March 20, 2014 • 37 mins
Released in Japan in 2007, the Nissan GT-R has quickly become an iconic car for Nissan. But what inspired it, and how does it compare with other supercars? Join Scott and Ben as they continue their in-depth discussion of the Nissan GT-R.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Everyone, welcome
to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin, I'm Ben Boland, and
we want to go ahead and open up the second
part of our Nissan gt R podcast with the briefest
(00:23):
of recaps, which is that this is a listener suggestion
um by several people, I believe, but notably by a
friend of ours on Twitter named DJ blitz Creek who said,
it's been two years since I asked you to do
a Nissan gt R. I have a long long time.
We're sorry about that, but sometimes it just gets shuffled
(00:44):
at the bottom of the list. And thank you for
reminding us. So Um, we talked about a lot of
stuff previously. If you haven't checked out our first podcast
on g t r UM, you don't have to stop
this one and listen to it first, but it would
help to listen to them in order, because we're picking
up right where we left off. Yeah, you'd be missing
a lot of good information because we we got all
(01:05):
the way through um and we're talking. Well, we talked
about a bunch of stuff already, history, different models, Yeah,
a lot of different stuff. The exterior, the interior, some
of the some of the special features that it has,
and and now I think, you know, we've got just
past the performance I guess in this thing. And you
talked about some of the awards, and we talked about performance,
and I think the way we want to pick it
up now maybe is, um, let's talk about it. Since
(01:27):
you were talking about some awards, let's talk about some
of the arenas that this thing competes in. You want
to talk about that. So some of the motorsport aspects
of this whole thing now, um, without going into too
much detail, I mean, the NISSIG and GTR competes or
or has competed in a lot of different series. I
mean there's the Super GT series. Uh, there's the FI
f I A G T GT one World Championship, and
(01:48):
then there's also the GT three Championship, um sec A
World Challenge Series GT Class. Um, well let's see what else. Uh,
Let's Australia's targ Go, Tasmania's it's a big one, the
One Lap of America competition, and then there's a there's
an unusual one there at the very end that I
(02:09):
was kind of surprised to read about Ben which this
is the twenty four Hours of nerber Ring in two
thousand and eleven. I don't know why it was surprised
to me. I just for some reason, that's off my radar.
I just did. I didn't know if there was a
twenty four hours of nerber Ring UM, and as far
as I know, it was running at least in two
thousand eleven. I'm not sure if it's something that's currently
(02:29):
going or not. I'm gonna have to look that up
as we get back to our desks. Yeah, it's also
been in the Red Line Time Attack Modified All wheel
drive competition. We mentioned Targo Tasmania. It's also um repeatedly
one Targo West competition. Right, let's see, it's I'm having
a tough time because it's it's been in so many
(02:51):
It's been in so many competitions. Everyone, it's a great
car to compete in. I mean, it seems to fit
a lot of these different series. You know, of course,
it's a it's it's a sport coop, I guess is
what you call it really, And it's very very strong
vehicles we've talked about in the first edition or first
episode rather, and you know so much goes into building
this car and making it performed not only on the street,
(03:12):
but on the track as well. It's a it's a
natural adaption from a street car to a track car
and this thing. And uh, let's go ahead and talk
about just briefly some cultural impact, a little bit of
Hollywood here, some spoilers. The Nissan gt R is pretty
much a shoe in to be one of the main
(03:33):
characters of Fast and Furious six. Yeah. I'm not saying
that people are not great actors, but let's be honest.
The main draw Fast and Furious is, uh is the vehicles.
And you are our buddy Christian Sager, who works with
us on brain stuff and stuff of genius, you know,
also a car fan, and he is nuts about Fast
(03:56):
and Furious the entire series. Is he really? I didn't
know that. Oh Man talked to him after this podcast
about that. Yeah, asked him about ask him about it.
I definitely will. Yeah, Well, notes to exchange, I'm sure.
So tell you what we've talked about, some of the
motorsports stuff, the awards, all that other stuff. So let's
get back into uh, the car itself. Remember, taking this
from the Nissan website US A website, and so it's
(04:19):
kind of, uh, their version of of you know, listening
all the special features and technology that goes into this.
And technology is coming up next, But I first want
to talk about the special editions that we talked about.
Remember the black edition, the track edition. Yes, one one
note before we move on, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Uh,
the in the two thousand eleven Nurburgreen that we mentioned,
the twenty four hours of Nurburgring. Yes, uh, the car
(04:41):
finished thirty sixth place overall, but it did get a
victory in the sp E T class. That's a big difference.
A victory in one class and thirty thirty six overall.
You know what, that's not terrible because it's probably running
with a lot of different other vehicles prototype vehicles, right, Yeah,
(05:02):
so it's not it's not a it's not necessarily a
super weak performance first ence class though. Well, they did
have some technical glitches. So there were some technical issues,
which are which are fairly common in the twenty four hours,
in any twenty four hour race here to have technical glitches,
even in the best of cars. Really, I mean, it
just happens. So it was the best of cars. It
(05:22):
was the worst of cars. Yeah, but anyway, started interrupted.
Sorry special editions. We're just kind of working through the
list here and we'll get the technology in a minute,
which will be pretty excited about UM. But we talked
about the Black Edition because remember those premium then there's
the Black Edition and then there's the Track Edition. And
the Black Edition UM has the the dry carbon fiber
spoiler that we mentioned, right, and of course that gives it,
(05:44):
you know, a lighter UM I guess, stronger declade to
the whole thing. And it's increases stability because it has
a wing on the back that decreases flex things like that,
so it translates into more down force bet are handling
for the vehicle. And what that is is just instead
of having you know, the composite materials or whatever it is,
you know, instead of having a wet carbon fiber UM spoiler,
(06:05):
this is a dry carbon fiber spoiler and it's lighter,
it's supposedly it's better. I mean it's uh. When you
think about every little bit of weight being saved on
the people like this, I mean it makes a big difference.
So and this is just the spoiler that we're talking about,
not the declade, because that comes up in the Track Edition,
but just a spoiler and it adds stiffness and decreases
(06:26):
flex and all that. It increases stability, you know, so
there's more down force, better handling all that. So you know,
the Black Edition has that as a feature that's worth it.
And then there's a you know, an interior package which
really we don't need to say much more about that.
Then it's like black and red. It's different than the
premium interior. Um, this is the Black Edition, maybe a
little step up I guess in the interior. And then
there's the GTR Track Edition, which you know, it has
(06:49):
all the Black Edition features that I just mentioned, plus um,
you know, extra track tune performance. I guess is a
better way to say it is that it has a
stiffer suspension with specialized um bill Stein damp toronic gas
pressurized shocks, which is, you know, just the fancy way
of saying that. You know, it's a it's a better suspension,
has a higher spring rate, um, just a little better
(07:09):
handling vehicle, I guess all around, probably a little rougher ride,
you know for somebody on the road, but you know
on the track, that makes a big difference. Uh, front
spoiler with carbon fiber air ducts, which is great, which
increases cooling uh to the front brakes, which is important
of course. And it also has refined rear brake cooling
because remember I think we talked about some of the
underbody aerodynamics and the diffuser and all that. Yeah, and
(07:30):
part one we talked about how the undercarriage is built
to push air over and cool the brakes. So not
only the front breaks through these these carbon fiber air ducts,
but also the rear brakes through some of the underbody
duct work and things like that. So the rear brake
and front breaks are cooled, uh, you know. And that's
all based on tech track testing. But it also has
a dry carbon fiber spoiler and the trunklet, so it
(07:53):
has a carbon fiber trunklet, which the other one doesn't have.
The black edition does not have. UM adds to this
of course, as we mentioned, it weighs half as much
as the standard deck liad does UM And of course
it's painted, so you're not going to see the difference
if you're on the on the street or on the track. Rather,
so it doesn't look any different. It has the body
color just as the the other ones would. And now
(08:14):
we're getting into the technology, which this is maybe the
most interesting of all because there's so much going on
in this carbon because you know, as we said, it
doesn't necessarily look like a European supercar, but it has
a lot of supercar features and of course it performs
like a supercar. It is a supercar, Nissan says, it's
the supercar and it and it has so much ability
(08:37):
to adapt and anticipate what the driver is going to
want exactly, and it has this kind of this customized
performance that you can get in this thing. Now. Um,
there's something called the vd C. Ah, yes, Vehicle dynamic control.
Very good. It sounds like you have a little bit
of knowledge about the system, is that right? Uh yeah, okay,
so this is this is an interesting thing I have
(08:59):
more or knowledge about. Maybe I don't want to see controversy.
