Discussion
Realised had put up a picture of my motor or if I have I couldn't find the thread.
MY59 GT-R. It's DMG Colour but been wrapped in Oyster Pearl to protect it over the winter. Currently running Litchfield Stage 4 package so uprated injectors, intakes, full exhaust system, ECUTek / RACECOM.
Generally love the standard styling but wanted the lowers to stand out a little more so have ZELE replica lowers which compiles of Carbon front splitter, side skirts, rear diffuser, bonnet vents and lower grill.
I lost the car for 2 months due to gearbox failure when it decided to die on me on my driveway at around 2mph in reverse so when it decides to die I guess it will. Thankfully Nissan replaced this although it took a prolonged period of time to rectify and get them to due to me having a few changes they originally wanted to refuse any work on the car so I had to spend time compiling reports, evidence to show the failure was due to a flaw in design and had no bearing on what I'd done the morning of the solicitor letter was being sent to them a phone call was received stating if I held back what I'd reported on and was going to post across to car magazine and onto the internet they would 'as a gesture of goodwill' take care of me.
Late Thursday a new gearbox was ordered by Monday it arrived for fitting.
Anyway a few pictures although due to the sun being hidden by clouds for previous few weeks its impossible to capture the true colour of the pearl without some form of light none-the-less I'm happy.
Before the wrap and carbon lowers.
How she currently stands / sits.
Tried to be arty to give an idea of the true colour and successfully managed to fail miserably but seeing as I spent all of 5 minutes of my time attempting I'll still post.
MY59 GT-R. It's DMG Colour but been wrapped in Oyster Pearl to protect it over the winter. Currently running Litchfield Stage 4 package so uprated injectors, intakes, full exhaust system, ECUTek / RACECOM.
Generally love the standard styling but wanted the lowers to stand out a little more so have ZELE replica lowers which compiles of Carbon front splitter, side skirts, rear diffuser, bonnet vents and lower grill.
I lost the car for 2 months due to gearbox failure when it decided to die on me on my driveway at around 2mph in reverse so when it decides to die I guess it will. Thankfully Nissan replaced this although it took a prolonged period of time to rectify and get them to due to me having a few changes they originally wanted to refuse any work on the car so I had to spend time compiling reports, evidence to show the failure was due to a flaw in design and had no bearing on what I'd done the morning of the solicitor letter was being sent to them a phone call was received stating if I held back what I'd reported on and was going to post across to car magazine and onto the internet they would 'as a gesture of goodwill' take care of me.
Late Thursday a new gearbox was ordered by Monday it arrived for fitting.
Anyway a few pictures although due to the sun being hidden by clouds for previous few weeks its impossible to capture the true colour of the pearl without some form of light none-the-less I'm happy.
Before the wrap and carbon lowers.
How she currently stands / sits.
Tried to be arty to give an idea of the true colour and successfully managed to fail miserably but seeing as I spent all of 5 minutes of my time attempting I'll still post.
Just noted the bit about your gearbox (the pictures go my attention first) that truely is shocking treatment from them but I guess its the world we live in where manufacturers try to wriggle out of expensive claims. For me it would of almost completely destroyed the ownership experience if I had to go through that, are you worried that the gearbox will simply give up again? I'd always be treating it gently for fear of it going bang again, which kind of goes against the point of having a car with such performance.
Every car I've previously had if I've had any form of issues I've always seemed to lose faith in the car and reliability and therefore lost love in the car itself. Usually thats resulting in me getting the car fixed up and selling within a year after.
With the GT-R all I can say is at no point did I find myself losing any love towards the car, I just wanted it back. I think for me it ticks all the boxes for what I want and when I drive it I love it.
I was surprised at how the box went though, prior to it failing no adverse noises, strange happenings it was all normal. I moved the car forward on the drive and was fine put it into reverse and it failed. As said I've now warranty from Litchfield who have parts already made up and it also provides RAC cover so if same thing happened now I'd ring the RAC or my Greenflag cover, have it taken to Litchfield and I'm almost certain within a fortnight I'd be back on the road without any expense other than the loss of the car for a few days.
It wasn't a great situation with Nissan and if I actually listed the actual on-goings of the car and requests I had to do and the hassle of having the car transports 3 times over 200 miles to different locations I think people would be shocked. Personally for there flagship model words can't describe my disappointment but what I did find was a lot of helpful people in the community with ties to Nissan who went massively out of there own way to assist a fellow petrol head which is why I got it resolved.
Since the issue I had condensation in a headlamp and to be fair they fixed that without issue very quickly I guess like anything if there is a costing of over £12k+ and a way out they'll seek it, someone told me that generally the owners who have these issues take 1 of 2 stances.
1.) they have plenty of money and £12k isn't worth there time and effort and foot the bill
2.) they can't afford to fight the case or don't have the time and resources
Probably some truth involved in that. It was however sorted and with the upgrades since and warranty giving peace of mind I'm back in love with the car.
