Is anyone having this problem?
 

I did not know what to search under, so i created this thread.

When i turn the steering all the way to the left or the right the tires rub against the fender. I took it to the dealer and they said that this is normal for the 370z. I have the sport package wheels. Is anyone else out there having this problem?

Thank you.

Wha???? No that's not normal. I sure don't have that issue, and I haven't heard of anyone else having it either. You're positive they're rubbing the fender? Where exactly are they rubbing?

I will pickup the car today and have him let me test drive one of their cars since he told me that he test drove one and it made the same noise.

Okay, so you're just going off of noise? No visual indications of contact with the fender?

Don't you mean the tire makes a noise? There is post I believe under scrubbing.

YES!!!!! I just noticed that my 370Z started doing it when the weather turned cold (below 35 degrees). In the warm summer weather it wasn't doing it at all. At first I thought it might be the tires as well as it sounds just like oversized tires grinding the wheel wheel plastic. I found absolutely no tread marks in the plastic whatsoever. One usually would find the tread scuffing of the wheel well apron.

Because of NOT finding scuffs I starting to believe it might be the brake caliper beginning to possibly come into contact with the inside surface of the sport wheel spokes due to cold temperature contraction of the aluminum which may cause the spoke to be bowing slightly when turning the wheel either left or right to maximum radius. What makes me suspect that is that there is a kind of rhythm in what you hear as if whatever it is is repeating the same sound. As soon as I begin turning the wheels back toward straight to leave max turning radius the sound stops happening.

I thought I was going crazy but I am so glad someone else is experienceing this as well....the question now becomes what exactly is happing to cause this situation?

Found the tread and the noise seems to be coming from the tires. I searched for scrubbing.

Thank you guys!!
:happydance:

umm i think what you guys are talking about is the sway bar binding when it's cold. it is normal since the sway bar moves and has pressure on it when you turn the wheels and when it's cold the metal shrinks and will cause this noise. it will not be there or be as noticeable during the summer. nothing to worry about.

It's not sway bar bind, it's the tires themselves. Summer tires become extremely hard below 40 degrees and lose almost all of their grip. When you give the car enough wheel the tires are turned but since they are rock hard with no grip they start to skip over the pavement. That's the sound you are hearing.

You have to be really careful if you choose to drive the car in cold temps with the summer tires. Allow at least 15-20 minutes of normal driving to get the tires warm enough to get most of your grip back, and just know that that noise you hear when you turn the wheel hard is normal... it's just a byproduct of using a summer tire outside of the specified temperature range.

Its normal? I have been having this noise the past month.

everytime I do a turn at the lights I hear it cracking and I can FEEL the cracking coming through the steering wheel. like the wheels are hitting something. hell this even turns off my indicators before I turn my steering wheel the other direction.

Yes, it's normal. Like I said, the tires literally skip over the pavement during tight turns when cold.

M4A1 mustang is right. I noticed this a while back, and had a friend stand near the car and actually look. The tire does "skip" across the pavement.

:iagree:

If I gun it, even on a dry street, in these temps, my traction control goes NUTS. Didn't have that issue in summer. It has to be the tires.

odd, I have driven with my megane coupe in the winter before I got the Z and it never did this and that thing had hard *** tires.

Yep, a cold summer tire literally has only 25-40% of the grip as a warm summer tire. Very dangerous first thing in the morning because your panic stopping distances can easily double in really cold weather!

I switched to Hankook all seasons for the cold season for this very reason.

I know that. never really noticed the loss of grip. guess I am too much of a carefull driver.

not that I could even floor it hard enough to lose grip since I havent been able to get hold of brakefluid to get rid of the VDC OFF error though these days its getting worse, I got it once at 2500 revs.

x2.

I heard it this morning... lol

You don't need to turn the vdc off. trust me.

And I'm a pretty careful driver. I was doing so on an empty street from a slow roll with no cars in site.

Or maybe Belgium Z's come with different stock tires?

I don't turn the VDC off, the car does :roflpuke2:

apparently has to do with the brakefluid sensor going dry for a second or two when accelerating and it turns the VDC off

sure was scary in a way. driving on the highway with a thunderstorm shitloads of rain and freezing temperatures with no VDC.

yep, it's normal during cold weather

Yikes!!! Yeah, that'd scare the crap outta me too, V-k

i've heard a two theories about the noise you hear when turning sharply in cold weather:
1) the tires in cold temps basically turn into hockey pucks, so you get that awful sound
2) its the LSD (i think i've only heard of people with the sports pack having this issue, i could be wrong however) because the fluid isn't quite up to temp

i can't confirm or deny which one is right or wrong. i just know i aint the only one with the noise hehe.

I doubt its the LSD because its the front wheels messing up not the rear ones.

I'm inclined to agree with Vegitto. I'm not getting the front wheel sound, but I'm definitely getting the hockey puck tires in the cold, and I don't have sport.

omg i was wondering the same thing this week, good thing a lot of us have the same sound, it makes me feel better.

might be because the megane is fwd.

...no

perhaps but the tires should be skipping worse than the Z anyway since the ones I put on there were already harder than the stock Z tires.

i have to turn about 90degrees out of my drive way in the morning and could hear the sound because it was in the mid 20s here. never thought it was an issue because you could see the car wasn't turning it was just shoving the front tires and not turning. going to put some all seasons up front and retire the summer tires to see if they work any better.

Google Ackerman angle. The dynamics and mechanics of the wheels on this particular car cause them to travel on different arcs when at low speed, and the wheel is turned all the way to one side. At low speed, the wheel (mostly the tire) will load up a bit and then be forced to ungrip and slip to stay on the arc required by the steering geometry. This causes the shunting noise you hear and feel. It is harmless.