Maybe a little bit of a wrinkle there, um, but
uh v d C if you do want to just
break down what it is real quick. Sure. Yeah, it's
a it's kind of like their version of stability control,
only the weird thing is that it kind of works
opposite of most stability control systems, which, yeah, it's it's
(09:23):
like it's it's the reverse of most systems, and and
I'll explain that in just a minute. But there's three
different modes, right, yeah, Yeah, there's normal mode, there's Our Mode,
and there's Special Mode. And there should be somebody who
would name most better, but there isn't. And I think
it probably is because you know, they're very very really
it tells you exactly what it is, and they were
(09:44):
too busy building an amazing cars. Yeah, I guess. I mean, okay,
so a normal mode that's just daily driving, it's just
getting around town doing whatever you normally do. Right. Then
there's our mode, which is like the maximum performance mode,
and then there's the Special mode, which is used for
long distance driving. And um, anytime you'd have like slippery conditions,
so you know, it's raining, it's maybe snowing. I don't
(10:04):
know why i'd have your GCR at the snow would
uh So, Yeah, there's the three different modes, and it's
all just a toggle switch that's located, you know, right
in front of uh I guess the shifter. Alright, So, Scott,
you said that this is a bit backwards in comparison
to other stability control. How is that well I can,
I can tell you quickly, I guess and and just
(10:25):
real uh, you know, in a very high level way. UM,
most stability control systems cut power or apply breaks when
they sense a loss of control in a system. Right,
so you're you're losing power when something out of the
ordinary happens. I guess when the vehicle to text that
the wheel slipping whatever. Well, that's fine when you're you know,
on the street and driving around town or something, but
when you're on the track, it's something completely different. You
(10:46):
don't want to lose power. You want it to break
when you don't want it to break. Right, So, while
you're cornering with the the VDC and our mode, which
is you know a lot of people are driving around
in AR mode probably a lot of time most of
the time, I would think, so instead normal mode. Right, Well,
in our mode, the VDC actually sends more power to
the appropriate wheels when it sends it oversteer or understeer.
(11:07):
So you know, it's making an intelligent choice, but it's
sending more power to the wheels that you needed at
instead of reducing power from the ones that it selects.
And in a way that's opposite. I mean I know
that the other ones are just as well, but this
is saying that, you know, we're gonna send more power
to where we think it should go right then back
it down rather than stop you. We're going to direct
(11:28):
the energy in a way that keeps it stable but
also keeps it moving exactly. And this all plays into
launch control, which is what you wanted to talk about. Yes,
I'm chomping at the bit. Okay, So earlier, for everyone
who listened to part one of this podcast, we mentioned
how there was some variants in the numbers that auto
reviewers and even Nissan themselves we're giving out. And it
(11:51):
goes back to a thing that have been called launch control,
which was a little bit dubious at the time. Um
some reviewers, for instance, said, we can get zero to
sixty in the GTR, the production GTR, mind you, as
low as three point two seconds using this launch control,
And people who own the g t rs themselves said, well,
(12:13):
you know, I'm worried about trying out these numbers because
if I try to get this performance, I might avoid
the warranty of my vehicle because it's not supposed to
do this. Yeah. Yeah, so they're worried about you know,
they're not gonna be able to take it back to
the dealer for service when something breaks. So here's what
(12:33):
launch control is. It's the act of turning off the
vd C and launching the car out at RPM. Okay,
now this is not brand new to any car. No, no, no,
it's a lot of old hand. But there are a
lot of cars that that have, um, you know, stability
control of some kind that you're allowed to turn off.
(12:53):
I remember back guy and you're driving Vipers a long
time ago, that you can turn the turn the stability
control off, you know, for for whatever reason, you can
spin the tires whatever you want to do. All this
all this stuff is, you know, turn on or off.
But here's the little secret that they don't want you
to know open. And this wasn't really all that well
publicized even at the time, but it's well known now.
I suppose that when you even when you turn that
(13:15):
stability control off or that you know, that launch system
off or on or whatever, um, a lot of times
that system is still running in the background. It's still
a little bit of control going on there still. Um
it's not quite a placebo effect in many cars, but
it's closed it's still running there. It's it's just, uh,
it lessens the effect of it. So the sure you
(13:35):
can launch and spin the tire, I'm sorry, you can
spin the tires. If you want to turn it off,
you can slide it round a turn. But it's still
it's still kind of controlling the system. It's running. What
they said is in the background at the time. But
then later, you know, they come up with versions where
if you know, you can turn it off this way,
but if you really want to turn it off, you
do this. And there was there was like a little
secret to it, right, and then you had to do something.
(13:57):
You had to you know, stand on your head and
do something else to turn it back on again. You know,
it's not quite so easy, but um, there were ways around. Research.
It's always research, it's always research. That's that's why we're
watching all these YouTube clips of um G t R s.
By the way, we already mentioned this once in our
G t R number one podcast, but I want to
(14:19):
say it again. There's some great footage of the G
t R at the Nurburgring. Yeah, that's right. Was it
Nurburgring lap times or something like that? Nurburgring lap times
dot com and it's listed as number four of all
the all time speed records on Nurburgring, out of the
top one hundred, number number four on the list currently
as of today. And you can watch the full lap.
(14:39):
You can watch the record breaking lap. So it's it's
really some good stuff there. Um Now, at this point, Scott,
I don't know where do you want to go? You
want to talk about aftermarket? Yeah, we could do a
little bit of that's more tech. I got a little
bit more tech and then and then uh, in the
in the realm of safety, and I like to talk
about aftermarket because there's amazing aftermarket stuff that's going on
with this specifically one vehicle. And then I've got kind
(15:01):
of a I don't know, I guess the user based
issue with the g t R, which I think a
lot of people will find interesting because you know, there's
generally rave reviews about this thing everywhere. No one really
speaks ill of the g t R, but I found
a forum where there's some problems and and we'll get
to its very small part of the whole thing. But
as far as safety goes, they kind of break it
(15:22):
down into three different parts. On the on the website,
and they call it the safety shield, I suppose, and
the three three different areas they break it down into
our are like monitoring, responding, and then protecting. And under
the monitoring, they have things like the rear view monitor,
which is a rear view camera which you can you
know obviously check around a hundred review when you're parking
(15:44):
things like that. There's automatic on and ife headlights, which
you know is not really all that unusual for other vehicles.
Entire pressure monitoring system which is again standard on a
lot of different vehicles now right, and there's there's monitoring
in the software side of the vehicle to exactly. Yeah,
so that's part of the respond um section of the
safety shield is you know, you mentioned the electronic traction
(16:06):
Control system or TCS and the Advanced Vehicle Dynamic Control
which we talked about, which is like the stability control
really it's VDC. UM. There's also of course a B
S and there's electronic brakeforce distribution, which you know helps
prevent wheel lock up and things like that, and you
know as far as the way the brakeforce compensates, you know,
front to rear, that type of thing, um. Okay, and
(16:27):
then there's the protect angle on this thing. Um Neeson
has an Advanced air Bag System or a a BS
is what they call it, and it's, you know, just
a dual space stage supplemental front air bag system with
with seat belt sensors and occupant classification sensors and things
like that. It's again relatively standard. But what's what's different
is that, you know, this one also has supplemental air
(16:48):
bags and it has a latch system. Now, the supplemental
um air bag system I'm talking about these are like
side curtain air bags and then some of that are
mounted in the seats as well, and then it has
a latch system which I just mentioned, which is like
the kids see, so I guess if you want to
buckle a kid seat in the back, you can do that.
And the last thing maybe that I want to mention
about that is that I read somewhere that the air
(17:08):
bags actually have their safety bolts you can put onto
the air bags so that someone can't come in and
steal them, which I had never seen from any other
manufacturer anywhere, and I'm sure that it's probably offered somewhere else.
But it's kind of like, you know, how you have
h um, locking lug nuts or the wheel locks that
you can put on your wheels. It has kind of
like that that key that you have to use more
and get them off. The same type of thing only
(17:30):
for the air bag bolts so that someone can't get
in your car and steal your air bags. I have
this picture of airbag thieves just roaming the streets and
there are those. That's the that's the crazy thing is
that there really are airbag thieves out there. Wow, what
what do they What do they use airbags for? While
they sell them for big money? Oh? I guess that
makes sense because you have to replace an air bag
(17:52):
every time you get in an accident. It's very dangerous
to do it. But yeah, they make a lot of
money on you know, stuff like that. There's got to
be a YouTube video of airbag that's gone wrong where
somebody pops it. Yeah. Um, all right, so where are
we at? What do you want to do? How about this?
I'd like to talk about this aftermarket two and just
just one example that I really want to point out
(18:12):
here to show what people are doing with this car
because uh, you know, as we talked about the Nismo
version that you know they take out to the track
and run at the nerve ring. I mean it chops.
What was it? It seems like a chopped like thirty
seconds off the previous time or something like that. Yeah,
it went from like seven thirties something to seven oh eight. Amazing,
seven thirty six or such difference in that in the times.
