What have you done for your GT-R today?

[JohnFK]

(I cant believe we don't already have this thread - or do we?)

 

3rd Service for the GT-R today (last of the Service Pack (e.g. "free") ones. This one was triggered by date, 12 months since the last (mileage having dropped since I became a city dweller).

 

Nice drive to Westover - 85 miles away (almost exactly the same distance as they were from my Oxfordshire address!). I'd also asked them to deal with the clicky axles (sound familiar Z owners?). So it was booked in for a full day.

 

Courtesy car was provided - initially paperwork said a Qashquai but after a very short discussion it turned into a 17-plate 370Z NISMO in black.... The 370 was a nice experience, much more up to date than my 350.

 

Whilst there I took the opportunity to order a couple of bits, and price few others, for my 350.

 

The R was ready late afternoon after service and all four hubs dis-assembled, cleaned, greased and re-assembled. Felt really nice on setting off home. Gearbox felt more settled and handling nice and tight. Really enjoyed the drive back and given this is a ten-year old design I still really love it.

 

The only downside: Front pads are on their way out - Darren reckons another 1k miles. Discs are worn but okay and will probably not need replacing until through the next set of pads.

 

All-in-all a pleasant day out

[Paul_S]

A good dealer is worth travelling for

 

A NISMO 370Z is a nice treat too. I can walk to my dealer so I don't even get a bike!

[LESmo]

How many miles have the Pads done.

 

How did the Nismo compare as that would have had the Sound Enhancement.

[paul_k]

Discs should be cracked at 12000 miles if a few good track days completed! You need to try harder...

Having said that mine are OK but it's yet to see a track.

[JohnFK]

How many miles have the Pads done.

 

How did the Nismo compare as that would have had the Sound Enhancement.

I cant compare the NISMO as I don't have enough experience of other 370s to compare it too, and comparing it to the GT-R would be an apples and oranges comparison. I would say the general feel of the more recent technology is nicer than the 10 year old bits in the GT-R. But the pluses of the GT-R demonstrate why is costs that much more!

[JohnFK]

Discs should be cracked at 12000 miles if a few good track days completed! You need to try harder...

Having said that mine are OK but it's yet to see a track.

26k and no disk cracking on mine. Includes two forays to Nurburgring plus a recent one at Silverstone GP experienced. I think the latter took its toll on the Pads though.

 

Is three track experiences trying harder than none

[JohnFK]

p.s. "Standard" wear rate for the front disks is quoted by NM as 60k miles - Mine are going faster than that....

[JohnFK]

Went to Wheel shop to check out the new boots to be fitted on Monday.

 

Front and rear side by side:

 

The set stacked between piles of tyres with tread! :

[paul_k]

Had 3 year service and MOT at Litchfield at the reasonable price of a grand including new front pads at 23000 miles. Discs are OK but have still not tracked this car yet.

However ended up getting Stage 1 engine and gearbox remap with miltec Y pipe (decat) which is epic. Cost was another £1500 but worth every penny.

Had fun with the insurance company who cancelled my policy on the spot when I declared the mods. Ended up paying about another £300

to get cover.

[blobbish]

However ended up getting Stage 1 engine and gearbox remap with miltec Y pipe (decat) which is epic. Cost was another £1500 but worth every penny.

Had fun with the insurance company who cancelled my policy on the spot when I declared the mods. Ended up paying about another £300

to get cover.

 

That's interesting that they felt they couldn't insure you. Especially as the only mod they would be able to tell on inspection would be the exhaust bits.

[Gav C]

One interesting thing I read yesterday was South Yorkshire Police impounding a vehicle for no insurance as the modifications weren`t declared therefore his insurance was void.

 

So it pays to declare your mods, especially if they are visible and plod decides to do a check.

[Chubbs]

One interesting thing I read yesterday was South Yorkshire Police impounding a vehicle for no insurance as the modifications weren`t declared therefore his insurance was void.

 

So it pays to declare your mods, especially if they are visible and plod decides to do a check.

 

Absolutely right. It's a pain when you're shopping around for the cheapest deal, but it's a must.

