2023 Nissan Z (inc. 0-100) detailed review: Does it live up to the hype?

CarExpert

This car melted the internet when it was first announced! Paul Maric has been so excited to drive it - so join us for a detailed review of the 2023 Nissan Z with six-speed manual transmission.   Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Nissan content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan More Nissan Z content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan/z  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 On the Road 00:52 0 - 100 km/h 06:50 Exterior 11:50 Interior 14:42 Infotainment 16:22 Safety Tech 17:37 Practicality 18:17 Verdict 21:13  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #nissan #z #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So this car here pretty much melted the internet when it was first announced.

00:05 It's the Nissan Z, it's the new version of the 370Z, and it has a brand new heart under

00:10 the bonnet there. This one here is available in two specs in Australia. This one here is

00:14 the base model, it's priced at just over $70,000, and it's available in a manual and an automatic

00:20 for both the same price. So you can get the manual if you like driving, or if you don't

00:24 really care so much for that, you can go straight for the automatic and not have to pay any

00:27 extra. This competes with things like the Ford Mustang, the Toyota Supra, although the

00:32 Supra is more expensive than this, but that's kind of the field that they play in. Today

00:36 we're going to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other

00:39 parts of the review, you can use the timecodes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you

00:43 can scroll down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe

00:46 to our channel, press the bell icon, and let's kick off with some driving.

00:54 So we've just hit the road in the Z, let me run you through the engine first. So previous

00:58 generation of this, the 370Z, had a naturally aspirated V6. Nissan decided to ditch that

01:04 entirely and go for a turbocharged V6 from the Infiniti range. And the funny thing was,

01:10 when this was in the Infiniti Q60 Red Sport, it was a really good engine, but it didn't

01:15 have a limited slip diff, so you just had this sort of tyre smoke show every time you

01:20 went to go for a drive in it. This on the other hand uses a mechanical limited slip

01:24 differential, and given that it's turbocharged V6 in what is effectively a pretty light chassis

01:30 at under 1600 kilos, it actually makes for a really fun and engaging drive. So 3.0-litre

01:35 twin turbo makes just under 300 kilowatts of power and 475 newton metres of torque.

01:40 And I know what you're thinking, 475 newton metres of torque doesn't really sound like

01:45 a great deal, and I was kind of thinking the same thing when I looked at it on paper, I'm

01:48 like, that doesn't sound very good. But, if I drop this back into second here and wind

01:52 on the throttle, it pins you really nicely back into the seat. It has, I reckon it has

02:00 way more than 500 newton metres of torque, and I think they are probably understating

02:03 that a little bit because it feels really perky. Once you get up it, it just keeps revving

02:08 out and it just keeps giving you torque. It is just a really impressive drivetrain, and

02:13 it matches perfectly with this Rubel drive application.

02:16 Now we're using the six-speed manual here. I did mention earlier that you can get an

02:20 automatic as a no-cost option. It's a nine-speed auto, not a dual clutch or anything like that.

02:25 I'd probably avoid it and just go for the manual because this manual gearbox is actually

02:29 really nice. So they have a heavy-duty Exedy clutch in this, so it is sort of designed

02:36 to take a bit of a battering. The gear shifts themselves feel very similar to the previous

02:40 generation of Z, which is not such a bad thing. That means you're getting a nice tight throw

02:45 and it just feels like you're actually doing something here with the gear stick. They have

02:48 carried over S mode, which is the automatic blipping on downshift, so from fifth gear,

02:54 if I go to third and then to second, it's blipping on its own. You can switch that off

02:59 by pushing and holding the S mode button, and then you'll see S mode disappears there,

03:03 and then the shifts are entirely up to you after that point.

03:06 What about your fuel economy? So, fuel economy probably in one of these cars isn't something

03:10 you should focus on too much, but the official claim is a little under 11 litres per 100

03:14 k's. We are currently sitting on 10.6 litres per 100 k's, so that has been predominantly

03:21 highway driving, and a few fangs around here, plus playing around with what the stability

03:26 control feels like. So I'm actually really impressed with that figure. I was expecting

03:30 it to be much higher than that, so that's really not a bad setup there.

03:34 Now, because I'm an engineer as well, I love these gauges up the top here. So you've got

03:38 voltage, turbo speed and boost pressure. So if I drop this back to second and we roll

03:43 onto the throttle, you can see it all building up. So yeah, useless but fun.