(18:33):
And there's there's even crazier versions out there, as you
can imagine, because after market tooners get ahold of this
and they're not so worried about having their their manufacturers
warrant avoided. Right, they don't care, not at all. So
there's a company called a MS Performance and they're based
in West Chicago, Illinois, and they set record power levels
and performance numbers for They are thirty five g t R,
which is when we're talking about now. They have something
(18:54):
called the Alpha Omega gt R which puts down something
like seventeen hundred to seventeen fifty wheel horse power. Now
wheel horse power, if you don't know, wheel horse power
is that's how much horse power is actually at the wheels.
It's not actually the ground. Yeah, that's not you know,
some number that then later gets diminished, you know, when
it goes through torque, well through the through the transmission,
(19:16):
through the axles and all that. It's it's actually horse
power to the wheels. Fifty horse power. Wow, that's wild.
What are they what are they using to get that? Well,
you know, I don't know. If I don't think I
have any stats on the engine, I'm sorry, but I
mean incredible power out of this thing. Zero zero to
sixty times get this one point seven seconds, zero to
(19:39):
sixty one point seven seconds. And it's a big car.
It's not a it's not a lightweight either. I mean
I think the standard one weighs something like thirty eight
hundred pounds, so it's not extremely light. It's it's relatively
light for what it is. Really. But um and some
other numbers. If you're interested in standing half mile, so
you know, dead stop to a half mile, two hundred
(20:00):
and fourteen miles per hour, that's how fast this thing
can get going um in just a half a mile, holy,
which is ridiculously fast. Six Okay, we talked about zero
to sixty and one point seven seconds right now, from
sixty to one hundred and thirty miles per hour, which
is another significant step up here. Three seconds is all
it takes to go from sixty to one hundred and
thirty one thirty, So it's zero to one thirty then
(20:25):
is like what or four point seven seconds? So still
under five seconds zero? Yeah, so um, zero to one
hundred is four point four seconds and zero to two
hundred miles per hour bend, So this thing will thisten
goes obviously goes faster because you know the half miles
standing time zero to two hundred miles per hour eleven
(20:46):
point eight seven seconds, So, I mean, geez, there are
a lot of cars out there that want to zero
to sixty and eleven point sex I mean or close
to it, you know, and this guy the car going
zero to two hundred miles per hour in that time.
And uh, they're not the only they're not the only
aftermarket tuner up. But that's at version. I think that's
(21:09):
the fastest g t R aftermarket tuning. That's the one
that's the fastest I've ever heard of. Yeah, we know that.
There are some other companies, of course, they're numerous other
companies that are working with this vehicle as a starting point. Uh. Notably,
a company called equ Tech was the first company to
(21:30):
change the shift points on the g t R inside
the transmission control module or tcm UM. This allows the
driver to this kind of hacks that launch control capability,
so it allows the driver to adjust it on the fly. Um.
And then there's another company called Cobb Tuning c O
(21:54):
B b UM. They were the first company to kind
of hack into the encrypted e CU UM of the
of the g t R right, and this allows anybody
too with the know how to reprogram the engine and
UH transmission control units with off the shelf or custom mapp. Well, well, well,
(22:19):
it's interesting that you mentioned the e CU BEN because
that plays into the very last thing that I want
to wrap up this whole podcast with, Unless you have
something else you'd like to only, I would like to
ask our super producer Noll for some dramatic intro music.
All right, So here's here's what I did. I went online,
(22:41):
you know, looking at all these different reviews of this
car and reading a lot about it, you know, trying
to find out everything I could. It seems like everybody
had really really good things to say about this car.
Across the board. Everybody was really happy. I mean, it's
a it's a relatively low dollar car, and I know
that now it's it's it's above, it's crested the one
dollar mark. It prior to that, you know, the first
(23:02):
release of this thing back in two thousand and seven.
I want to say, Ben that this thing was released
somewhere in the high eighties, thousand something like that, maybe
even a little bit lower in some places. I don't know.
But I thought, how am I ever going to find
anything bad about this top? Everybody loves it? And I
thought there's got to be something, you know, that somebody's
(23:24):
saying bad about it. And it's not that I was
really you know, like you know, hell bent on finding
something bad about it. But I thought, well, there's got
to be some negative side of it, the whole picture. Yeah,
because this car has been around now for about eight years,
this version of this iteration of it. You're right. So
I was thinking, like, how am I going to find this?
So I searched. I searched. G t R sucks. You
(23:45):
ever do that, you ever searched a product? And you're
right the way it sucks at the end. And see
what happens, because because here's what you get. Then you
get somebody who's angry on a forum somewhere writing about something.
It's always a forum. It's always a forum, and that's
exactly what I found. But I look at this and
when I edit, I couldn't believe it. Ben, this is something.
This is beyond just like I'm having a little warranty
(24:05):
issue because you know, they wouldn't take the breaks back
after you know, they burned out after four thousand miles
or whatever. Okay, so this is something. This is something
completely different. It comes from a forum that has been
around since like two thousand nine, and it's called well,
the whole forum is older than that, but this, this
comment comes from. Then, it's something from a site called
for the Central dot com as f o r z
(24:26):
a central dot com, And there's a commenter there. He
goes by the name Krispy Rice, and uh, here's what
he says about his his gt R and he's trying
to warn other GTR owners about this, so they don't
have the same issue really, all right, So here's the problem,
and it's a big one. It says I had and
I'll read a little bit. It says I had a
low speed crash into the back of a white van recently.
(24:49):
It was a badly serviced road and we were stopped,
pulled away and the person in front of the van
stopped for no reason, causing the van to stop and
tap the toebar the car in front of me, and
then sympathy, I did the same thing to the van.
So you know, that's a polite way of saying, like,
we had a very slow speed three car accident and
someone wait, you know, two cars up stopped. We we
all just kind of touched bumpers right well in touching
(25:12):
that bumper. Um, he's saying that, you know, there there
was something that happened. And he says, I'm posting here
to make sure that no one makes the same mistake
I did. I think it's important to other GTR owners
to see that, UM, to see this so they're not
stung by what they call what he calls a careless
accident and and a GTR tax. He says, a GTR
tax gets a little interesting after this. What's going on
(25:33):
all right? He says, he bumped into the white van
Tobar and it caused the small crack and his bumper
and I can show bend the picture of it here,
but it's just it's literally it's like a hairline crack.
I don't even I don't even know if you'd call
it a crack, it's like it just it just tapped.
It's like it depressed it a tiny bit something you
wouldn't even really need to go into the shop to fix.
I mean, it's that small. It's very very minor um
(25:55):
it says. Unfortunately, it also set off something called the
pedestrian safety system, where the bonnet pops up. And I
had no idea that it had this the pedestrian safety.
The bonnet pops up, which is a one use system,
and you need to replace the bumper, the rams behind
the bumper, the bonnet hinges which you know, the front
(26:15):
hood hidden, and of course the E c U which
which you know who would ever have guessed? But I'm
gonna show Ben here. That's the pedestrian safety. So if
you hit a pedestrian with the front of your GTR,
what happens is, you know, the front bumper senses something
has been struck. It depresses those the sensors, and behind
(26:36):
the bumper it pops up the hood. Um, I guess
at the edge of the windshield. Yeah, it pops up.
This is very interesting. It pops up the hood right
behind the windshield wipers. Yes, and kind of an angle,
so that if the pedestrian were to continue to roll
over the car, which sounds horrific, I know, but the
pedestrian will continue to roll over, they would go over
the top of the vehicle and behind the vehicle instead
(26:58):
of being trapped on the windshielding. That's probably the best
way I can describe it. So it's almost like the
hood makes a ramp to get the pedestrians off of
the car. Really, Um, that's a that's a interesting but
little known but it says now great pedestrian safety system.
But when he says, of course the e c U,
I mean, my gosh, so you know, and these hinges
are one time used. So he says, when the accident happened,
(27:20):
I called the dealer and asked him to collect the
car because you know, he can't drive it. At this point,
the hint the hood has popped up to where he
can't really see it. Says that I just pay for
it out of my own pocket without putting it through
any of this, you know, insurance claims or any of that. Right,
make it easy, and says, then I found out the
total cost of the repairs. Care to wager a guess
on what this costs? Now it's in pounds. I can
(27:43):
tell you the pounds and the US dollar equivalent in
two thousand nine. Okay, I took off my glasses and
that's very serious. Uh, let's see, I'm gonna go with
can I do dollar? Okay, I'll go with um, two
thousand dollars? Two thousand U S. Dollars is your US right?
That is my guess. Right with all that, we have
to replace everything. Okay, the pounds amount is eleven thousand
(28:07):
pounds and this is in two thousand nine, and this
equates to likeeen thousand, eighteen thousand U S. Dollars And
I wasn't even thinking and it took five weeks to
do the repair. Now, the whole thing that I guess
the biggest deal with this is that you know those
hinges aren't replaceable. You gotta I mean sorry, not reusable.
