2009 Nissan GT-R Ownership Myths Dispelled - Car News

April 2008

You’ve likely already read the various rumors flying around the Internet about the GT-R’s steep ownership costs; that it has a speed limiter unless you’re at a Nissan-approved track; and that tires can only be replaced four at a time. We heard these things, too, courtesy of a tire supplier to GT-R, so we called up Nissan and got to the bottom of it. Most of the gloom-and-doom hype is unfounded. See below for our questions and Nissan’s responses.

Rumor 1: Nissan’s GPS will only allow full-speed operation in the U.S. at Nissan-approved tracks.

There is no speed limiter on the U.S. spec GT-R unless you count the rev limiter.

Rumor 2: Once a vehicle has been run an approved track, it must be subjected to a post-track safety inspection at a Nissan dealer (brake fluid, suspension, tires, drivetrain, other checks), at an estimated cost of $1,000. Otherwise the warranty is voided.

It is a very good idea to inspect a car of the GT-R’s potential after spending time on a track to verify that everything is still within specifications and not worn. We are investigating offering this type of post-track inspection service to GT-R owners in the U.S. in order to provide the type of customer service some GT-R owners will want. Track use will not void the warranty. However, the warranty will not cover repairs required due to misuse, including operation in violation of applicable laws or racing.

Rumor 3: The vehicle is set up from the factory with suspension settings for track use, with very high negative camber in the front and substantial toe-in at the rear. If the car is driven on the street with the factory settings the tires will only last 3000–5000 miles, and inner tire wear in the front will be substantial within 1000 miles. The settings may be changed from factory settings for street use prior to delivery, however.

The normal front camber setting is just over 1 degree negative. There is a small amount of flexibility in the setting, so if a customer wants to maximize tire wear they can request slightly less negative camber. The rear toe setting is between 1 and 2 mm total toe-in. While these settings are more aggressive than most cars, they are not extreme. The car provides amazing performance and you wouldn’t expect it to behave like a typical car. Driving style and road surfaces will greatly affect tire life, so it is very difficult to estimate. However, the tread life of some of our test tires has exceeded 10,000 miles in typical street driving. Of course, track usage will definitely diminish tire life.

Rumor 4: The brakes are some type of ceramic composite, and a brake job will cost upwards of $3000.

The GT-R brakes use conventional materials. The brakes have full-floating two-piece rotors. The outer rotor is cast iron and the hub or hat is aluminum. The pads are also conventional materials. They are large Brembos—15-inch rotors front and rear, six-piston calipers front and four-piston rear—so they won’t be inexpensive, but they provide phenomenal stopping performance. We don’t expect a 500-hp engine to cost the same as a 300-hp engine, so we wouldn’t expect 500–hp brakes to cost the same as 300-hp brakes. We don’t have final pricing on the parts yet so we can’t say for certain how much they’ll cost.

Rumor 5: The OE run-flat, vehicle-specific Bridgestone tires, once dismounted, must be discarded. We have not heard if the same requirement applies to the OE Dunlop tires, but that is a reasonable assumption. One of the explanations for this that we’ve heard is that the rims have raised bumps in them at the beads to keep the tire from turning on the rim under acceleration.

Our recommendation is that the GT-R tires not be remounted regardless of brand. The knurled beads do help keep the tires from rotating on the wheels under hard acceleration, but the knurling is primarily there as part of the run-flat system to help keep the tire on the rim in the event of a flat. Remounting the tires is not recommended because of the stretching and flexing necessary to dismount and remount the run flat tires on the wheels.

Rumor 6: If any tire on the all-wheel-drive GT-R needs to be replaced, such as for a road hazard, Nissan requires that all four tires be replaced; otherwise the drivetrain warranty is voided.

Because the GT-R is all-wheel drive, matching tire circumference is critical to the performance of the system. We will be providing guidelines to help determine if only one tire can be replaced or if the entire set should be replaced. If the undamaged tires are showing limited wear, it may be possible to replace only the damaged tire. These guidelines have not been finalized yet.

Rumor 7: Estimated annual service costs for the GT-R are $10,000–$15,000.

Service costs for the GT-R will vary greatly depending on usage so we do not have an estimate of annual service costs. But these estimates seem very high. There are a series of Performance Optimization Services (POS) required for the GT-R. The Performance Optimization Services (POS) are inspections and adjustments (if needed) of three major vehicle performance systems: Engine settings, transmission settings, and wheel alignment. These services are required to keep the car functioning at optimal performance and are done free of charge for the first 36 months. These services are necessary to keep the warranty in full effect for these systems.

The first Performance Optimization Service is performed at 1000 miles. The subsequent services are performed at 12, 24, and 36 months. Additionally, it is recommended these services be continued annually beyond the first three years, but they will be at customer expense.

While this is not a free maintenance program since it doesn’t include oil changes or other maintenance, it should make keep the ownership costs pretty reasonable for such a high-performance car.

Rumor 8: Nissan is struggling with finalizing the full-disclosure form that customers are required to read and sign prior to taking delivery.

We are still finalizing the delivery materials but I wouldn’t characterize it as struggling. The GT-R is unique in offering incredible performance to a very broad range of customers so we want to make sure we provide as much information as possible to the customer at delivery to make sure they have a great ownership experience.

Rumor 9: Only the dealer principal is allowed to sell this vehicle. Salespeople are not allowed to sell it, related to the risk that the salesperson may not properly inform the customer about the details of the full-disclosure documentation.

This is a customer-service issue not a disclosure issue. When choosing to become a Certified GT-R dealer, each dealer agreed to designate the dealer principal, executive manager, or general manager as the dedicated GT-R sales representative. Since the GT-R will attract a unique customer, Nissan decided a dealership executive would be best positioned to present the vehicle and facilitate the transaction most effectively with potential customers. The ownership experience will be critical to the success of the GT-R, and this requirement involves a dealership executive in a face-to-face relationship with the customer. This should be a positive step for customer satisfaction.

