7 Reasons Why Owning A Nissan Skyline Sucks
1. You live in someone else's shadow
When you own a GT, GTT, GTS or GTST, you are always being compared to the GTR… and not in a good way:
“It doesn’t have the RB26DETT”. “It’s not a real Skyline”. “Where is the turbo?”.
And if you do own a GT-R, you probably hear:
“It’s not pushing 1000HP like on YouTube”.
There are many varieties of Skylines out there, around half of which are naturally-aspirated. Some have as little as 94HP thanks to the measly RB20E single cam, while others break the 1000HP mark with the custom-built RB30DET.
2. Awesome car! Oh, it's auto... walk away
Car enthusiasts vs the world: as much as we all would love a Skyline to be manual, sadly many are automatic, or just as bad, tiptronic. This should, theoretically, drive the price of the vehicle down if it’s an auto, but instead has driven the price of manuals up.
However, you can still have fun with an auto. See the little marks at the back of the gear lever that say D4, D3 and 2? Those will lock your car into one of those gears so you can enjoy bouncing off the rev limiter and stretching the gears for all they’re worth.
If you still don’t like the idea of not stomping a clutch into every gear, you can convert your Skyline to a manual. It requires a little bit of labour; the hard part is finding all the parts needed for the conversion.
3. Finally, a manual
You sit in the driver’s seat that hugs you like it should. You turn on the engine and give it a rev. It smoothly shifts into first gear then you take off. At 20kmh you push it into second and crunch!
Yep, that’s the gearbox for you! Notoriously crunching into 2nd and 3rd gears while the rest all shift smoothly. Or do they? Then you notice that you have the clutch pushed all the way in, but it grinds loudly when you try to put it in reverse.
That’s the 25DET gearbox for you. Pulled straight out of a low-mileage M-Spec and it still crunches.
4. Parts, parts everywhere, but not a single one fits
I know, that’s a bit exaggerated, and it applies to nearly every car out there. But we always seem to find out the hard way.
Before any of you go out buying that set of coilovers from your friend’s neighbour’s cousin’s Skyline, just remember that there are four-wheel-drive Skylines. There are four-wheel-steering skylines. There are new models and there are old models. There are new series of the same car, and old series. Facelift, pre-facelift. Skylines, Stageas, Laurels and Cefiros. And then there is the worst of them all: the GT-R.
And the parts you want aren’t interchangeable. The 4WD has a different gearbox. The R34 is shorter. The 4WS has different suspension. The turbo skylines have different brakes. And nothing from the GT-R fits anything else.
5. Everyone knows more than you do
Or so they think. Whether they’re just a fan or an RFB mechanic, everyone is full of advice that is not always helpful. “All Skyline’s have the RB26DETT”. Says the kid in the parking lot. “You can fit these parts on your car”. But they came from a GT-R. “That turbo bolts right in”. With a bit of welding, a $400 intercooler, $500 injectors and a $150 fuel pump. And you run the risk of blowing your once naturally-aspirated engine. Great idea!
6. Unwanted attention
From both sides of the law. In my country, Skylines are probably the single most stolen cars. Stolen by chop-shops for their parts, stolen by teens who want to skid something around at night, stolen by criminals to use in other crimes.
Also, most Skyline owners I talk to tell me they get stopped by the police just because they drive a Skyline. But why Skylines? they are a cheap way of going fast and are easy to skid. Also, there are laws against un-certified modifications. So if you drive a Skyline that looks lowered, be prepared to be pulled over.
7. That's not a Skyline
Sold under Infiniti as the G35 in certain countries, the Nissan V35 is in fact a Skyline. It was meant to be the successor to the R34, but it failed to do so despite having a faster motor and all the technology you would expect from its predecessors. The long front, the circle tail-lights and the racing lines along the body from the previous versions were all done away with.
Instead the world was given a car that could easily be mixed up with the Nissan Maxima and Teana. Maybe it was the un-aggressive looks, the end of the Nissan straight-six, the way it seemed to target families as a luxury car the way Lexus had done, or maybe a combination of all, but this is the car that ended the Skyline lineage.
This content was originally posted by a Car Throttle user on our Community platform and was not commissioned or created by the CT editorial team.
Comments
With the new Infiniti models they picked up the ball and brought back the aggressive look though. Although I’m not sure if they count as the skyline still.
Yeah they do Infiniti took the Skyline name (from Nissan) and used it on the G35, 37, Q50, and upcoming Q60.
The new Infiniti Models are officially Skylines.
The Q50 is the V37 Skyline, for example.
http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/8/5/9/7/6/2/webimg/770638695_o.jpg
Its always been skylines, its just that Nissan decided to call it infiniti and give it much more confusing model names outside of their country because fck logic.
I’m just asking to check my random knowledge but isn’t the Eau Rogue, R35 powered?
I got smth. to add to the parts part. There are plenty of tuning parts on the internet and if you search long enough you’ll find some which fit, but you will never ever get them fit legally without paying 1000€ for an own inspection.
You can just let Nissan to the work for you.
“But Skyline broh.
But Godzilla, bruh.
tsusususu bruuuh!!”
This is just bitter stupid!!