(28:29):
You have to replace them. The bumper um, the push
in the rams, I guess are also something you have
to completely replace, so they've become consumed. They did the
cosmetic repair on the bumper, that's understood. At least fix that. Yeah, exactly,
there was really no dent really, I mean said that.
But the E C U E CU had to be replaced.
It couldn't be it couldn't be simply flash like what
(28:50):
you would think. So I don't understand that, And that's
part of what this whole, this whole thing was, Like,
why am I paying eighteen thousand dollars because I bumped
into a card and extremely slow speed eat and really
there was no one harm, no no injury. It was
so so slow. You know, everybody's had something like this
happened before. Usually you just look at the bumper and say, well,
(29:10):
no harm, no foul, Let's move on, Because why why
even fill out a police report? It's that minor what
I'm looking at in these photos. But eighteen thousand U S.
Dollars or eleven thousand pounds in two thousand nine, now
the pedestrian safety system, I guess when this when this
pops now, eighteen thousand dollars at that time equates to
about of the cost of the entire vehicle if you
(29:31):
think about it that way. I mean, I knew I
was low balling with two thousand dollars, but I had
no idea. If you're figuring that the car was eighty
thousand dollars in two thousand and eight, seven nine whenever
this is like of the cost of the entire vehicle.
So what what the whole point of this post was
is like, Okay, so Nissans offering a product that that's
(29:52):
really great, it's really you know, a fantastic vehicle, and
it's really low cost. But then when something goes wrong
and you bring act the dealer to have it repaired
because you know you want to have it repaired under warranty,
they really really gouge you for the price on this stuff.
Now I'm just going buy this older This is an
older post. I don't know how they've fixed this or
if they have fixed it in any way. Did other
(30:13):
people run into the problem? Oh, there were other people
that wrote in as well, and there were other issues
as well on that on that forum. So so they're saying, okay,
here's and a lot of people are saying, I hate
after this A long podcast A great card is. A
lot of people were saying, I wouldn't buy that car,
even even though it's so tempting the price that it is,
even though it's eighty thousand dollars at the time or
(30:35):
eighty eight thousand um and now it's up the hundred
and one, I wouldn't buy it, even though it's so tempting.
That's something that I want so badly, but I know
that if anything goes wrong with it, I'm gonna be paying,
you know, again, tens of thousands of dollars for repairs
that should be something that can be a simple, simple
fixing for a couple of thousand dollars. Yes, so the
cost of ownership then is secretly much larger. And the
(30:58):
other main point about this thing was some were on
there saying, well, you know, eight what's eighteen thousand dollars?
You must have a lot of money anyways to buy
a Nissan gt R, and you there's a lot of
big stuff talking, right. The thing is, if you look
at proportionately, now, I understand that, yeah, you're doing pretty well.
If you're gonna be buying a car like GTR, probably
you're gonna have a lot of money in the bank.
That's why I understand that. But when you're talking about
(31:21):
of the total cost of any car for a simple
repair like that, it doesn't matter what it is. I mean,
look at it. You know, if you're repairing your forward focus,
you know, for for I don't know, eight or nine
thousand dollars for something like this. It's a minor, minor
traffic bump, where if you've got a Lamborghini, you know
that you're paying uh, you know, seventy thousand dollars for
something like this. It's all proportional, so you know, for
(31:43):
one simple repair, completely outrageous. And I have to say
I agree. And this is the most negative thing that
I found about the g t R was that, you know,
these these people in the forums were talking back about
UM just these outlandish repair costs and I and I
see what unerstand with this eight dollar reset. Yeah, I
totally get that. I do want to say though, that
(32:05):
part of it is UM is priority. It seems like
the main error is that the vehicle kind of differentiate
between UM swapping paint and hitting a pedestrian. But on
the other hand, if someone is driving and for some
reason does collide with the pedestrian, would this keep the
(32:26):
person alive? Well, but see, let's say that the same
vehicle struck a bike that the pedestrian or not pedestrian
but a biker was was on, okay, like a motorcycle, Yeah, no,
a motorcycle or a bicycle, bicycle. I could see the
same type of thing because it hit was like the
the toe hook, right or something like that, something very minor,
but it was a solid metal object and it just
(32:46):
punched it. Now, if if it hit a like the
fork of a bicycle or something like that, it would
do the exact same thing, and of course there's a
rider on that and then they would be happy that. Yeah,
of course you know the pedestrian safety system worked and
that you know it it elevated the hood at the
back end, and you know it allowed the writer to
roll over as it should instead of going under the vehicle,
which is the you know, the other situation. You don't
(33:08):
want that, Well, what if? What if? Okay, let's think
of some other situations, because what if you are parking
and you're in a tight parking deck and you pull
up a little too far. But my question is how
much pressure does it take to activate this system? Well,
he said, a low speed crash where you know, three
people came together. Now, so they're probably I would think
(33:31):
much lesser than that. I would guess this is a
five mile per hour things because you know somebody we're
talking about somebody who who started to pull out, stopped
and then somebody who like the second car pulled out
and didn't see that they had stopped, so they hit
them and then them he also went and tapped them.
So like that's how the three car accident happened. There's
probably only a few feet to get any kind of
uh if you want to call it, that speed between
(33:53):
good starting to stop. So it's going to be a
very very low speed impact. Here's what I'm asking, um,
because one thing that other me is an owner of
a GTR knowing this is knowing that if somebody wanted
to really screw up my day, they could walk by
with just with like just a hammer. Really, what have
(34:13):
you done? You just just given him the secret. Oh
that's o't do it, No, don't do it. That's okay.
I'm just saying no, it's not really a secret, I guess.
But but man, you're right, and in any vehicle that
has something like this, really, um, it could be uh
you know, you walk by any strike the front bumper
with a hammer, You're right, and it would activate and
that would ruin somebody's uh somebody's day. I mean it
(34:35):
could a lot of people. They could ruin a lot
more than their day. But you know, what I mean, honestly,
who would Hopefully nobody's doing stuff like that. I mean,
you can ruin anybody's day with a hammer in their
car any day, if you know what. That's true. It
doesn't need high technology. No, no, I mean there's there
goes the windshield. So so understandably, so these people are
upset about something like this and having to reset, completely
(34:58):
reset a system that should be a pretty simple thing,
and other manufacturers can flash through ec U s for
stuff like this. I don't know why this particular vehicle
requires a brand new e c U. Yeah, that's an
interesting question. That's something I want to dig deeper on
to see if we can get a good concrete answer
for that, because they should be able to flash. That's
what my guts telling me. I completely get the one
(35:19):
use hinges and things like that. Well that makes sense, Yeah,
I understand that. That's that's what happens, even seatbelt pretensioners
and things like you know, once once they fire, you
have to replace them. And I get that, and every
vehicle has them now, just like airbags. Yeah, exactly, so
that makes sense. But let's see if we can find
out what's going on with that e c U and
I am going to say, although that is a tremendously
negative thing, it's a very big con. Yeah, I still
(35:42):
think the pros outweigh the cons on a g t R. Again.
I mean, we talked for well over an hour and
probably an hour and a half now about this vehicle,
and there was so much positive about it. And I
would think that, you know, here we are in maybe
they've already resolved that whole thing with a pedestrian safety
system and you know what it what it does, and
what it requires once it's activated. So maybe maybe they
(36:02):
fixed it and they can flash DC you Now. I
don't know, but that's an older post. I find it interesting.
I thought I would include it. I am excited for
the two thousand fifteen am to this. This thing is
nuts there there Um, there have been photos floating around
for a while that we're quote unquote leaked photos. Um.
I I just can't wait to see what they do.
(36:24):
And yeah, exactly, Yeah that's the one I want to see.
That's pretty much the only one for me too. But
thank you guys so much for listening. We hope that
you enjoyed our two part episode on the Nissan gt R.
Like Hinz ketchup. It was slow in coming, but worth
it when it arrived hopefully. Yeah, and it was just
(36:45):
a boy again. As we always say, there's so much
more of this car that it. So this is a
high level coverage of this vehicle for sure, because I
would love to go into the history of the Skyline,
GTR and all that, but that might be a different podcast.
Maybe we can't, Maybe we can't. Um So, before our
buddies at tech stuff raised the villagers to form a
(37:06):
mob and get us out of the studio, we are
going to leave of our own accord off to another
podcast adventure. Let us know what you think, Let us
know if you have a Nissan gt R experience. Show
us photos of course if you got them, we love that.
