1986 Nissan 300ZX review from North America

Throwout bearing went out at about 90,000 miles. I've been driving cars with manual transmissions all of my life and did not experience this type of a failure before or since.

Both lower control arms needed to be replaced around 70,000. No, I did not run the car up on the curb or jumped railroad tracks. Nothing more happened than driving over standard potholes. I had the car inspected prior to buying it and the inspection did not turn up this flaw. Upon contacting the previous owner, this was the second time this type of a repair had to be done on this car.

The dashboard was noticeably warped by 90,000 miles.

Alternator went out twice. The work was done at Nissan dealerships on both occasions, but Nissan would guarantee neither their workmanship nor their parts. i.e. Give us your money even if the part you just had replaced breaks again next week.

Vinyl portions of the seats started to come apart around 80,000 miles.

The car's undercarriage was hitting the drive shaft under moderate acceleration, such as getting on the highway. Nissan replaced multiple suspension components in the rear of the car to no avail. Nissan finally gave up and refused to work on the car. I went to three other dealers with a list of what was done to try to resolve the issue and they did not know what to do to fix it either. One of the dealers told me that it is a design flaw. You think?

Fuel gage failed around 75,000 miles.

Cruise control failed around 100,000.

Odometer failed around 125,000 miles.

Shift boot started cracking around 65,000 miles.

Driver side windshield wiper failed around 85,000 miles. This repair required the replacement of the entire windshield wiper assembly (both sides) along with the windshield wiper spray container... or so the dealer claimed.

Rust perforation appeared behind both rear wheels by 70,000 miles.

Paint chips were coming off the car for the duration of my ownership experience. The car was never repainted, according to a friend of mine who happens to repair auto body damage for a living.

If you think that the above are far fetched, there is one more item that helped me decide to never buy another Nissan product: dreadful dealer service. The car was serviced at four Nissan dealerships -- two in NJ and two in OH. The service persons at all of these dealerships acted as if they were doing me a favor by working on my car. In contrast, I have NEVER encountered this attitude at any of the Pontiac dealers where I took my current car. Pontiac is not known for superb customer service, and yet the Pontiac service is 100% better than that of Nissan.

I will spare you the many other, more minor maladies of the 300ZX I had.

The car did handle well, had adequate power, and was easy to drive on the highway.

Unfortunately, the long hood did make the car very difficult to drive on suburban NJ streets that have many stop signs and cars parked almost to the corner.