[blobbish]

One interesting thing I read yesterday was South Yorkshire Police impounding a vehicle for no insurance as the modifications weren`t declared therefore his insurance was void.

 

So it pays to declare your mods, especially if they are visible and plod decides to do a check.

 

Now I guess there is more to this than meets the eye, so forgive me but;

 

1. Its up to the insurance company to declare the insurance invalid, which with a quick call they may have.
2. What did they stop the vehicle. Now I know the police have the power to make sure the driver has a license, but if the vehicle is showing as ensured and the driver has shown his license and the name of the driver is listed on the insurance, that's it.

Like I said, I'm unaware of the full context of the stop but if the car was not being driven erratically and insurance and license matched then I would be putting in a complaint or speaking to a solicitor.

 

Incidentally, all of my mods are declared.

[Gav C]

 

Now I guess there is more to this than meets the eye, so forgive me but;

 

1. Its up to the insurance company to declare the insurance invalid, which with a quick call they may have.
2. What did they stop the vehicle. Now I know the police have the power to make sure the driver has a license, but if the vehicle is showing as ensured and the driver has shown his license and the name of the driver is listed on the insurance, that's it.

Like I said, I'm unaware of the full context of the stop but if the car was not being driven erratically and insurance and license matched then I would be putting in a complaint or speaking to a solicitor.

 

Incidentally, all of my mods are declared.

 

The car in question was a modified Fiesta ST which had apparently had been driving around in an anti social manner and as a lot of the mods were visible from the outside then it would have been easy to spot. I`m assuming that the police checked up on the insurance to find none of the mods had been declared and impounded it.

For me the worrying thing is whether the police enquired with the insurance company to see if it was modified or whether that information is readily available to the police through their database.

 

Like you I always thought it was upto the insurance company to declare it void, usually when a claim is started but I wonder if the goalposts have been moved with technology available and if you don`t declare any mods then technically then you`re not insured.

 

BTW the source was a South Yorkshire Police tweet shared on Facebook, now I don`t usually trust stuff on there but it was from SYP so I`m incline to believe it`s legit.

[A Pair Of Flabby Wings]

Let us not forget that the South Yorkshire authorities loath the motor car more than . . . - I'm trying to think of a politically correct example to illustrate this, and am failing badly - on account of the freedom and independence from the authorities they give the individual. Roads that make a ploughed field look smooth; the gritters out when the temperature is below 10 degrees Celsius; more bus lanes than there are buses; etc, etc.

 

That said, there are plenty of drivers in South Yorkshire who drive as if they got their licence from Lidl. After a fight too. So my sympathy is not limitless.

 

In relation to modifications, the default advice has to be that if you have made one (or more) you should declare it. There is an argument that a minor modification (say, a stubby aerial or a few stickers) that is not declared and not relevant to an accident (say, a bump) is irrelevant. However, if you have an obvious performance modification, and you encounter the authorities after a performance-related incident, you may find your insurance will have been invalidated. There is nothing particularly new, or technology-related with this. It's simply taken that you will have begun that journey with that modification, which took the car beyond what was insured and as a result you're not insured. And in trouble.

 

There's an awful lot of reading around on this subject, if you're feeling up to it. It is quite chastening. Even more so than the small print on one insurance policy.

[blobbish]

This is one of the problems with non-regulated insurance, where they can generally do as they please.

 

When is a modification, not a modification? Some mods are obvious, but others are very grey. For instance, if my car needs a new exhaust and I go to ATS, they will not put on a Nissan exhaust. Does this now qualify as a modification that should be declared, and if not then why should I need to declare a Milltek or Invidia. How many people declare uprated brake pads or do you? Rotas definitely.

 

My mods are insured not just to keep the insurance valid, but if the car is stolen, involved in an accident or written off I get base car plus cost for modifications, which can be £1000s

 

This is a very interesting topic but should really be in its own thread as its slightly deviated away from the topic.

[A Pair Of Flabby Wings]

Or we begin a separate discussion. You're absolutely right otherwise though, that it is a very grey area.