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. You can
drop us uh, you can drop by our website car
(37:26):
stuff Show dot com, and you can always suggest a
topic that we should cover in our next show. Uh,
you know, Scott and regular guys who can write to
us directly our email addresses discovery dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics is how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
(37:47):
an email to podcast at how Stuff works dot com,
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Everyone, welcome
to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin, I'm Ben Boland, and
we want to go ahead and open up the second
part of our Nissan gt R podcast with the briefest
(00:23):
of recaps, which is that this is a listener suggestion
um by several people, I believe, but notably by a
friend of ours on Twitter named DJ blitz Creek who said,
it's been two years since I asked you to do
a Nissan gt R. I have a long long time.
We're sorry about that, but sometimes it just gets shuffled
(00:44):
at the bottom of the list. And thank you for
reminding us. So Um, we talked about a lot of
stuff previously. If you haven't checked out our first podcast
on g t r UM, you don't have to stop
this one and listen to it first, but it would
help to listen to them in order, because we're picking
up right where we left off. Yeah, you'd be missing
a lot of good information because we we got all
(01:05):
the way through um and we're talking. Well, we talked
about a bunch of stuff already, history, different models, Yeah,
a lot of different stuff. The exterior, the interior, some
of the some of the special features that it has,
and and now I think, you know, we've got just
past the performance I guess in this thing. And you
talked about some of the awards, and we talked about performance,
and I think the way we want to pick it
up now maybe is, um, let's talk about it. Since
(01:27):
you were talking about some awards, let's talk about some
of the arenas that this thing competes in. You want
to talk about that. So some of the motorsport aspects
of this whole thing now, um, without going into too
much detail, I mean, the NISSIG and GTR competes or
or has competed in a lot of different series. I
mean there's the Super GT series. Uh, there's the FI
f I A G T GT one World Championship, and
(01:48):
then there's also the GT three Championship, um sec A
World Challenge Series GT Class. Um, well let's see what else. Uh,
Let's Australia's targ Go, Tasmania's it's a big one, the
One Lap of America competition, and then there's a there's
an unusual one there at the very end that I
(02:09):
was kind of surprised to read about Ben which this
is the twenty four Hours of nerber Ring in two
thousand and eleven. I don't know why it was surprised
to me. I just for some reason, that's off my radar.
I just did. I didn't know if there was a
twenty four hours of nerber Ring UM, and as far
as I know, it was running at least in two
thousand eleven. I'm not sure if it's something that's currently
(02:29):
going or not. I'm gonna have to look that up
as we get back to our desks. Yeah, it's also
been in the Red Line Time Attack Modified All wheel
drive competition. We mentioned Targo Tasmania. It's also um repeatedly
one Targo West competition. Right, let's see, it's I'm having
a tough time because it's it's been in so many
(02:51):
It's been in so many competitions. Everyone, it's a great
car to compete in. I mean, it seems to fit
a lot of these different series. You know, of course,
it's a it's it's a sport coop, I guess is
what you call it really, And it's very very strong
vehicles we've talked about in the first edition or first
episode rather, and you know so much goes into building
this car and making it performed not only on the street,
(03:12):
but on the track as well. It's a it's a
natural adaption from a street car to a track car
and this thing. And uh, let's go ahead and talk
about just briefly some cultural impact, a little bit of
Hollywood here, some spoilers. The Nissan gt R is pretty
much a shoe in to be one of the main
(03:33):
characters of Fast and Furious six. Yeah. I'm not saying
that people are not great actors, but let's be honest.
The main draw Fast and Furious is, uh is the vehicles.
And you are our buddy Christian Sager, who works with
us on brain stuff and stuff of genius, you know,
also a car fan, and he is nuts about Fast
(03:56):
and Furious the entire series. Is he really? I didn't
know that. Oh Man talked to him after this podcast
about that. Yeah, asked him about ask him about it.
I definitely will. Yeah, Well, notes to exchange, I'm sure.
So tell you what we've talked about, some of the
motorsports stuff, the awards, all that other stuff. So let's
get back into uh, the car itself. Remember, taking this
from the Nissan website US A website, and so it's
(04:19):
kind of, uh, their version of of you know, listening
all the special features and technology that goes into this.
And technology is coming up next, But I first want
to talk about the special editions that we talked about.
Remember the black edition, the track edition. Yes, one one
note before we move on, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Uh,
the in the two thousand eleven Nurburgreen that we mentioned,
the twenty four hours of Nurburgring. Yes, uh, the car
(04:41):
finished thirty sixth place overall, but it did get a
victory in the sp E T class. That's a big difference.
A victory in one class and thirty thirty six overall.
You know what, that's not terrible because it's probably running
with a lot of different other vehicles prototype vehicles, right, Yeah,
(05:02):
so it's not it's not a it's not necessarily a
super weak performance first ence class though. Well, they did
have some technical glitches. So there were some technical issues,
which are which are fairly common in the twenty four hours,
in any twenty four hour race here to have technical glitches,
even in the best of cars. Really, I mean, it
just happens. So it was the best of cars. It
(05:22):
was the worst of cars. Yeah, but anyway, started interrupted.
Sorry special editions. We're just kind of working through the
list here and we'll get the technology in a minute,
which will be pretty excited about UM. But we talked
about the Black Edition because remember those premium then there's
the Black Edition and then there's the Track Edition. And
the Black Edition UM has the the dry carbon fiber
spoiler that we mentioned, right, and of course that gives it,
(05:44):
you know, a lighter UM I guess, stronger declade to
the whole thing. And it's increases stability because it has
a wing on the back that decreases flex things like that,
so it translates into more down force bet are handling
for the vehicle. And what that is is just instead
of having you know, the composite materials or whatever it is,
you know, instead of having a wet carbon fiber UM spoiler,
(06:05):
this is a dry carbon fiber spoiler and it's lighter,
it's supposedly it's better. I mean it's uh. When you
think about every little bit of weight being saved on
the people like this, I mean it makes a big difference.
So and this is just the spoiler that we're talking about,
not the declade, because that comes up in the Track Edition,
but just a spoiler and it adds stiffness and decreases
(06:26):
flex and all that. It increases stability, you know, so
there's more down force, better handling all that. So you know,
the Black Edition has that as a feature that's worth it.
And then there's a you know, an interior package which
really we don't need to say much more about that.
Then it's like black and red. It's different than the
premium interior. Um, this is the Black Edition, maybe a
little step up I guess in the interior. And then
there's the GTR Track Edition, which you know, it has
(06:49):
all the Black Edition features that I just mentioned, plus um,
you know, extra track tune performance. I guess is a
better way to say it is that it has a
stiffer suspension with specialized um bill Stein damp toronic gas
pressurized shocks, which is, you know, just the fancy way
of saying that. You know, it's a it's a better suspension,
has a higher spring rate, um, just a little better
(07:09):
handling vehicle, I guess all around, probably a little rougher ride,
you know for somebody on the road, but you know
on the track, that makes a big difference. Uh, front
spoiler with carbon fiber air ducts, which is great, which
increases cooling uh to the front brakes, which is important
of course. And it also has refined rear brake cooling
because remember I think we talked about some of the
underbody aerodynamics and the diffuser and all that. Yeah, and
(07:30):
part one we talked about how the undercarriage is built
to push air over and cool the brakes. So not
only the front breaks through these these carbon fiber air ducts,
but also the rear brakes through some of the underbody
duct work and things like that. So the rear brake
and front breaks are cooled, uh, you know. And that's
all based on tech track testing. But it also has
a dry carbon fiber spoiler and the trunklet, so it
(07:53):
has a carbon fiber trunklet, which the other one doesn't have.
The black edition does not have. UM adds to this
of course, as we mentioned, it weighs half as much
as the standard deck liad does UM And of course
it's painted, so you're not going to see the difference
if you're on the on the street or on the track. Rather,
so it doesn't look any different. It has the body
color just as the the other ones would. And now
(08:14):
we're getting into the technology, which this is maybe the
most interesting of all because there's so much going on
in this carbon because you know, as we said, it
doesn't necessarily look like a European supercar, but it has
a lot of supercar features and of course it performs
like a supercar. It is a supercar, Nissan says, it's
the supercar and it and it has so much ability
(08:37):
to adapt and anticipate what the driver is going to
want exactly, and it has this kind of this customized
performance that you can get in this thing. Now. Um,
there's something called the vd C. Ah, yes, Vehicle dynamic control.
Very good. It sounds like you have a little bit
of knowledge about the system, is that right? Uh yeah, okay,
so this is this is an interesting thing I have
(08:59):
more or knowledge about. Maybe I don't want to see controversy.
