order as you would experience them if you were driving a Zed for the first time, but reflect both the initial feel you'd get and how you might expect to grow into them over the months.

At first sight
The Zed is a beefy car to look at. The roadster is not a particular delight on the eye with the hood up, but with it down looks very nice indeed. I chose a black car, meaning that the black roof looks less incongruous. Its looks are quite high impact at first but over time grow on you and seem to become more subtle. It does, however, lack the style of the coupe and I suspect that over time the Zed’s design will age less well. To sum up, I’ve come to the conclusion that as looks go the Zed is a handsome, if burly guy, whereas the coupe is a pretty lady.

Key in hand
The key is crap. It’s a nasty affair that could be used for any car in the range. There is nothing about it that makes you feel special. I know that might seem like an irrelevance, but I think that your car key should say something special about the car. In the case of the Zed it won’t. I have however found that you can find some very nice keyrings on ebay that fill the gap.

Doors
The doors have auto drop glass on all models. The feel as you close them is solid and you get that little “clunk” as the window rolls itself back up. That is unless the window is rolled down, in which case it sounds as if you have just smashed it inside the door...

Interior
Nicely laid out dials with the rev counter in the middle give the feel of a sports car. Binnacle pods provide useful information and further the sporty feel. As an ex coupe owner I find it quite distressing (i) that there is an oil pressure gauge and (ii) noone really seems to know what it should say and, more specifically, what it should not say!

The seats grip you well without being too tight. They are similar in feel to the recaros on the coupe but with a little less bolster to them. In terms of trim, the seats I happened to end up with are electrically adjusted, leather with ventilated mesh and a heating system. Obviously these are pretty nice and I have seen other cars with less appealing options.

Visibility is surprisingly decent out of the front with large wing mirrors. You feel like you are sitting quite low though, so it’s a good balance between usability and sporty. Rear visibility on the roadster is just terrible with the roof up – that’s all that can be said – and there is a nasty blind spot on the passenger side you have to watch out for. Obviously with the roof down rear visibility increases significantly

Being Japanese the seats go far enough forward for someone of c. five foot, unlike the coupe where basically you have to be 5’4’’ to drive it properly. I’m 5’9’’ and find it very nice, but I suspect if you were a big guy it could be an issue – I hear 6’2’’ is about the limit for comfort. The only complaint I would have is that the steering wheels is only hight adjustable - not reach.

Interior, at least in the roadster, feels quite cosy and snug. The quality of the interior materials is not great on pre 06 cars (and I don’t think it massively better thereafter TBH), but it’s not offensive and seems to be hard wearing at least. General design is good, but there is nothing that makes you feel that there is a particular flair to it as is the case with the coupe’s dash centre strip.

There are two stereos (i) normal and (ii) Bose. The Bose comes on the GT pack. Some people want to upgrade the Bose package. This amazes me, as it is the loudest, most capable stereo I have ever heard in a car.


Turning her over
When you turn the key you feel like the 3.5 litre V6 has literally burst into life. It kind of barks at you. I never tire of hearing this.

With the engine running you notice quite a bit of noise from the transmission which disappears when you drop the clutch. Apparently this is normal. It is a bit weird though.

Noise
I started off with a standard UK exhaust which sounded great. Possibly because it had a hole in the backbox! I bought cheap backbox off a Japanese import to tide me over whilst I chose a replacement system. This was too quiet.

I’ve now got a stainless system from Scorpion. This, coupled with something called a popcharger (basically a form of cone filter), sounds awesome. Quiet enough on a motorway cruise, butch around town and a touring car style wail above 3.5k rpm.

Road noise is fine, a bit of whistling from the soft top at 70 rpm but that’s about all there is of note.

Driving it
The steering is considerably heavier than the coupe which feels almost shopping trolley light in comparison. After driving for a couple of hours I can feel it in my arms (I don’t have a physical job!).

Similarly, the gearchange is heavy and comparatively slow. This is something I’m still undecided on as all my previous cars have been easy to throw into and between gears.

The engine produces a wave of torque which, as someone who had never driven a V6 before, came as a massive surprise. I thought the coupe had decent torque for what I think of as normal cruising around driving – i.e. 1500 to 2500 rpm – where the coupe made 120 lb/ft and 180 lb/ft respectively. The Zed though is in a different league making 215 lb/ft and 240 lb/ft. Given that torque tops out at 270 lb/ft at 4500 rpm this makes for a very flat torque curve and means that 80% of peak torque is available at 1500rpm.

So, at practically any speed in almost any gear, it will pull away quite rapidly and when you want it to be it practically behaves like an automatic – put it in fourth and drive. Stop at lights, ping it off down the road in first and change directly to fourth - then cruise!

Steering is direct and precise. As it has been winter I have not been nailing it around corners and roundabouts much. To the extent I have pushed the car I’ve felt that it corners very well and is very agile for such a heavy car, although it seems to reward you “owning it” more than gentle handling – although again that’s not something you want to be doing in winter in your first rear wheel drive car.

It is easy to spin up the rear wheels, particularly in the wet and cold and I have had the rear twitch out on me at lowish revs during tightish corners – presumably due to the massive torque. As might be expected, traction levels in snow or even roads bearing a heavy frost is nothing short of dreadful. The car does however have traction control which is a blessing in such weather. Spring is nearly here though and I’m looking forward to being able to try things out with more confidence in the road conditions.

