Martin Donnon

We all know this Nene, but Mike Rann and his journo mates will do their damndest to ensure that the public never do. Between the Association laws stumbling, the Murray fiasco, and the wholesale bankruptcy of SA, the public answer lies in demonising a small minority of the public to deter the spotlight from the real issues at hand. Three pages of the Sunday Mail devoted to this one story show the real facts and agenda of this government Regardless, to the average Joe on the street who cares not for cars, through to Mavis in the retirment home, you drive a car that is associated with public atrocities and murder. This is how they will think of you, and busting you off the road - for doing absolutely nothing wrong - will ensure that marvellous Mike gets back in, with an increased majority You see when Minh and the 33 driver nodded and took off for that fateful blast, it wasnt just themselves that they killed and maimed, but rather an entire culture of people and industry from enthusiasts to professional tuners. Now, their legacy will to be used as puppets in a political agenda to boost the fortunes of a failing state government. For those that arent old enough to understand....wait and see Ok no more posts from me... Our thoughts are with the real victims...the families

Why dont you read the report in the Sunday Mail "MADNESS" its page one..... if thats not topical what is Maybe a subject left for a different thread

Nasty, and pointless loss of life For those of us left though we have a target on our collective Skyline backs of a size never seen before. The smiling cheesy front mount intercooler and piping on the front page of the Sunday Mail combined with the claimed 400hp+ from a Nissan GT400R and the highlight that the cars are the tools of death has ensured that Skyline drivers will be publicly persecuted with extreme prejudice. Whether it is some 'do gooder know nothing' with a pen and folder taking down your number and reporting you (as offered by members of the public in the Sunday Mail story), or the vengeance of SAPD which will now be even more carefully trained to be aware of/seek and destroy Skylines, the spotlight is now on us. These cars have been publicly branded "Killers" by Mike Ranns offsiders (the Sunday Mail, and Mal Hyde) and now we will have to pay the price. Dark days ahead for SA Skylines Cruises are something you will be able to tell the grandkids about. For those that doubt me, roll the dice and give Officer Neils boys a chance Imagine their smiling SAPD faces on the cover of the Advertiser under a "Killing Spree" headline defecting impounding a group of 10-15 Skylines with innocent startled looking drivers on hand. The generally stupid and brainwashed public will see it akin as the coppers thwarting a mass murder And once more RIP Minh....

Maybe he was just wrong It happens, even on the Internet you know.....

The best thing about R35s is there arent too many going around with god-awful atrocious taped on Bangkok body kits.....at the moment. Give it time BTW Chef one of the CAMS officials that passengers in the safety car was very impressed that we could shift our R35 using those manual paddles behind the steering wheel. You see the safety car crew are not allowed to touch the paddles or switches, and have to leave the car in 'D' for Drive under strict orders from upstairs

Someone better tell Nissan that one Stirls, so they can remove the NISSAN ID PLATE number for the 07- GTR that goes R35-000XXXX (XXXX being the build number of the car).....

R32 was far more refined and comfortable when it was released back in 1990 than the current car is. Thats a fact, coming from having been at both ends of it

Well you do have a very good point. The only difference is that $110,000 for a GTR back then in the early 90s would be like charging $350,000 for the current thing. 35 actually represents good value for money Of course they cannot Exactly right. I leave the track wheel alignment, track pads, midpipe etc on our GTR the whole time rather than wearing out all the suspension adjustment points trying to reduce road noise. Fact is on those RE070 tyres you can hardly hear the passenger talk at 110km/h on the right coarse chip surface such is the roar the things make. Moving the camber a couple of degrees wont change anything enough

Ok I understand you are frustrated Gibbo, and that is fair enough However these are car companies we are talking about here, that will do what they need to do to get the deal done. This whole scenario is a direct lift out from the pages of 1990/1991 when Nissan last tried to market a GTR here. The dealers didnt know what was going on, there was little information about the cars, warranty was almost non-existant - a clutch went (started slipping) after a track day in our original Aussie delivered R32GTR when it was 3 months old, and all Nissan could suggest was to learn how to drive the car, and the customer pay for the clutch. Jim Richards came and showed you how to drive your 32 GTR on the track, and if you took it to the track again you had no warranty. Go figure, nothings changed in 20 years. Just drive it for what it is and realise that even with all of the shitty paperwork its still a good car