03:49 Now, the other cool thing worth mentioning as well is this also comes with a carbon composite

03:55 driveshaft, so that means you can sort of be pretty brutal with it, and later on when

03:59 we do the 0-100, you kind of launch it from 5,000 rpm, and it has a flat shifting mode

04:05 as well. So it really does copper beating, so it's good to see they actually have all

04:09 the hardware they need here.

04:11 Now, my good friend Hiroshi Tamura, Tamura-san, he was the guy behind all the GTR stuff and

04:17 also behind the revival of this. He basically said that as long as he's at the company,

04:22 he doesn't want to have anything to do with hybrids or electric propulsion effectively,

04:27 and that's why this stuck with a very tried and true formula. Yes, Nissan didn't spend

04:32 a huge amount of money, well, they probably did spend a huge amount of money, but not

04:35 the type of money you would spend on a brand new chassis, which is why a lot of the components

04:39 under the skin here are common to 370Z. But to be honest, you don't really feel it all

04:44 that much when you're going at low speeds behind the wheel. This all inside the cabin

04:48 here feels like a brand new car.

04:50 Okay, let's pick up the pace here. There is no sort of drive mode selection, so I'm just

04:55 going to dial back a couple of gears. Far out. It really does pin you back in the seat.

05:01 Alright, let's chunk it through our first corner here. It's not too bad. It does have

05:09 a degree of body roll, sort of compared to something like a Supra, it doesn't sit quite

05:14 as flat, but... Alright, it sounds awesome inside the cabin. There is fake noise plumbed

05:20 into here. I'm curious to know what it sounds like on the outside, in fact here is a clip

05:25 from the outside. Yeah, this is really interesting. It's quite darty, it's got quite responsive

05:41 steering and you feel confident rolling into the throttle out of a corner. The acceleration

05:47 is seriously bloody good. Like I said before, it feels like it has quite more than 500Nm

05:53 of torque. It really does just get along nicely. These tyres are good too, they have plenty

05:58 of traction and especially here in the dry, it's sticking to the road really nicely. Coming

06:03 onto our back straight here, we'll roll onto the throttle. Far out, it is absolutely moving.

06:14 It is absolutely hammering, that is so cool. Far out, it is moving. So yeah, through corners

06:21 it can be a little bit floaty and bouncy, but yeah, once the speed picks up, man this

06:26 thing absolutely hammers. I love that. The gear shifts feel really nice and strong, the

06:30 brakes are fantastic. So yeah, four piston calipers up the front, single piston caliper

06:36 at the rear, but it just gives you the confidence when you get on the brakes. You just bite

06:40 down hard on them and it is just there and ready to give you everything that you need.

06:44 So that is bloody impressive. I was not expecting it to be this dynamic. Now let's talk zero

06:51 to 100. There is no official zero to 100 time, but both the manual and automatic come with

06:56 a launch control function and the manual actually has a flat shifting function as well, which

07:03 means once you do reach the peak of your gears, you don't actually have to let go of the throttle.

07:08 All you need to do is stab the clutch and grab the next gear. So generally not good

07:12 for cars, but they have engineered it to do this, so we'll give it a shot. To activate

07:17 launch control, all you do is clutch pedal in, you press S mode, put it into gear, hold

07:21 the throttle down and then what it's going to do is dial up revs and say launch control.

07:26 Then on the steering wheel here, I can adjust the revs using the cruise control button to

07:30 where I want and then it says to just let go of the clutch. Yeah, which I don't love

07:35 the sound of, so we'll try doing it that way, which is their recommendation, and then I'll

07:38 come back again and try maybe just slipping the clutch a little bit. So here we go, we'll

07:42 give this a shot. There's launch control, I'll dial down the revs a little bit and I'll

07:47 just drop the clutch and we'll see what happens. Yeah, it just bogs down, but there's our flat

07:53 shift, there's our next flat shift. All right, wow, feels nice and quick. So 0 to 100 time

08:01 of 5.2 seconds and our 80 to 120 time was 2.9 seconds. So I think there's more in that

08:08 because when it did sort of bog down off the line there, that's going to chew into your

08:13 time. So we'll try that again, except slipping the clutch this time.

08:16 Okay, so let's give this another shot. I've got stability control switched off, we've

08:20 got our sport display on, so you can see diff oil temperature, water temperature, all that

08:24 fun stuff, except this time I'm going to slip the clutch a little bit so that when we do

08:29 launch it, it will hopefully just give us that little bit more off the line so that

08:33 we can really just go for it. So throttle on, launch control active, here we go, slip

08:39 and then all the way down. Oh yeah, that felt good. That felt good, all right. That's better.