Only one valid point on this post. The rest was just made up stuff. Yeah, they get stole, and that sucks but having a Skyline, any Skyline is an achievement. So what if it’s not a 1000hp R-34 GT-R. A 230bhp GTS-T is just as good if not better. For less than 1/5th of the price you getthe Skyline name, the Skyline interior, the car of your dreams sitting on your driveway every day for you to look at and enjoy. And if you get people hating on it (which you’ll get no matter what car you drive) you ignore them because it’s your Skyline. It’s an Auto GT-T? So what? What are you driving? This was a long comment but I had to say it. There is only 1 reason why owning a Skyline sucks.
Sounds like you haven’t owned one. My skylines have all been awesome cars, but they aren’t perfect. My R31’s AFM died and it misfired with a replacement. I didn’t want to pay for a tune, and get the rust fixed and windscreen replaced so I sold it. Then my R33 busted it’s steering rack. It sat at the mechanic’s for a week before they found a replacement. But it was the best car I’d owned.
What’s up with all the “[insert number here] reasons why [insert car name here] sucks” lately?
Trying to make fanboys mad
It’s a cop-out from coming up with a real title like “GTR ownership is not all what it seems to be”
same could be said for all (semi)-rare japanese cars. Got the same remarks in my wrx…”you should make it do 500hp at the wheels” and blow up the standard gearbox “why don’t you just fit a bigger turbo?” ye easy, after buying an aftermarket ecu, fron’t mount, tune and sti gearbox…easy peasy “why didn’t you buy the STI?” because they cost three times as much! etc etc
I used to hate on WRXs back in high school, because they aren’t STi’s (Very immature of me, I know). But now that I realize how expensive life is, WRX is awesome cheaper alternative to an STi.
You’re right they do suck, lucky for you I volunteer to take it off your hands.
Let’s not kid ourselves. A right R34 is some of the most beautiful things brought into this world.
All of these are wrong. I drive an R34 GTT.
I don’t live in the shadow of anything. I get little kids laughing or thumbs up in traffic just as often. I don’t know where other Skyline owners are hanging up but where I live, most car meets consist of Seats and Skodas. Coming up with a 90s Japanese sportscar is always special, no matter if it’s an 1.8 S13 or a 2.8 Z-Tune.
Car people hate automatics. Why would you buy a Skyline with an auto? If you really like Skylines and want to use it as a daily, I don’t see why you shouldn’t buy a 4 door GT but don’t expect to get street cred. So it’s not the cars fault but yours if you expect it to give you that.
My car is bone stock and from 98 and shifts smooth af through ALL gears.
Yeah, it’s can be tricky to get parts but it doesn’t have to be. I went straight to a regular Nissan dealership and now they organize the parts from me, should I ever need some because so far the car has been bullittproof.
5.I’ve yet to encounter such professionals. Your fault if you take Skyline-advice from Renault drivers.
I don’t know how different the laws are over in Britain, but here in Germany the police rarely stopps you for the car because they don’t have the know-how. They know exactly how VAG engines work and can spot illegal mods, they’re trained for tat. But Skylines? Hell, why is the steering wheel on the wrong side? Gtfo.
The Skyline had many types from it’s birth as a Prince way before Nissan existed till today. It just didn’t make sense for Nissan to build the Skyline the way it used to be. Don’t forget that Skylines are old-people cars in Japan. GTS-T/GTTs and GT-Rs are hardcore versions but the core cars were competitors to cars like the Audi A4 or the BMW 3-Series. So when Nissan had to launch a successor to the Skyline family that were average four doors and coupes, they decided that the 350Z V6 was a more efficient choice. Sportscar fans got the GT-R which was not a Skyline anymore, understandably. The point is: Yeah, your Infinity is called Skyline, but it’s not a ~Skyline~. Just as a 3 Series is not an M3.
The fact the OP mentioned RFB mechanics I’m going to assume he’s from New Zealand.
Are Skyline’s quite common there? They are here, and every boy racer with a licence (and without) owns a Skyline, or RB powered vehicle (Laurel / Cefiro) and OP’s points are pretty spot on.
There’s local facebook groups with 1000’s of members, for example, one is called RBWEST half of which have people with RFB (R F**N’ B) as their middle name.. and surprise surprise, there’s misinformation after misinformation on basically anything.. the amount of people with huge turbos and standard ecus misfiring away is unbeliavable.
OP’s post about cops is 100% spot on, and nope, the cops don’t have a clue what they’re looking at.. there’s literally TV footage of an NZ cop fining someone with a carby Honda Civic for having a screamer pipe.. (external wastegate vented to atmosphere) and boy oh boy do they love pulling up us Skyline owners.
Regarding the Skyline namesake on the later model V6 V chassis cars, over here they’re literally Nissan Skylines, not a similarity in succession, they literally have a badge that reads Skyline on the back of them.
I got mine in auto, non-turbo for $2850. Spent $2500 on parts to convert to a manual (25DET box, stage 3 clutch, sammy plate, pedals, master-slave etc) and I hear all the time about gear crunches from Laurel and Skyline owners that I meet (and my brother who had a BMW E36 with an RB20DET).
Nissan dealership is like a last resort since you can get half price parts off the FB pages and online shops (who will tell you that the NEO is the same as the non-NEO, but has a smaller head + VVTi). And I could have compared the 1.5L GA30 of the PMC Skyline Deluxe to the RB26DETT, but why not go to the VQ35DD which is then comparing apples to oranges. Different family of motors. And the Infiniti. Really? SMH. Made in Japan as Skyline, sold for Japanese market as Skyline. Rebadge and sell in U.S as G35 or G37. And there is a 4-door of every skyline since the Prince Motor Co. so it’s not purely racecar.