Not on mine

Cheers Hey Gibbo you are welcome to believe the sales brochure, but its fact that - These high performance race tyres you speak of (run flat RE070 rubbish) delaminate and fall apart at the front after a handful of laps while being seconds slower than a proper road legal semi-slick. The brake pads fracture and fall apart by around your second track day, and the brake rotors are cracked beyond safety by the fourth. At this stage the gearbox will be making serious metal, the front diff oil have totally cooked and need replacing, and the engine require a major service. Welcome to playing with cars on a race track. While this doesnt sit well with the fairies down the bottom of the garden that wrote the sales spiel to suck in customers, these facts are indeed dervied from 6 months of personal GTR ownership and plenty of sessions around Mallala Raceway. My GTR is on its third set of tyres, second set of brake pads, second set of brake discs, has had 4 major services, has an aftermarket transmission cooler in place to protect the box, and has covered a total of 8000km. R35 GTR IS NOT A RACE CAR FOR THE ROAD. Just a bloody fast nice GT/Supercar. Your GTR wouldnt have been built yet let alone be in your garage, so when you play the smart arse quoting car salesmen against actual recorded facts, accept there are those out actually doing it, while you are typing about it. If you calmed down and listened probably a lot more than you do now

You got that right

Well seeing as you probably havent driven anything racier than a keyboard, and obviously never been on a track let me explain..... Race tyres R888 or similar at $2000 a set, decent brake pads at $1200 a set, brake fluid, brake rotors, engine servicing, cost of the day, licence costs, wear and tear on the vehicle.....it doesnt matter if its an R32, R33, or R34 or a Commodore, this is how much track days cost if you want to go quickly. Sure anyone can tootle around in a stock car gettting in everyones way and not wear anything out, but for anyone serious about speed you have to spend money. Sorry to break it to you that racing cars costs money, I know its a shock

You will find the answer simple, take the car on track and you will have No warranty, doesnt matter what services you do or dont have done So whether you fork out for a dealer money maker (inspection) or not wont make any difference to the status of your warranty. Dont let it bother you

Exactly the reason we decided to use an import as the Willall trackday GTR. We cover our own warranty and servicing requirements as most of you would already know. Sure not everyone is in the position to do this, but we didnt want to be held to ranson by a car company that had already made it public that the vehicle would be extremely expensive to maintain at a dealer level if you wanted to keep this very intangible thing known as a warranty. That...and I dont want some apprentice thrashing my car - hence we look after our own. Our Aussie GTR may never see the track and only be subject to normal servicing

I dont know where you get some of your info from Gibbo but GTR was NOT designed for the race track. It happens to be darned good at going around a track but its designed primarily as a street car. It comes with subwoofers, TVs, average comfy seats, road style brakes, and an auto mode to make it drive like a 'normal car'. Track cars come with semi-comp tyres, factory roll cages, light weight etc. Different kettle of fish to R35 (think GT3, Superleggera et al) You will NEVER have warranty on a track with the GTR....or at least if you do Australia will be the first GTR market in the world to offer it

And have all the joys of a 10 year old well worn car with the bonus being it will be worth $50K when it comes time to sell it

Unless you have actually driven an R35, or spent some of your hard earned on one, you really shouldnt post dumb shit like that. Its a lot of fun, and the costs are reasonable. Its a $160,000 performance car not a clapped out 20 year old grey import from Salt Road City. See - FUN

ANY car that gets tracked costs lots of money to maintain, doesnt matter whether its a Lamborghini, Porsche, or GTR. I know the exact costs with all of them, and its not cheap. The only difference is that Nissan want to take a bit of the cherry as well. These cars are fast, but you have to pay, and keep paying. At least the price of admission keeps the idiots out of them, thats something to be thankful for