08:53 So 4.9 seconds, 0 to 100 plus all the facial expressions as well. So that was better. And

09:01 then 80 to 120 was 2.9 seconds. So it's probably a little bit more in there. I might give this

09:06 one more crack and then see how we go.

09:09 Okay, one last crack this time. I'll leave stability control off and we will dial up

09:14 the revs. But what I'll do is just launch from a slightly lower RPM and we'll see how

09:21 that goes. So here goes nothing. Launch control active, we'll dial that back a touch. There

09:27 we go, let's give this a shot. Oh, that's better. That felt good. 4.7 seconds, there

09:40 you go. Not too bad at all. So 4.7 seconds, pretty impressed with that, especially from

09:46 a manual transmission.

09:47 Okay, so time for our reverse test. We'll see how fast it goes in reverse. Here we go.

09:58 Spun the wheels in reverse. Holy crap, it is moving. 76 kilometres an hour in reverse.

10:09 That is unbelievable. It has set a record here at Car Expert for reverse speed. So very,

10:18 very impressive there from Nissan Z.

10:20 Now what's your visibility like? So it's actually not too bad. You sit quite low to the ground

10:27 given it's a sports car, but you can clearly see down the front there. Wing mirrors are

10:30 big enough and you've got those blind spot monitors built into there. Visibility at the

10:34 back is pretty good as well, so really can't complain.

10:37 Let's talk about the ride. So it's actually surprisingly good in and around town. It's

10:41 pretty softly sprung. It has a bit of firm damping to it, but it is really comfortable

10:46 to drive in and around the city. It feels far nicer to drive in day-to-day driving conditions

10:51 than my Supra did. That was kind of a whole lot firmer, whereas this is more of a city

10:55 dweller.

10:56 You will notice though when you are on a country road or course chip roads that it is incredibly

11:01 boomy inside the cabin. You get a lot of road noise coming into here. It's the same story

11:05 with the 370Z and that's something that seems to have carried over from that platform. Even

11:10 though this has Bridgestone Silent something tyres on it, they don't really seem to be

11:15 making all that much of a difference when it comes to making the cabin quiet on course

11:19 chip roads.

11:20 Now what does that mean for our sine waves? Let me get this up to 130. We'll see what

11:25 it feels like on here. Given this is softer, in theory it may mean that it actually bucks

11:30 about a little bit, but we'll see how it goes. So here's 130km/h. It's actually not too bad

11:38 at all. So it is a little softer than something like the M4 Competition we tested here recently,

11:44 but it's not earth-shattering and I think it's a really good compromise there between

11:47 sportiness and also comfort.

11:51 So let's talk about the exterior. You've got nine external colours to pick from. All But

11:55 Red is going to set you back $700 and you can get a black two-tone roof for an additional

11:59 $500. What do we think about the design? So just in terms of the dimensions, this is almost

12:05 identical to the Supra in terms of length. There's like one millimetre difference, so

12:09 that gives you a bit of an idea of how big it is. It's pretty light as well. I mentioned

12:12 earlier like 1500 kilos, so it is quite a small, nimble little thing.

12:17 So down the front here, I wasn't quite sure about the front end design in pictures. I

12:21 thought it looked a little bit blank off to the sides here with no fog lights and stuff,

12:25 but here in person it actually looks pretty good. So you've got that big hole up the front

12:28 here for cooling. Radar sensor down the bottom there, Nissan logo up the top here. It actually

12:33 looks like quite an imposing car when it approaches.

12:36 You've got a set of LED headlights with LED daytime running lights, LED indicators. Big

12:41 fan of that. Now around the side here, this is where you'll find your 19-inch forged alloy

12:46 wheels. I mentioned the brakes as well when we went for a drive, but this is what they

12:49 look like. So four-piston caliper up the front there, 355mm rotor, 350mm at the rear. Yeah,

12:55 it's not a bad package there. I love this wheel design as well. That sort of graphite

12:58 look on the exterior looks fantastic, so they've done a great job with that.

13:02 In other markets, this is available with an 18-inch alloy wheel and a different set of

13:06 brakes, but we only get the one specification here in terms of the performance package.

13:11 Up the top here, you've got black, piano black on that wing mirror indicator built into there

13:15 as well. And this is that two-tone setup. I really like that, especially here with the

13:19 white. This looks fantastic. I've seen the blue and the yellow in person, but this white

13:23 really gives it that sort of pretty cool character out on the road. It makes it stand out quite

13:28 a lot. You have this strip that runs all the way down the back of the car there, and that's

13:32 where you'll find a Z badge as well.