Maybe a little bit of a wrinkle there, um, but
uh v d C if you do want to just
break down what it is real quick. Sure. Yeah, it's
a it's kind of like their version of stability control,
only the weird thing is that it kind of works
opposite of most stability control systems, which, yeah, it's it's
(09:23):
like it's it's the reverse of most systems, and and
I'll explain that in just a minute. But there's three
different modes, right, yeah, Yeah, there's normal mode, there's Our Mode,
and there's Special Mode. And there should be somebody who
would name most better, but there isn't. And I think
it probably is because you know, they're very very really
it tells you exactly what it is, and they were
(09:44):
too busy building an amazing cars. Yeah, I guess. I mean, okay,
so a normal mode that's just daily driving, it's just
getting around town doing whatever you normally do. Right. Then
there's our mode, which is like the maximum performance mode,
and then there's the Special mode, which is used for
long distance driving. And um, anytime you'd have like slippery conditions,
so you know, it's raining, it's maybe snowing. I don't
(10:04):
know why i'd have your GCR at the snow would
uh So, Yeah, there's the three different modes, and it's
all just a toggle switch that's located, you know, right
in front of uh I guess the shifter. Alright, So, Scott,
you said that this is a bit backwards in comparison
to other stability control. How is that well I can,
I can tell you quickly, I guess and and just
(10:25):
real uh, you know, in a very high level way. UM,
most stability control systems cut power or apply breaks when
they sense a loss of control in a system. Right,
so you're you're losing power when something out of the
ordinary happens. I guess when the vehicle to text that
the wheel slipping whatever. Well, that's fine when you're you know,
on the street and driving around town or something, but
when you're on the track, it's something completely different. You
(10:46):
don't want to lose power. You want it to break
when you don't want it to break. Right, So, while
you're cornering with the the VDC and our mode, which
is you know a lot of people are driving around
in AR mode probably a lot of time most of
the time, I would think, so instead normal mode. Right, Well,
in our mode, the VDC actually sends more power to
the appropriate wheels when it sends it oversteer or understeer.
(11:07):
So you know, it's making an intelligent choice, but it's
sending more power to the wheels that you needed at
instead of reducing power from the ones that it selects.
And in a way that's opposite. I mean I know
that the other ones are just as well, but this
is saying that, you know, we're gonna send more power
to where we think it should go right then back
it down rather than stop you. We're going to direct
(11:28):
the energy in a way that keeps it stable but
also keeps it moving exactly. And this all plays into
launch control, which is what you wanted to talk about. Yes,
I'm chomping at the bit. Okay, So earlier, for everyone
who listened to part one of this podcast, we mentioned
how there was some variants in the numbers that auto
reviewers and even Nissan themselves we're giving out. And it
(11:51):
goes back to a thing that have been called launch control,
which was a little bit dubious at the time. Um
some reviewers, for instance, said, we can get zero to
sixty in the GTR, the production GTR, mind you, as
low as three point two seconds using this launch control,
And people who own the g t rs themselves said, well,
(12:13):
you know, I'm worried about trying out these numbers because
if I try to get this performance, I might avoid
the warranty of my vehicle because it's not supposed to
do this. Yeah. Yeah, so they're worried about you know,
they're not gonna be able to take it back to
the dealer for service when something breaks. So here's what
(12:33):
launch control is. It's the act of turning off the
vd C and launching the car out at RPM. Okay,
now this is not brand new to any car. No, no, no,
it's a lot of old hand. But there are a
lot of cars that that have, um, you know, stability
control of some kind that you're allowed to turn off.
(12:53):
I remember back guy and you're driving Vipers a long
time ago, that you can turn the turn the stability
control off, you know, for for whatever reason, you can
spin the tires whatever you want to do. All this
all this stuff is, you know, turn on or off.
But here's the little secret that they don't want you
to know open. And this wasn't really all that well
publicized even at the time, but it's well known now.
I suppose that when you even when you turn that
(13:15):
stability control off or that you know, that launch system
off or on or whatever, um, a lot of times
that system is still running in the background. It's still
a little bit of control going on there still. Um
it's not quite a placebo effect in many cars, but
it's closed it's still running there. It's it's just, uh,
it lessens the effect of it. So the sure you
(13:35):
can launch and spin the tire, I'm sorry, you can
spin the tires. If you want to turn it off,
you can slide it round a turn. But it's still
it's still kind of controlling the system. It's running. What
they said is in the background at the time. But
then later, you know, they come up with versions where
if you know, you can turn it off this way,
but if you really want to turn it off, you
do this. And there was there was like a little
secret to it, right, and then you had to do something.
(13:57):
You had to you know, stand on your head and
do something else to turn it back on again. You know,
it's not quite so easy, but um, there were ways around. Research.
It's always research, it's always research. That's that's why we're
watching all these YouTube clips of um G t R s.
By the way, we already mentioned this once in our
G t R number one podcast, but I want to
(14:19):
say it again. There's some great footage of the G
t R at the Nurburgring. Yeah, that's right. Was it
Nurburgring lap times or something like that? Nurburgring lap times
dot com and it's listed as number four of all
the all time speed records on Nurburgring, out of the
top one hundred, number number four on the list currently
as of today. And you can watch the full lap.
(14:39):
You can watch the record breaking lap. So it's it's
really some good stuff there. Um Now, at this point, Scott,
I don't know where do you want to go? You
want to talk about aftermarket? Yeah, we could do a
little bit of that's more tech. I got a little
bit more tech and then and then uh, in the
in the realm of safety, and I like to talk
about aftermarket because there's amazing aftermarket stuff that's going on
with this specifically one vehicle. And then I've got kind
(15:01):
of a I don't know, I guess the user based
issue with the g t R, which I think a
lot of people will find interesting because you know, there's
generally rave reviews about this thing everywhere. No one really
speaks ill of the g t R, but I found
a forum where there's some problems and and we'll get
to its very small part of the whole thing. But
as far as safety goes, they kind of break it
(15:22):
down into three different parts. On the on the website,
and they call it the safety shield, I suppose, and
the three three different areas they break it down into
our are like monitoring, responding, and then protecting. And under
the monitoring, they have things like the rear view monitor,
which is a rear view camera which you can you
know obviously check around a hundred review when you're parking
(15:44):
things like that. There's automatic on and ife headlights, which
you know is not really all that unusual for other vehicles.
Entire pressure monitoring system which is again standard on a
lot of different vehicles now right, and there's there's monitoring
in the software side of the vehicle to exactly. Yeah,
so that's part of the respond um section of the
safety shield is you know, you mentioned the electronic traction
(16:06):
Control system or TCS and the Advanced Vehicle Dynamic Control
which we talked about, which is like the stability control
really it's VDC. UM. There's also of course a B
S and there's electronic brakeforce distribution, which you know helps
prevent wheel lock up and things like that, and you
know as far as the way the brakeforce compensates, you know,
front to rear, that type of thing, um. Okay, and
(16:27):
then there's the protect angle on this thing. Um Neeson
has an Advanced air Bag System or a a BS
is what they call it, and it's, you know, just
a dual space stage supplemental front air bag system with
with seat belt sensors and occupant classification sensors and things
like that. It's again relatively standard. But what's what's different
is that, you know, this one also has supplemental air
(16:48):
bags and it has a latch system. Now, the supplemental
um air bag system I'm talking about these are like
side curtain air bags and then some of that are
mounted in the seats as well, and then it has
a latch system which I just mentioned, which is like
the kids see, so I guess if you want to
buckle a kid seat in the back, you can do that.
And the last thing maybe that I want to mention
about that is that I read somewhere that the air
(17:08):
bags actually have their safety bolts you can put onto
the air bags so that someone can't come in and
steal them, which I had never seen from any other
manufacturer anywhere, and I'm sure that it's probably offered somewhere else.
But it's kind of like, you know, how you have
h um, locking lug nuts or the wheel locks that
you can put on your wheels. It has kind of
like that that key that you have to use more
and get them off. The same type of thing only
(17:30):
for the air bag bolts so that someone can't get
in your car and steal your air bags. I have
this picture of airbag thieves just roaming the streets and
there are those. That's the that's the crazy thing is
that there really are airbag thieves out there. Wow, what
what do they What do they use airbags for? While
they sell them for big money? Oh? I guess that
makes sense because you have to replace an air bag
(17:52):
every time you get in an accident. It's very dangerous
to do it. But yeah, they make a lot of
money on you know, stuff like that. There's got to
be a YouTube video of airbag that's gone wrong where
somebody pops it. Yeah. Um, all right, so where are
we at? What do you want to do? How about this?
I'd like to talk about this aftermarket two and just
just one example that I really want to point out
(18:12):
here to show what people are doing with this car
because uh, you know, as we talked about the Nismo
version that you know they take out to the track
and run at the nerve ring. I mean it chops.
What was it? It seems like a chopped like thirty
seconds off the previous time or something like that. Yeah,
it went from like seven thirties something to seven oh eight. Amazing,
seven thirty six or such difference in that in the times.