 

That said, if it was me, I would not worry if I bought a used car that had an unbranded or off-the-shelf replacement exhaust on it. Unless that exhaust was either massively over-bored or routed differently (ie. much straighter). But if it looked unremarkable - ie. unlike the kind of exhausts we tend to talk about here - I would treat it like a replacement windscreen, and not bother.

[JohnFK]

Whilst I was on holiday my friendly storage / transporter / detailer had a session on my car. I was very pleased with the video clip he sent me afterwards but it seems to have lost some colour definition when I re-formatted it into a vertical clip. Still looks good on my phone but here it is for you to judge:

 

Champagne R35 Walkaround

[LESmo]

Looks a great job. Those Zoorsts are so clean. Do you know what products they used?

[blobbish]

These came today

 

.

 

For those days where your wet or sweaty.

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[Neutreus]

2 things:

 

1) Booked in with my local re-finisher to have the front splitter repaired/re-painted

2) Booked car in to Litchfield to have MOT and Service carried out

 

All within a few days so will report back in a couple of weeks or so.

[Neutreus]

So, my car is in with Litchfield today. First impressisons? What a cracking bunch of people, very friendly and great service (althogh the courtesy car is a bag of crap lol). I'm going back a little early to pick the car up later and they're going to give me a mini tour (it's not a big premises) but they've got some race cars and highly tuned GTR's there they are working on, so I'll try to remember to take a pic or two!

 

As to my service, it's the middle one which is £420 (probably plus the dreaded VAT) but compared to main dealer HPC, very attractive!

 

They conducted the initial inspection and most everything is A OK but the brakes are down to 10% & 20% on discs and pads front and rear respectively. I knew this would be the case as I was aware of it being an advisory at the last service it had before I bought it - having done my homework and spoken to Litchfield about it's history. You can also feel they are not as responsive as they should be. So, I've given the green light to get the Alcon's fitted all round and I'm going for the Ferodo DS2500 pads as she will get driven with spirit on the odd occasion shall we say..

 

Two advisories; firstly, slight play in the front lower ball joint but that will be one for next years service as it's not serious and secondly, there is slight up and down play in the Bell Housing. The latter one surprised me a tad as it had the Litchfield Bell Housing upgrade fitted in 2017. Again, it's very minor but still surprising. I need to ask more later because the technician was talking about it being the opposite end of the prop shaft.

 

Will post a couple of pics later hopefully.

 

Next steps -

1) MOT tomorrow at Nissan Bristol (sadly Litchfield's MOT guys have been flooded out with all this rain so had to make a last minute booking)

2) Monday it goes in to have the front splitter sorted

3) Next Friday - Vodafone engineer coming out to fit upgraded Tracker to car

 

So a busy week for the car (and not the cheapest of week's either!)

[A Pair Of Flabby Wings]

That was an interesting post Neil, thank you.

 

I guess it proves that although they are not the most expensive car to run, you certainly cannot run them on a shoestring even when they are a reasonable price as a used car.

 

The continued bell housing issue sounds interesting, and I'm keen to hear more too. I'm also keen to hear what their courtesy car is too. It's not a Leaf is it?

[paul_k]

Litchfield often don’t do the alignment if the tyres are worn.

Make sure they don’t charge you for it!

Have you had the brake hoses done by now?

I don’t know what Litchfield do after a service but it is often noticeably quicker.

[Neutreus]

I'm also keen to hear what their courtesy car is too. It's not a Leaf is it?

 

No, it was a Toyota Yaris but not a new one - 2003 plate

 

Litchfield often don’t do the alignment if the tyres are worn.

Make sure they don’t charge you for it!

Have you had the brake hoses done by now?

I don’t know what Litchfield do after a service but it is often noticeably quicker.

 

They did actually do a full wheel alignment for free - tyres are about 3-4 months old.

 

No, re the brake hoses - what's the suggestion/benefit again Paul?

 

Oh and yes, she definitely feels more taut and a bit more spicy than before - could be psychosomatic after driving a Yaris lol, but I like it either way.