13:34 This door handle's interesting. So you pull it from the back here, and you've got a button

13:38 here to lock and unlock using that proximity key. You have a manual keyhole as well. Kind

13:43 of looks a bit old school. I reckon they should have done something a little different there,

13:46 but yeah, it is what it is.

13:48 This is enormous. I have no idea why this is so big. So this is your fuel cap. The fuel

13:52 filler itself is actually quite small, but the cap is enormous. No idea why it's that

13:56 size. Reflector on the side there, and then whip around to the back. This is probably

14:00 my favourite part of the car. I think the rear of this looks absolutely sensational.

14:05 It really has that Z heritage to it. So you can see along the Z line how they've integrated

14:09 a lot of those design components. These LED lights look sensational at night time. They

14:14 stand out a lot. Twin exhausts down the bottom there. Both of those are real and functional.

14:19 Black diffuser as well. Z badge just here. You've got a camera nestled into there. Nissan

14:23 logo there. I like this spoiler. It's not outrageous. It just sort of fits in really

14:27 nicely on this rear end and just completes it. And I love the fact as well that you've

14:31 got this glass element here that exposes that strut tower brace in the boot as well. So

14:35 that is a pretty cool setup.

14:36 So let me know in the comments section below, do you reckon the design looks good? Do you

14:39 like it as much as I do? I'm very much keen for your feedback.

14:43 So let's have a look at the interior of the Z, depending on where you're from. This is

14:47 what the key looks like. So you've got a Nissan logo up the top. Lock, unlock, panic. And

14:53 then it's blank on the back. This is a proximity sensing key. So you can leave that in your

14:57 pocket and then you have a stop start button just here.

15:01 Let's talk about the design of this. I actually think this looks really cool. When you're

15:04 driving all of the stuff that you need to access is really easy to reach. But in terms

15:09 of the materials and just the presentation, I think they've done a good job here bringing

15:13 this into today's day and age. It really doesn't feel like this is kind of just a revival

15:19 of the old platform. So that means you have nice materials along the dashboard here. It's

15:23 split with this red material that runs all the way down the side here. And it's got soft

15:27 touch points here for things like your knees. So when you are driving, it sort of just feels

15:31 nice and comfortable. All of this stuff is just easy to reach as well. So very impressed

15:36 with that.

15:37 The seats as well, they're pretty cool. So we saw when we went for a drive, they sort

15:40 of hug you in really nicely. Although I wasn't a huge fan of the driving position, they are

15:45 actually quite nice seats with that sort of Alcantara finish and then the red on the outside

15:49 too. This does feel like a premium cabin and it feels like you're getting your value for

15:53 money here.

15:54 Now, what about your touch points? So this is soft to the touch and it's soft on the

15:58 door as well. How soft is it? Well, we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin with

16:03 our durometer. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before,

16:07 have a look at the link in the description below. Build quality. Yeah, look, it all feels

16:13 pretty, oh, it's a tiny bit loose up the top there, but for the most part, it all feels

16:16 pretty solid. Door test. Yeah, it doesn't sound too bad.

16:22 Righto, let's talk infotainment. So eight inch infotainment system. I'm a little bit

16:27 disappointed by this because there is a nine inch version available with satellite navigation

16:31 integration. For some reason, we get this smaller version and I don't know, I just thought

16:37 that, you know, brand new car would be good to have the best of the best, but anyway, it

16:41 is what it is. On the audio front, you have AM/FM, DAB, digital radio, and that's all

16:47 plumbed through an eight speaker Bose branded sound system with a subwoofer in the back

16:52 that I'll show you later on. In addition to that, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

16:57 Both of those are wired, so I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first. So full

17:02 screen integration, not too bad there, nice and snappy. And this is what Android Auto

17:07 looks like. So just like CarPlay, full screen integration. Yeah, so it is worth keeping

17:13 in mind because you don't have inbuilt satellite navigation, you're going to have to have your

17:16 phone hooked up through cable if you do want to have navigation on the display there. There

17:22 is also a display ahead of the driver here, so 12.3 inch display, and I love the fact

17:26 that you can switch between different views there as well, depending on exactly which

17:30 mood you're in, and it's a really high resolution screen too. So yeah, props to Nissan for putting

17:36 that inside the car. Now let's talk safety tech. You have autonomous emergency braking

17:40 with pedestrian and cyclist detection, auto dimming, rear vision mirror, blind spot monitoring

17:45 built into this pillar just there. You have radar, cruise control. Now it has a lane departure

17:51 warning and that's the whole reason we didn't test it before because it just beeps at you.

