2019 Manual Transmission Grinding Sound

[aero-head]

I bought a new 2019 370Z with a manual transmission last year, and a few weeks later started noticing a loud grinding sound when changing gears around 5,000RPM. After some troubleshooting, I determined that it doesn’t matter if I’m changing gears, leaving it in a gear without touching the shifter, or even leaving it in neutral while revving the engine - the noise continues as long as the engine is above 4,500 with the clutch pedal pushed in. Interestingly, this does not happen after a cold start – the car has to be driven for 10-15 minutes before the grinding sound happens.

The symptoms seem to point to a defective throw-out bearing / concentric slave cylinder, which the dealership replaced twice but there was no improvement. They also reproduced the issue in two other new cars on the lot, suggesting that this is a design defect rather than a one-off issue. Nissan’s regional Dealership Technical Specialist indicated that a new clutch was designed for the 2018 model year (I previously owned a 2010 that never had this issue in 7+ years of daily driving), and the engineering team he’s been in contact with at headquarters has not been able to come up with a fix or even definitively identify the cause.

Has anyone else here experienced this issue? I did my best to capture the sound in the link below, but it’s much worse in person. I’m meeting with the Technical Specialist again next week and I’m going to try to get them to cover an aftermarket CSC replacement under the warranty since they can’t fix it with OEM parts, but I’m curious if anyone else has any ideas on this.

https://youtu.be/chDMb76_1c8