The stats say that the Zed (in 276 bhp trim – there are other, later, models with 290 and 313 respectively) has very similar performance to the coupe in a straight line. My butt dyno tells me that the Zed is slower as it does not have that surge of power as the turbo kicks in. The reality when you look down at the speedo can be quite a surprise!

Bottom line though is that the Zed is about handling and driveability not straight line speed. I am some way from mastering driving it. Rear wheel drive demands a different level of respect to front wheel drive – come out of a corner with the binary “on/off” pedal application you can use in a front wheel drive car and, in winter conditions at least, it will most likely bite you.

What has gone wrong?
When I bought the car I knew it needed a new exhaust and a CV joint (the latter of which is relatively expensive at £240).

In addition to that, it turned out that the dual mass flywheel had an intermittent issue which meant it was failing so a clutch and DMF change was required. This was not cheap (£530 in parts and that was a good deal - then there was fitting) so I was not that happy about it. On the other hand the car had done 51k miles and its well known that the clutch tends to fail between 50k and 60k. When it does you need to fit a new flywheel as well, so it was a cost I had in mind. It’s just not one I had in mind immediately after buying the car so that stung, a lot! If I had handed it over to Nissan the bill would have been well over GBP 2,000, so it's fortunate that Essex's leading Italian car garage was there to save the day.

Servicing costs might be a shade more than the coupe but there does seem to be less that regularly goes wrong with them. Having dealt with the initial costs (and I don’t think you can expect to buy a new car and not have some of those) there does not seem to be a lot to worry about from looking at the owner’s club.

Overall
I love it. I really enjoyed my coupe. For different reasons I really enjoy the Zed. For those coupe owners considering moving on to a Zed I would say do so – time moves on, and so do cars.

Steve

Nice review Steve. Just need to get a Nismo bodykit

What's the forum like Steve? Sounds like a nice car (bar the problems that you've had) and they do look cool ....

Great read I bet you'll have a lot more fun this spring and summer as your confidence grows!

PS Where's the pics?!

That's a great review Steve. I needed a replacement for the coop and it was definitely between the 350Z (which I like a lot more than the 370Z) and the Alfa Brera. I chose the Alfa Brera. After checking them both out it just seemed that little bit more practical and a bit nicer looking. Neither of them seem to have any major issues which is nice. I'd already decide on these two cars and funnily enough when I was doing my research I found they were often pitched against each other. Lovely motor though, well done

Lol @ Chris, I've been looking at the Brera too....

Ive seen this actual car in the flesh and it is very nice.
Good write up Steve and hope you carry on enjoying the car!

Maurizio.

@ Mark - Some of the coupes have got a lovely bad boy thing going on. Some people go OTT but there are some nice looking modded cars out there too. Mine is a roadster though and I just don't think it looks right to bad boy them.

@ Phil - It's friendly. Fairly knowledgeable. Nothing like this forum for info, but the coupe has been around for a lot longer. Fairly lively. Their version of Steve at AA is excellent also.

@ Matt - I'm taking a leaf out of Phil's book and am DA'ing the car. This will take some time as I do a panel or so each week after washing it, weather and time dependent. However, I will have it blinging by spring time proper and then I will be looking for good photo opportunities.

@ C2D - There is a Brera just down the road from me. Very nice. Surprised they are considered comparable though - one two seater rear wheel drive the other four seat front wheel drive. Do like them though.

@ Maurizio - Cheers mate. Has the speaker package worked out for you. Hope you are enjoying the sounds?

Getting there, it is pretty good but ive just got hold of a good 4 channel amp for the speakers for some extra kick, should just round it off nicely.

Cheers.

Excellent review Steve and glad you're enjoying the car

Look forward to seeing the photos

Should have mentioned the fuel economy. In combined driving of town use and longer motorway use averaging 30 mph over 2000 miles the car has averaged 25 mpg

Nice write-up Steve, sounds like a fun and special piece of kit. Hope you continue to enjoy it.

You're not wrong about the 6ft 2" problem - did you get that from me though

Thanks neal.
You may be right jim.

Big thanks to MrCooper for this review. The missus and I have been looking for a new car for her to upgrade to for a few months. I was throwing lots of different cars at her as ideas and she loved the look of the 350Z from the off. I read a lot of car magazine reviews on the subject but, inevitably, they all compare it to its natural rivals.

MrCooper's review was from the point of view of a Coupé owner and so, for us, was much more relevant. Looking around these cars, I kept thinking back to what he'd written. The door window glass sounding like it had smashed when closed with the window open made me laugh out loud at the time!

She's now gone from an '07 Civic TypeS CTDi with 138bhp to an '06 350Z with 296bhp. She's picking it up this weekend. I'll be putting together a review in a few weeks / months when I've driven it a few miles but early indications are that it's an awesome machine.

Thanks again fella!

have to say the noise these 350's make are awesome!
its my lads fave but its never really had enough to tempt me!
plus the fact back in the 90's after owning a rwd cosworth and regularly having squeeky bum moments am just not brave enough! so decided to stick with 4wd or fwd!
very decent write up mr cooper enjoyed reading!
theres 2 in the road we live!!