17:55 It doesn't really sort of hold the lane, so it didn't bother going through that whole

17:58 rigmarole. You have rear cross traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, and a reverse

18:03 view camera. I'll show you what the camera looks like. Oh, the quality of that is terrible.

18:08 So yeah, it's super grainy and low resolution as well, which is a little bit disappointing.

18:13 I would have thought, you know, brand new car, brand new model. Anyway, right, I'm moving

18:17 on to practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity. So you've got a USB-A port

18:22 down here, a USB-C port. You have a 12 volt outlet hidden down there. In terms of storage

18:27 for your phone, there's no wireless phone charging, so you can just sort of pop your

18:31 phone down there if you want. Then in addition to that, you can pop it in the cup holders,

18:36 but they're kind of super small and a little bit hard to get the phone in. See what I mean?

18:42 But in terms of actually storing your cups, your coffee cup does fit in there. I don't

18:45 have one with me today, but you can see here the bottle fits in. There are no teeth, so

18:50 it does move around a little bit. There is actually a secret little hole just here, so

18:55 using that you can put your bottle in there as well. So you have two little hidey holes.

19:00 Bottle can also fit inside the door, but you're not going to find that the big one is going

19:04 to fit. There's also this storage hole here, and that's also where you're going to find

19:07 another 12 volt outlet. You also have a glove box over here that's pretty small, but kind

19:12 of big enough for what you need. Then in addition to that, you actually have storage behind

19:15 the seat. So even though you don't have four seats, you actually do have a couple of little

19:19 slots in there to put bits and pieces as well.

19:22 And comfort. How does all this stuff work? Well, it's pretty basic. You have single zone

19:26 automatic climate control. You can also have heated seats here, a couple of little switches

19:31 there to go from low to high. Now the seats are interesting because you have electric

19:34 adjustment to go forwards, backwards, and then for the backrest to go forwards and backwards,

19:39 but the rest of your controls are manual, but you do have a fair bit of adjustability.

19:42 You can bring the front of the seat up. You can also bring the back of the seat up as

19:46 well. So yeah, it is a pretty sort of entertaining how much you can actually customise this.

19:51 And then steering, you can adjust that for both tilt and reach as well. And on our reach

19:56 test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.

19:59 So let's talk cargo space. Obviously it's a sports car. We're not expecting it to be

20:03 amazing. Hey, at least there's a button here in the Supra, there's no button. In terms

20:06 of the space, it's around 250 litres of cargo space available. So not an earth shattering

20:12 amount, but let's see if it fits our gear in. So I hope it fits a laptop bag. So that

20:19 goes in there. Oh yeah, look at that. I think this will close. Let's give that a shot. Oh,

20:25 you're joking. Okay, hold on. Please tell me it fits a suitcase. That's crazy. How does

20:32 it not fit a suitcase? Why would you not just make it a tiny bit higher to fit the suitcase?

20:36 Let me just quickly try this. I wonder if that works. Oh, there you go. It does fit

20:43 a suitcase. Panic stations averted. Now let me show you as well what is going on beneath

20:49 the cargo floor because it doesn't have a spare tyre, which I discovered the other day

20:53 when I got a nail in the tyre. But it does have a tyre repair kit and a dirty big subwoofer.

20:59 So tyre repair kit under there, subwoofer under there as well. You also have your anchor

21:03 point for the child seat for that front row as well. So not a huge space, but it is usable

21:10 for little bits and pieces like this.

21:16 So the Nissan Z, let's start off with the negatives first. I don't think it's as dynamic

21:20 as the Toyota Supra. They've kind of tuned it for comfort as opposed to being dynamic,

21:26 but it is deceptively quick in a straight line. It really picks up and boogies. I think

21:30 it looks sensational. It really does turn heads a lot, and it's good value for money

21:35 as well when you consider what you're getting and what the competitors are doing at the

21:38 moment as well. So yeah, really impressed with it. I was a little bit let down by the

21:42 infotainment. I just wish we could get that bigger infotainment system, but the rest of

21:46 the package kind of makes up for it. So let me know in the comments section below, have

21:50 you got one of these on order? Have you taken delivery of yours yet? And did you go for

21:53 the manual or the auto? Hopefully the manual because, you know, manuals are dying. You've

21:57 got to get into the manuals, otherwise I'll be gone forever. Let me know what you think

22:01 of the comments section below. Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you

22:04 like it and you share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe

22:08 to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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