Dodge Challenger SRT8

We finally slap our test gear onto the potent Challenger SRT8 to see if it’s actually up to the challenge.

BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY AND THE MANUFACTURER
April 2008

With so much presale buildup, we’ve told you bit by bit pretty much everything about Dodge’s old-meets-new Challenger SRT8. By now, the fundamentals should be familiar. The SRT8 is essentially a Charger SRT8 sedan with four inches cut from the middle and two fewer doors; it’s powered by the same 425-hp, 6.1-liter Hemi V-8 found in other SRT8 models in the Chrysler family; and it looks spectacular in orange. It also outguns the R/T and SE Challenger models that will be added for ’09.

What you might not know are some of the finer details. The 2008 SRT8 is the only Challenger to be designated as an ’08, and each of the 6400 U.S. cars—they are already sold out—gets a numbered plaque, orange seat stripes, and faux-carbon-fiber hood stripes. Also, the Challenger SRT8 debuts SRT’s brake “knock back” system that ensures the pads stay close to the discs during spirited driving as well as a “Performance Features” readout on the dashboard that displays acceleration, braking, and handling achievements for the driver’s amusement. The Challenger SRT8 starts at just over $40,000.

But until we shot up Angeles Crest Highway in the SRT8 at the press program in Pasadena, California, we hadn’t been able to log any significant drive time. Soon afterward, we got our paws on one at home in Ann Arbor and took it to the test track to get the numbers. Would the Challenger’s bad-ass attitude be backed up with genuine muscle-car street cred, or was Chrysler unable to mask the family sedan beneath the retrospective skin?

More Than Just Another Square-Jawed Muscle Car

The answer? Both. Thanks to that monster motor and a short first gear, the Challenger does earn a dollop of street cred, hitting 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, charging through the quarter-mile in 13.3 at 108 mph, and running to a drag-limited top speed of 168 mph.

But the Challenger SRT8 is more than just a drag-strip junkie. Its LX platform, for all its heft, does bring with it a sophisticated suspension that made easy work for Chrysler’s Street and Racing Technology team to engineer a combination of decent ride quality and tenacious grip, neither of which is a strong suit of muscle cars from bygone years (or, for that matter, of the current Ford Mustang). So, like any SRT8 product, it may be inescapably a family car in many ways, but it’s a fast and capable performance car, too.

Seriously Capable, but Where’s the Feel?

The multilink front and rear suspension is tuned for amazingly flat cornering, something vividly apparent on Angeles Crest Highway, where we flogged it left and right but watched the horizon that was the big, long hood stay level with the ground. Coupled with the sticky optional Goodyear F1 Supercar summer tires, the suspension imparted the Challenger with some pretty astonishing grip in corners. On the skidpad in Michigan, which admittedly was described as “really slippery” that day, the Challenger pulled a respectable 0.86 g with moderate understeer that can be corrected by the pedal on the right. But alas, with a curb weight of 4189 pounds, Chrysler was unable to mask the LX platform on which it’s based.

Missing from the equation was a great sense of steering feel that is somewhat slow to respond off-center despite its quick, constant-ratio rack and 2.75 turns lock-to-lock. Technical editor Mike Austin attributes the lack of steering feel, ironically, to the lack of body roll; when there’s no sense of heave-ho, set, and then bite, there is little impression of the car responding, even though it is, he explained. Then again, the lack of feel is strangely appropriate, if only for this car. “It’s an unintended throwback to the ’70s,” said Austin.

The same can be said for the brakes. Stopping a big, heavy coupe from 70 mph in an impressive 170 feet—the length of just four Greyhound buses—is no simple feat. Thank you, Brembo, for your help on each of the SRT8’s four corners. But as with the steering, feedback is another thing, and somewhat absent here, too. Our test car in L.A. had a good inch or so of pedal travel before anything at all happened, and our tester in Michigan was little better. We have to issue one caveat: These both were well-worn press cars, and not all cars at the California event suffered thusly. But here’s the obvious warning to future owners: These brakes can get worn out under constant abuse.

Unfortunately, this meant that we really couldn’t tell you whether or not Dodge’s new brake knock-back system is worth a darn. We appreciate the intuitiveness of the concept: When the g-sensor detects dynamic forces of more than 0.50 g, the brake pads are moved closer to the rotors to quicken brake actuation when ultimately called on. We’ll have to get a fresh car soon and lap a track with, say, a Dodge Charger SRT8 to see if there is a measurable difference.

Performance Features Display—Very Informative, Very Addictive

Another interesting—and seriously cool—new bit is the Performance Features display, which is part of the multi-information screen nestled into the gauge cluster. Several steps beyond the lateral-g meter available in the Chevy Corvette, Performance Features measures 0-to-60-mph, 1/8-mile, and 1/4-mile acceleration times, 60–0 braking distance, and g-forces in all four directions (either peak or real-time). At several points during our drive in California, we saw readings of 0.99 g left and right, but it’s worth noting that those were peak g-forces, not steady-state g as measured on a skidpad.

We did not have the opportunity to measure the Challenger’s readout against our test equipment for braking and acceleration, but we have verified the relative accuracy of such systems currently available in the aftermarket, so there’s no reason to believe that the Mopar system shouldn’t be accurate. A similar system is already in the Caliber SRT4, and we expect it to spread to other SRT products in the near future.

Also, expect your license to take a hit or two along what will certainly turn into a constant quest for a new personal performance best. Keep your eyes on the road. They hide in the bushes.