With the GT-R all I can say is at no point did I find myself losing any love towards the car, I just wanted it back. I think for me it ticks all the boxes for what I want and when I drive it I love it.
I was surprised at how the box went though, prior to it failing no adverse noises, strange happenings it was all normal. I moved the car forward on the drive and was fine put it into reverse and it failed. As said I've now warranty from Litchfield who have parts already made up and it also provides RAC cover so if same thing happened now I'd ring the RAC or my Greenflag cover, have it taken to Litchfield and I'm almost certain within a fortnight I'd be back on the road without any expense other than the loss of the car for a few days.
It wasn't a great situation with Nissan and if I actually listed the actual on-goings of the car and requests I had to do and the hassle of having the car transports 3 times over 200 miles to different locations I think people would be shocked. Personally for there flagship model words can't describe my disappointment but what I did find was a lot of helpful people in the community with ties to Nissan who went massively out of there own way to assist a fellow petrol head which is why I got it resolved.
Since the issue I had condensation in a headlamp and to be fair they fixed that without issue very quickly I guess like anything if there is a costing of over £12k+ and a way out they'll seek it, someone told me that generally the owners who have these issues take 1 of 2 stances.
1.) they have plenty of money and £12k isn't worth there time and effort and foot the bill
2.) they can't afford to fight the case or don't have the time and resources
Probably some truth involved in that. It was however sorted and with the upgrades since and warranty giving peace of mind I'm back in love with the car.
Thanks for the insight, my dad had a Mitsubishi Galant 2.5 that kept eating gearboxes (3 to be exact), Mitsubishi never even batted an eyelid,they just took it and fixed it...it was something to do with the selector apparently but it completely destroyed the box each time, eventually they decided to look for the problem rather than just replace the parts damaged...I'm suprised they took 3 go's to try discover the problem.
I'm glad you are not put off by it, I wouldn't touch a GTR without an engine and drivetrain warrenty in place.
I'm glad you are not put off by it, I wouldn't touch a GTR without an engine and drivetrain warrenty in place.
Nearly a year on so thought I'd write a few things about my car.
Since my gearbox issues last year it's been fairly good to me thankfully bar late November when my steering column ECU died as I was about to head out the door to catch a flight!
Basically with that gone, steering lock wouldn't release, meaning car couldn't start, no electrics etc. Basically all I could do was lock and unlock the car no more. I rang Nissan stating it was a known issue in Japan & USA so should be covered under warranty but it wasn't and even if it was there was an 8 week delay on getting the part! this would take me from late November to late January before I could get the car moving again.
Litchfield who maintain my car I phoned, explained the situation and they ordered the required part from Nissan USA. Within a week they made the 6 hour round trip to me and replaced the part at my house and the car was back up and running brilliant service!
Probably worth mentioning that around April time this year I then get a letter from Nissan stating a recall on this part and that I could bring it in to get swapped out free of charge... needless to say I wasn't best pleased.
I've done plenty of driving in the car, it generally gets driven how it should be used and I managed to squeeze in a 2,500 trip across Europe visiting various sites, going through the Black Forest, all the mountain passes and into Italy etc and car behaved fantastically aside from me pressing on a little to hard and boiling brake fluids coming down one of the mountains which meant I needed a change of underwear! certainly got the heart going with limited brake power and a piece of string stopping me from going over the edge.
Little 12 second clip of me driving through Reims here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfEbG2uShw
Few photos in Switzerland
In our group also had a crazy Norwegian who made things interesting, here is a photo of him driving one of the lakes...
I'm fairly young so do like to mix things up a little which from a purist point of view makes my car a big no no but from my perspective I like things to be a little un-usual.
I find the OEM wheels and runflat combination pretty harsh to ride on and they do have a fair amount of road noise so invested in a set of COR 3-Piece Split Rims and had them wrapped with MPSS which aren't run flats. I instantly found the ride far more comfy and road noise massively reduced.
I wouldn't use these wheels for track days but in terms of day use and 'summer time' I'm running on these. Having been custom made I went with a pretty aggressive offset. I found the OEM wheels sat a little further in than I'd like and although I've had in the past spacers on my M3's I'm not a huge fan of them as I've seen what happens if they fail.
So that was how the car was standing, I was pretty pleased with it. I know as said purists won't like it but it's all about preference I think. I've recently added something far more... on the fence which is a carbon duck tail boot.
Now at the moment I'm just deliberating whether to get it sprayed in areas leaving the lip exposed as carbon or whether I actually like it enough to keep it on but the general idea was I'll use it for sort of show purposes and any straight line events. I had already found that without the spoiler it has changed the dynamics of the car a fair amount as expected.
Anyway that was my little sort of brief update for the last 10 months.