(18:33):
And there's there's even crazier versions out there, as you
can imagine, because after market tooners get ahold of this
and they're not so worried about having their their manufacturers
warrant avoided. Right, they don't care, not at all. So
there's a company called a MS Performance and they're based
in West Chicago, Illinois, and they set record power levels
and performance numbers for They are thirty five g t R,
which is when we're talking about now. They have something
(18:54):
called the Alpha Omega gt R which puts down something
like seventeen hundred to seventeen fifty wheel horse power. Now
wheel horse power, if you don't know, wheel horse power
is that's how much horse power is actually at the wheels.
It's not actually the ground. Yeah, that's not you know,
some number that then later gets diminished, you know, when
it goes through torque, well through the through the transmission,
(19:16):
through the axles and all that. It's it's actually horse
power to the wheels. Fifty horse power. Wow, that's wild.
What are they what are they using to get that? Well,
you know, I don't know. If I don't think I
have any stats on the engine, I'm sorry, but I
mean incredible power out of this thing. Zero zero to
sixty times get this one point seven seconds, zero to
(19:39):
sixty one point seven seconds. And it's a big car.
It's not a it's not a lightweight either. I mean
I think the standard one weighs something like thirty eight
hundred pounds, so it's not extremely light. It's it's relatively
light for what it is. Really. But um and some
other numbers. If you're interested in standing half mile, so
you know, dead stop to a half mile, two hundred
(20:00):
and fourteen miles per hour, that's how fast this thing
can get going um in just a half a mile, holy,
which is ridiculously fast. Six Okay, we talked about zero
to sixty and one point seven seconds right now, from
sixty to one hundred and thirty miles per hour, which
is another significant step up here. Three seconds is all
it takes to go from sixty to one hundred and
thirty one thirty, So it's zero to one thirty then
(20:25):
is like what or four point seven seconds? So still
under five seconds zero? Yeah, so um, zero to one
hundred is four point four seconds and zero to two
hundred miles per hour bend, So this thing will thisten
goes obviously goes faster because you know the half miles
standing time zero to two hundred miles per hour eleven
(20:46):
point eight seven seconds, So, I mean, geez, there are
a lot of cars out there that want to zero
to sixty and eleven point sex I mean or close
to it, you know, and this guy the car going
zero to two hundred miles per hour in that time.
And uh, they're not the only they're not the only
aftermarket tuner up. But that's at version. I think that's
(21:09):
the fastest g t R aftermarket tuning. That's the one
that's the fastest I've ever heard of. Yeah, we know that.
There are some other companies, of course, they're numerous other
companies that are working with this vehicle as a starting point. Uh. Notably,
a company called equ Tech was the first company to
(21:30):
change the shift points on the g t R inside
the transmission control module or tcm UM. This allows the
driver to this kind of hacks that launch control capability,
so it allows the driver to adjust it on the fly. Um.
And then there's another company called Cobb Tuning c O
(21:54):
B b UM. They were the first company to kind
of hack into the encrypted e CU UM of the
of the g t R right, and this allows anybody
too with the know how to reprogram the engine and
UH transmission control units with off the shelf or custom mapp. Well, well, well,
(22:19):
it's interesting that you mentioned the e CU BEN because
that plays into the very last thing that I want
to wrap up this whole podcast with, Unless you have
something else you'd like to only, I would like to
ask our super producer Noll for some dramatic intro music.
All right, So here's here's what I did. I went online,
(22:41):
you know, looking at all these different reviews of this
car and reading a lot about it, you know, trying
to find out everything I could. It seems like everybody
had really really good things to say about this car.
Across the board. Everybody was really happy. I mean, it's
a it's a relatively low dollar car, and I know
that now it's it's it's above, it's crested the one
dollar mark. It prior to that, you know, the first
(23:02):
release of this thing back in two thousand and seven.
I want to say, Ben that this thing was released
somewhere in the high eighties, thousand something like that, maybe
even a little bit lower in some places. I don't know.
But I thought, how am I ever going to find
anything bad about this top? Everybody loves it? And I
thought there's got to be something, you know, that somebody's
(23:24):
saying bad about it. And it's not that I was
really you know, like you know, hell bent on finding
something bad about it. But I thought, well, there's got
to be some negative side of it, the whole picture. Yeah,
because this car has been around now for about eight years,
this version of this iteration of it. You're right. So
I was thinking, like, how am I going to find this?
So I searched. I searched. G t R sucks. You
(23:45):
ever do that, you ever searched a product? And you're
right the way it sucks at the end. And see
what happens, because because here's what you get. Then you
get somebody who's angry on a forum somewhere writing about something.
It's always a forum. It's always a forum, and that's
exactly what I found. But I look at this and
when I edit, I couldn't believe it. Ben, this is something.
This is beyond just like I'm having a little warranty
(24:05):
issue because you know, they wouldn't take the breaks back
after you know, they burned out after four thousand miles
or whatever. Okay, so this is something. This is something
completely different. It comes from a forum that has been
around since like two thousand nine, and it's called well,
the whole forum is older than that, but this, this
comment comes from. Then, it's something from a site called
for the Central dot com as f o r z
(24:26):
a central dot com, And there's a commenter there. He
goes by the name Krispy Rice, and uh, here's what
he says about his his gt R and he's trying
to warn other GTR owners about this, so they don't
have the same issue really, all right, So here's the problem,
and it's a big one. It says I had and
I'll read a little bit. It says I had a
low speed crash into the back of a white van recently.
(24:49):
It was a badly serviced road and we were stopped,
pulled away and the person in front of the van
stopped for no reason, causing the van to stop and
tap the toebar the car in front of me, and
then sympathy, I did the same thing to the van.
So you know, that's a polite way of saying, like,
we had a very slow speed three car accident and
someone wait, you know, two cars up stopped. We we
all just kind of touched bumpers right well in touching
(25:12):
that bumper. Um, he's saying that, you know, there there
was something that happened. And he says, I'm posting here
to make sure that no one makes the same mistake
I did. I think it's important to other GTR owners
to see that, UM, to see this so they're not
stung by what they call what he calls a careless
accident and and a GTR tax. He says, a GTR
tax gets a little interesting after this. What's going on
(25:33):
all right? He says, he bumped into the white van
Tobar and it caused the small crack and his bumper
and I can show bend the picture of it here,
but it's just it's literally it's like a hairline crack.
I don't even I don't even know if you'd call
it a crack, it's like it just it just tapped.
It's like it depressed it a tiny bit something you
wouldn't even really need to go into the shop to fix.
I mean, it's that small. It's very very minor um
(25:55):
it says. Unfortunately, it also set off something called the
pedestrian safety system, where the bonnet pops up. And I
had no idea that it had this the pedestrian safety.
The bonnet pops up, which is a one use system,
and you need to replace the bumper, the rams behind
the bumper, the bonnet hinges which you know, the front
(26:15):
hood hidden, and of course the E c U which
which you know who would ever have guessed? But I'm
gonna show Ben here. That's the pedestrian safety. So if
you hit a pedestrian with the front of your GTR,
what happens is, you know, the front bumper senses something
has been struck. It depresses those the sensors, and behind
(26:36):
the bumper it pops up the hood. Um, I guess
at the edge of the windshield. Yeah, it pops up.
This is very interesting. It pops up the hood right
behind the windshield wipers. Yes, and kind of an angle,
so that if the pedestrian were to continue to roll
over the car, which sounds horrific, I know, but the
pedestrian will continue to roll over, they would go over
the top of the vehicle and behind the vehicle instead
(26:58):
of being trapped on the windshielding. That's probably the best
way I can describe it. So it's almost like the
hood makes a ramp to get the pedestrians off of
the car. Really, Um, that's a that's a interesting but
little known but it says now great pedestrian safety system.
But when he says, of course the e c U,
I mean, my gosh, so you know, and these hinges
are one time used. So he says, when the accident happened,
(27:20):
I called the dealer and asked him to collect the
car because you know, he can't drive it. At this point,
the hint the hood has popped up to where he
can't really see it. Says that I just pay for
it out of my own pocket without putting it through
any of this, you know, insurance claims or any of that. Right,
make it easy, and says, then I found out the
total cost of the repairs. Care to wager a guess
on what this costs? Now it's in pounds. I can
(27:43):
tell you the pounds and the US dollar equivalent in
two thousand nine. Okay, I took off my glasses and
that's very serious. Uh, let's see, I'm gonna go with
can I do dollar? Okay, I'll go with um, two
thousand dollars? Two thousand U S. Dollars is your US right?
That is my guess. Right with all that, we have
to replace everything. Okay, the pounds amount is eleven thousand
(28:07):
pounds and this is in two thousand nine, and this
equates to likeeen thousand, eighteen thousand U S. Dollars And
I wasn't even thinking and it took five weeks to
do the repair. Now, the whole thing that I guess
the biggest deal with this is that you know those
hinges aren't replaceable. You gotta I mean sorry, not reusable.
