1991 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo from UK and Ireland - Comments

Where to start, the car has never idled smoothly, it's an auto so when selecting gear when hot the revs drop and the car stalls.

Heater matrix went dumping coolant inside both footwells which is not good as the ECU is under a piece of wood in the passenger footwell.

Smoke belches out from underneath the car at random intervals. Smoke has been known to fill the cabin on occasion, from where?

Car feels unstable even though it has Super HICAS and 4WS, I now know this to be caused by the rear shocks.

Vibration between about 40 and 60 mph first thing in the morning, believe this is drive shaft. Oh yeah, engine is knackered at 73,000 miles... burnt valves on 3 out of six cylinders as well as worn piston linings and piston slap.

Headlights are pathetic as standard, might as well not bother switching them on. Headlamp washers have never worked.

Apart from that... cracking motor!

Sounds to me like you have your self to blame for some of this, No-One else seems to be having problems with their Z. So you either got a bad one or you've done something to it...

Yup, seems like this car had some bad owners, too bad for such a baby!

I don't own a Z but I have been doing a lot of research on the net about them and your comment is the first negative thing I have ever heard about them.

Sounds to me like you might have got yourself a lemon. Did you not drive the car before you bought it? ;-)

First time you have ever heard anything negative about a Z, believe me you have been talking to the wrong people.

The cars chew up auto and manual boxes, and turbo problems are inevitable with a huge bill to follow, as are aircon problems.

Due to gearbox problems and fuel injection problems, I have hardly seen the car this summer, it's been at some garage or other.

Cooling problems on import cars are rife and repair bills are horrifying.

As a weekend toy they are fine, but as a main car you can never rely on it not costing you a fortune everytime you drive down the road.

Talk to gearbox repairers and Nissan ZX mechanics for the real lowdown, they think they are a pile of dog crap.

I agree, these cars have some major problems. Mainly Turbos, and Fuel Injectors.

Hello.

I own a 91' TT and it has been the best car I have ever owned. I use it for a daily driver and never had a problem. I bought it when it had 102,000 miles on it and the guy I bought it from was the original owner and all he replaced was one clutch, and the slave cylinder.

I have had it for a year and a half and it now has 130,000 miles on it, and the only problem I have had was a clutch and that was because I take her down to the track on the weekends. So my view is that the cars are not taken car of properly with the proper cool down time after a hard drive, so the turbos don't have the cokeing after the turn off, oil changes, tune ups, and warm up time before driving.

Oh, by the way, that is with upgrades on it, I have 412hp & 447ftp at the wheels. But I do agree to a certain extent that you have to baby the car, but if you take care of her, don't you think it is would worth it? I think so.

I just bought a '91 300ZX and have had nothing but fun with it. My roommate has a '90 and he loves it. Problems? Sure, but name a car that won't have them if not taken care of. The 300ZX is something that real car enthusiasts call a SPORTS CAR! Change the freakin' oil and get the scheduled tune-ups and for God's sake let the car idle after running it hard and you should have a well running car for quite a while. If you don't expect to take care of a real car, buy a Civic! Don't complain about a broken 300ZX that obviously does not represent the majority.

Obviously your 300zx was not taken care of. Mine 300zx has 140K on it, and it runs like its about 4 years old. Don't blame Nissan or the 300zx for your car's problems; especially when the problem is not the car, but the owner.

I agree with the 300ZX being a potential disaster, import cars don't have the correct cooling setup to cope with the higher speeds of european motoring and hence gearboxes blow at a frightening rate especially auto's.

Check the for sale ad's to see how many cars have had new boxes and unless you uprate the cooling rads the same will happen again and at about £2K a go it can get very expensive. Import cars don't have diff coolers either and this again can lead to problems with overheating, in Japan there are hardly any motorways so the problem doesn't show itself.

When they work they are great, but don't ever rely on a 300 getting you to an important meeting always have a golf parked as a standby, the number of times my 91 TT stranded me is a legend in the RAC.

Treat as a hobby and a weekend indulgence, but be prepared to dig deep to keep it on the road.

The 300zx is an absolute winner of a car. I think it is beautiful and out performs any car in it's class, if you buy a dog then I'm sorry to say that's your own fault..

I've spent a fair amount of money on the car, but then again all high performance cars require high maintenance... basically people with ideas that the 300zx can have the running costs of a peugeot 106 are disapointed...

Stop dreaming.

Riz.

Smoke coming from under car and filling cabin is oil leaking through the rear main crankshaft seal behind the flywheel... it is worn.

Lets get real guys... The ZX is a WICKED piece of auto engineering.. IN ITS DAY. Sure it's a real enthusiasts car and I love mine and the Jaws that it drops (and the cosworths it wastes!!) but we get them as a performance machine with looks for a fraction of a cost of mainstream supercars. The cost aint buying its running it. Mines got its faults, but on the whole for a 12 YEAR OLD CAR what can you expect? Enjoy them, but be realistic, its gonna cost you a few quid at some point or another, it's an old performance car keeping up with a changed world. Buy it cheap, enjoy embarrassing those costing tens of thousands more, look after it with servicing, but just don't expect the reliability of a new car. PAULYBOY-Colchester.

I was in the same boat as this guy with my 300zx. I bought my 300zx with 110k miles on it. I wasnt expecting a perfect car, but what I got was a strait up lemon. the car never worked right for more than 2 months at a time, check engine light was always on for some reason or another. I have talked too many other twin turbo owners in the area and the nissan dealer. They say these cars do tend to have alot of problems, mine was sever however. Actually I've owned 3 nissans, 2 of them were horrible one was good. No more nissan for me. Can't blame me as a bad owner either, I babied my z changed oil right on time always fixed problems as soon as they occured. in all I think I dumped 6k into fixing this car in a year, this is not inlcluding maitnence. ie tires, oil, brakes.

Any of you considering these cars just save your money and go with a toyota supra. The MK4 is absolutly unmatched, has few reliability problem, and has endless mods available for it. They are hard to come by, I've been looking for the right one for 3 months now.. but its worth it.

These cars are junk, Had 2 of them a auto and a 5 speed... The 5 speed motor poped in it, was around 2 G's for another then the tranny went out along with clutch another grand or more for replacement..

The automatic would had very bad problems, wouldn't stay running idled rough, check engine code, everything...Don't sit there and say I don't take care of my vehicles bla bla this.. Everyone I've seen where I'm at and driven has been junkers...

I would not recommend these cars to anyone unless they wanna sink money into them...

To me like others have said, id rather buy a supra there much better platform to me and better looking..

Lol, you must have gotten lemons.

Cuz I got one from japan and it is perfect.

No problems. it is a TT with 450 rwhp, upgraded turbos, IC's, Injectors, JWT ecu, EBC, Full Catback exhaust, and gutted cats... after all this it still runs perfect.

And if you read how many negative reviews, compared to say The Vr4.. it is slim.. to none..

That goes to show you that these cars are very reliable..

Almost 100% of the vr4 reviews, and owners say that they are JUNK.

Besides a 1994 supra witha 2jz i6 engine costs like 30k.

Vs like 10 for a Z car... go figure.. or go back to F&Tf 1, or F@tF 4, and drift...

I hate poopras.