Who expected this to be any different? To think that there would be any semblence of warranty when the car has been 'tracked' is absolutely absurd. This goes for most any car you buy, not just GTR Here is where Nissan Australia have played out the situation perfectly... They KNOW you have had your car on a track as you took it there for a pre-trackday preparation/service. This will take around 3 - 4 hours and could cost $450 - $500. Thats before you get to thet track Come the 'post-event' service the dealer will plug into 'Flickr' and download the data. Oh the transmission temp has exceeded 125C....time for new gearbox oil. Thats going to be $1400 including labour. Front and rear diff fluids will now be replaced, and the 0w-40 could also do with a change. Add in seven or eight hours of labour and theres the possibility of a $2500 bill. Now add that to the first little lot and there is a possibility that a track day/re-track day excursion could cost around $3000. The data downloaded from Flickr could also then be used to deny warranty coverage at a later date. This warranty on/warranty off thing is the biggest crock I have ever heard. Vehicle 'abuse' ie racing around the track will never be covered... OR Dont tell Nissan, and when they do get the car in for a normal service all the alarms will have gone off in Flickr, and boom no warranty SO Understand that this is a $160,000+ car - not a VN on steelies - and accept that tracking it hard is going to cost you around $200 per lap PLUS the servicing costs associated with it. This is not some figure I have made up, these figures are gained from track work in our own R35GTR. These are not cheap cars to run, and not for the fainthearted that wants to haggle a buck. Understand that you WILL pay through the nose for service, even the dealer delivery fee here in SA is $10,000 (for a wipe over before you pick the car up) as the dealer wants to get back the money Nissan made them spend on the infrastructure for GTR in the first place. FINALLY If you dont have between $5000 - $10000 set aside for servicing costs to run your GTR for a year of enthusiastic use, then you are buying the wrong car. Its as simple as that.

You have been driving too many Commodores for too long Duncan....these things dont fall apart with the same alarming frequency of a Holden and I would be be more than surprised if the factory brake lines ever caused you any trouble We use ENDLESS competition pads in our R35 and at this point in time, and yes the factory discs require replacement. We will be performing our own Brembo Competition rotor conversion, using slotted material, unlike the factory drilled rotors which stress crack severely, particularly with hi-po pads in place. Save for pads/rotors and you will be right. Beware using a $150 set of unknown quality braids. For a start they wouldnt have passed the ADR whip check....

Why anyone would want to change the brake lines on these cars is beyond me, and thats coming from many laps of R35 track work being completed personally. Try driving it for a while Duncan before you put stuff like that on it and potentially ruin it. R35 needs SFA mods to be quick, and this is not one of them

It wont matter if you get rocket scientists to attest that modified Skylines are safe. Its not about the cars, its about the gatherings. Large groups of cars meeting for no particular reason in public car parks, on weekends or after hours, are and always will be considered by SAPOL as nothing more than a public nuisance that congest the roadways and invite unnecessary danger for other road users. One way of breaking these meetings up is to put these cars off the road which is simple as the vast majority of them are illegally or poorly modified. Do not poke the dog with a stick and it wont bite you. 'Cruising' ie. hanging out in dark car parks for no reason = bad for the registration status of your car. They will get you...and if you invite SAPOL to the start point it only means they need less resources and infrastructure to come along and get the defect job done. Regardless of what Neill says, cruisers are looked on as nothing more than trouble makers blocking the roads and driving aimlessly around for no reason...and there is some merit in that as there is very little good that can come out of 'cruising'. If you love your car take it to a track day, go for a drive in the country, do something constructive with it

You got it Cronic...there is NO immunity from breaking the law even if its with illegal car modifications.... It can be learned the easy way - keep out of the way of the traffic police and do your own thing Or the bloody hard way - sit in front of them and cop constant punishment With time comes learning, and eventually those that try here will get sick of the misery that comes with trying to change the world. Its being going on in the SA modified car scene since the 60s, nothings changed, nor is it likely to

Thats how screwed the whole thing is....if you cant be truthful to yourselves ie. some if not ALL SAU members will break the speed limit on a cruise (which is why cruises exist in the first place).....then dont ever expect to pull the wool over the cops eyes either. Remember when you were a little kid and heard Fairytales at bedtime? Ever heard of 'Little Red Riding Hood' - "Oh what big teeth you have Constable Neill" Now put him to the test and show me I am wrong... Make sure you have wireless Broadband so you can post from the waiting room at Regency Park......