(28:29):
You have to replace them. The bumper um, the push
in the rams, I guess are also something you have
to completely replace, so they've become consumed. They did the
cosmetic repair on the bumper, that's understood. At least fix that. Yeah, exactly,
there was really no dent really, I mean said that.
But the E C U E CU had to be replaced.
It couldn't be it couldn't be simply flash like what
(28:50):
you would think. So I don't understand that, And that's
part of what this whole, this whole thing was, Like,
why am I paying eighteen thousand dollars because I bumped
into a card and extremely slow speed eat and really
there was no one harm, no no injury. It was
so so slow. You know, everybody's had something like this
happened before. Usually you just look at the bumper and say, well,
(29:10):
no harm, no foul, Let's move on, Because why why
even fill out a police report? It's that minor what
I'm looking at in these photos. But eighteen thousand U S.
Dollars or eleven thousand pounds in two thousand nine, now
the pedestrian safety system, I guess when this when this
pops now, eighteen thousand dollars at that time equates to
about of the cost of the entire vehicle if you
(29:31):
think about it that way. I mean, I knew I
was low balling with two thousand dollars, but I had
no idea. If you're figuring that the car was eighty
thousand dollars in two thousand and eight, seven nine whenever
this is like of the cost of the entire vehicle.
So what what the whole point of this post was
is like, Okay, so Nissans offering a product that that's
(29:52):
really great, it's really you know, a fantastic vehicle, and
it's really low cost. But then when something goes wrong
and you bring act the dealer to have it repaired
because you know you want to have it repaired under warranty,
they really really gouge you for the price on this stuff.
Now I'm just going buy this older This is an
older post. I don't know how they've fixed this or
if they have fixed it in any way. Did other
(30:13):
people run into the problem? Oh, there were other people
that wrote in as well, and there were other issues
as well on that on that forum. So so they're saying, okay,
here's and a lot of people are saying, I hate
after this A long podcast A great card is. A
lot of people were saying, I wouldn't buy that car,
even even though it's so tempting the price that it is,
even though it's eighty thousand dollars at the time or
(30:35):
eighty eight thousand um and now it's up the hundred
and one, I wouldn't buy it, even though it's so tempting.
That's something that I want so badly, but I know
that if anything goes wrong with it, I'm gonna be paying,
you know, again, tens of thousands of dollars for repairs
that should be something that can be a simple, simple
fixing for a couple of thousand dollars. Yes, so the
cost of ownership then is secretly much larger. And the
(30:58):
other main point about this thing was some were on
there saying, well, you know, eight what's eighteen thousand dollars?
You must have a lot of money anyways to buy
a Nissan gt R, and you there's a lot of
big stuff talking, right. The thing is, if you look
at proportionately, now, I understand that, yeah, you're doing pretty well.
If you're gonna be buying a car like GTR, probably
you're gonna have a lot of money in the bank.
That's why I understand that. But when you're talking about
(31:21):
of the total cost of any car for a simple
repair like that, it doesn't matter what it is. I mean,
look at it. You know, if you're repairing your forward focus,
you know, for for I don't know, eight or nine
thousand dollars for something like this. It's a minor, minor
traffic bump, where if you've got a Lamborghini, you know
that you're paying uh, you know, seventy thousand dollars for
something like this. It's all proportional, so you know, for
(31:43):
one simple repair, completely outrageous. And I have to say
I agree. And this is the most negative thing that
I found about the g t R was that, you know,
these these people in the forums were talking back about
UM just these outlandish repair costs and I and I
see what unerstand with this eight dollar reset. Yeah, I
totally get that. I do want to say though, that
(32:05):
part of it is UM is priority. It seems like
the main error is that the vehicle kind of differentiate
between UM swapping paint and hitting a pedestrian. But on
the other hand, if someone is driving and for some
reason does collide with the pedestrian, would this keep the
(32:26):
person alive? Well, but see, let's say that the same
vehicle struck a bike that the pedestrian or not pedestrian
but a biker was was on, okay, like a motorcycle, Yeah, no,
a motorcycle or a bicycle, bicycle. I could see the
same type of thing because it hit was like the
the toe hook, right or something like that, something very minor,
but it was a solid metal object and it just
(32:46):
punched it. Now, if if it hit a like the
fork of a bicycle or something like that, it would
do the exact same thing, and of course there's a
rider on that and then they would be happy that. Yeah,
of course you know the pedestrian safety system worked and
that you know it it elevated the hood at the
back end, and you know it allowed the writer to
roll over as it should instead of going under the vehicle,
which is the you know, the other situation. You don't
(33:08):
want that, Well, what if? What if? Okay, let's think
of some other situations, because what if you are parking
and you're in a tight parking deck and you pull
up a little too far. But my question is how
much pressure does it take to activate this system? Well,
he said, a low speed crash where you know, three
people came together. Now, so they're probably I would think
(33:31):
much lesser than that. I would guess this is a
five mile per hour things because you know somebody we're
talking about somebody who who started to pull out, stopped
and then somebody who like the second car pulled out
and didn't see that they had stopped, so they hit
them and then them he also went and tapped them.
So like that's how the three car accident happened. There's
probably only a few feet to get any kind of
uh if you want to call it, that speed between
(33:53):
good starting to stop. So it's going to be a
very very low speed impact. Here's what I'm asking, um,
because one thing that other me is an owner of
a GTR knowing this is knowing that if somebody wanted
to really screw up my day, they could walk by
with just with like just a hammer. Really, what have
(34:13):
you done? You just just given him the secret. Oh
that's o't do it, No, don't do it. That's okay.
I'm just saying no, it's not really a secret, I guess.
But but man, you're right, and in any vehicle that
has something like this, really, um, it could be uh
you know, you walk by any strike the front bumper
with a hammer, You're right, and it would activate and
that would ruin somebody's uh somebody's day. I mean it
(34:35):
could a lot of people. They could ruin a lot
more than their day. But you know, what I mean, honestly,
who would Hopefully nobody's doing stuff like that. I mean,
you can ruin anybody's day with a hammer in their
car any day, if you know what. That's true. It
doesn't need high technology. No, no, I mean there's there
goes the windshield. So so understandably, so these people are
upset about something like this and having to reset, completely
(34:58):
reset a system that should be a pretty simple thing,
and other manufacturers can flash through ec U s for
stuff like this. I don't know why this particular vehicle
requires a brand new e c U. Yeah, that's an
interesting question. That's something I want to dig deeper on
to see if we can get a good concrete answer
for that, because they should be able to flash. That's
what my guts telling me. I completely get the one
(35:19):
use hinges and things like that. Well that makes sense, Yeah,
I understand that. That's that's what happens, even seatbelt pretensioners
and things like you know, once once they fire, you
have to replace them. And I get that, and every
vehicle has them now, just like airbags. Yeah, exactly, so
that makes sense. But let's see if we can find
out what's going on with that e c U and
I am going to say, although that is a tremendously
negative thing, it's a very big con. Yeah, I still
(35:42):
think the pros outweigh the cons on a g t R. Again.
I mean, we talked for well over an hour and
probably an hour and a half now about this vehicle,
and there was so much positive about it. And I
would think that, you know, here we are in maybe
they've already resolved that whole thing with a pedestrian safety
system and you know what it what it does, and
what it requires once it's activated. So maybe maybe they
(36:02):
fixed it and they can flash DC you Now. I
don't know, but that's an older post. I find it interesting.
I thought I would include it. I am excited for
the two thousand fifteen am to this. This thing is
nuts there there Um, there have been photos floating around
for a while that we're quote unquote leaked photos. Um.
I I just can't wait to see what they do.
(36:24):
And yeah, exactly, Yeah that's the one I want to see.
That's pretty much the only one for me too. But
thank you guys so much for listening. We hope that
you enjoyed our two part episode on the Nissan gt R.
Like Hinz ketchup. It was slow in coming, but worth
it when it arrived hopefully. Yeah, and it was just
(36:45):
a boy again. As we always say, there's so much
more of this car that it. So this is a
high level coverage of this vehicle for sure, because I
would love to go into the history of the Skyline,
GTR and all that, but that might be a different podcast.
Maybe we can't, Maybe we can't. Um So, before our
buddies at tech stuff raised the villagers to form a
(37:06):
mob and get us out of the studio, we are
going to leave of our own accord off to another
podcast adventure. Let us know what you think, Let us
know if you have a Nissan gt R experience. Show
us photos of course if you got them, we love that.
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. You can
drop us uh, you can drop by our website car
(37:26):
stuff Show dot com, and you can always suggest a
topic that we should cover in our next show. Uh,
you know, Scott and regular guys who can write to
us directly our email addresses discovery dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics is how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
(37:47):
an email to podcast at how Stuff works dot com,
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