Regarding the Alpine Tour I did a chap who came along is actually making a full-length movie of it all as he took all the footage from all the cars and is comiling it all so will post that up when it's done but that'll be a while I'm sure. Here is a teaser video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvIjiFQAZ5E
Since my gearbox issues last year it's been fairly good to me thankfully bar late November when my steering column ECU died as I was about to head out the door to catch a flight!
Basically with that gone, steering lock wouldn't release, meaning car couldn't start, no electrics etc. Basically all I could do was lock and unlock the car no more. I rang Nissan stating it was a known issue in Japan & USA so should be covered under warranty but it wasn't and even if it was there was an 8 week delay on getting the part! this would take me from late November to late January before I could get the car moving again.
Litchfield who maintain my car I phoned, explained the situation and they ordered the required part from Nissan USA. Within a week they made the 6 hour round trip to me and replaced the part at my house and the car was back up and running brilliant service!
Probably worth mentioning that around April time this year I then get a letter from Nissan stating a recall on this part and that I could bring it in to get swapped out free of charge... needless to say I wasn't best pleased.
I've done plenty of driving in the car, it generally gets driven how it should be used and I managed to squeeze in a 2,500 trip across Europe visiting various sites, going through the Black Forest, all the mountain passes and into Italy etc and car behaved fantastically aside from me pressing on a little to hard and boiling brake fluids coming down one of the mountains which meant I needed a change of underwear! certainly got the heart going with limited brake power and a piece of string stopping me from going over the edge.
Little 12 second clip of me driving through Reims here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfEbG2uShw
Few photos in Switzerland
In our group also had a crazy Norwegian who made things interesting, here is a photo of him driving one of the lakes...
I'm fairly young so do like to mix things up a little which from a purist point of view makes my car a big no no but from my perspective I like things to be a little un-usual.
I find the OEM wheels and runflat combination pretty harsh to ride on and they do have a fair amount of road noise so invested in a set of COR 3-Piece Split Rims and had them wrapped with MPSS which aren't run flats. I instantly found the ride far more comfy and road noise massively reduced.
I wouldn't use these wheels for track days but in terms of day use and 'summer time' I'm running on these. Having been custom made I went with a pretty aggressive offset. I found the OEM wheels sat a little further in than I'd like and although I've had in the past spacers on my M3's I'm not a huge fan of them as I've seen what happens if they fail.
So that was how the car was standing, I was pretty pleased with it. I know as said purists won't like it but it's all about preference I think. I've recently added something far more... on the fence which is a carbon duck tail boot.
Now at the moment I'm just deliberating whether to get it sprayed in areas leaving the lip exposed as carbon or whether I actually like it enough to keep it on but the general idea was I'll use it for sort of show purposes and any straight line events. I had already found that without the spoiler it has changed the dynamics of the car a fair amount as expected.
Anyway that was my little sort of brief update for the last 10 months.
Regarding the Alpine Tour I did a chap who came along is actually making a full-length movie of it all as he took all the footage from all the cars and is comiling it all so will post that up when it's done but that'll be a while I'm sure. Here is a teaser video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvIjiFQAZ5E
I'm renewing my warranty with them actually on Thursday. Basically the rules are quite simple.
If your gearbox died on a full launch, no warranty. If gearbox dies on normal driving you have warranty. You could do 2-3 launches without issue, have failure 10 minutes later on normal driving and you'll be covered.
Generally when things go wrong it's not to expensive or time consuming to fix. Jamie P on here had an issue with his gearbox the night before the Marham 30-130 day, SVM recovered it around 5.30pm and by 9pm I believe it had been taken apart, fixed and he ran his car the next day. Not only that (and he might even still be there now) he then proceeded to drive to South of Spain so it's not as bad as people generally make out.
If your gearbox died on a full launch, no warranty. If gearbox dies on normal driving you have warranty. You could do 2-3 launches without issue, have failure 10 minutes later on normal driving and you'll be covered.
Generally when things go wrong it's not to expensive or time consuming to fix. Jamie P on here had an issue with his gearbox the night before the Marham 30-130 day, SVM recovered it around 5.30pm and by 9pm I believe it had been taken apart, fixed and he ran his car the next day. Not only that (and he might even still be there now) he then proceeded to drive to South of Spain so it's not as bad as people generally make out.
Mate, she is looking awesome. Loving the duck tail a lot. Defo considering that route when I start to play with the look of mine.
Where you based mate? I'm in West Malling and do a lot of runs with some local Pistonhead mates if you ever fancy it. I ask as I'm sure I went to look at the very car you bought/now own (He worked in Maidstone).
Anyway mate, loving the look of your motor ; )
Where you based mate? I'm in West Malling and do a lot of runs with some local Pistonhead mates if you ever fancy it. I ask as I'm sure I went to look at the very car you bought/now own (He worked in Maidstone).
Anyway mate, loving the look of your motor ; )
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