So... college, '01-'05. Loved the 350Z and G35 that I saw on the streets of Austin, TX. Always wanted a Skyline in high school, but obviously I was just a youngling back then, so it was just all fantasy. Now I'm a big boy and am thinking about the G35 more seriously.

I'm looking at a 2006 G35X AWD with 90000 miles, Nissan dealer is asking for 10k. I haven't taken the car to my mechanic yet, but I test drove it - and a 2012 G37X w/ 58000 miles for 20k.

Dealer salesmonkey rode with me in both cars. The G37X had pretty noticeable wobbling when I would brake at any speed. Of course salesmonkey says "I don't feel anything." Yeah bro, of course you don't. Trying to make dat sale, right? I'm in sales too, not cars, but I know ALL about "overcoming objections". But this was ridiculous, denial ain't just a river in Egypt, son. Shadesville with an extra helping of shade trees.

So the 2006 G35X braking was smooth, acceleration was smooth, everything felt right with it... Carfax was relatively clean, haven't done an autocheck yet to cross reference. Looking at the carfax and the dealer serviced the rear rotors and brakes, balanced the wheels. I took some pics of the back rotor for reference, and then the two front ones, which look... really just terrible. But it felt fine. Well, braking felt "soft" whereas when I pressed the brake on the 2012 G37X the pedal had a lot more resistance. 2006 G35X pedal felt like no resistance at all when pressing it - though the car stopped appropriately. Don't know if this means anything.

At any rate, how would you pros work the dealer guy down on price? And what should I tell my very trusted mechanic to look for when I bring it in to him?

My dealer said that "company policy is that you can't take the car to your mechanic." Seems shady... but he said "you can bring your mechanic here." Like, yeah, I'm gonna take my guy 30 minutes from his shop, 1 hour round trip, to look at a car at someone else's service shop. Does this sound right to any of you, or should I just run? LOL.

I pressed the salesmonkey to let me take the car to my guy, he eventually said *wink wink "if you take it on a test drive I can't tell you where you can and can't go" so he implicitly said I can take it to my guy.

I'm attaching pictures of the front garbage rotors and one of the back ones that look nice and clean for reference. Other than that everything looks all right to me, but yeah, just trying to get a sense of how people work the sales monkeys down on price, and what to tell my dude to look for.

As a side note, I can pay for this car in cash, but let's say I do 2-5k down and tell them they can finance me the rest, would that help the dude shave off some bucks from the top line cost? My credit is like 785 so I don't see them being shy about extending me any amount of credit. A local Honda dealership basically said I'm approved for any car I want, so I'm guessing it would be the same story for this other dealership. I would propose "I will do X amount down and you can charge me any rate you like if you shave off 500-1000 off the top" - and then simply pay it all off immediately and wave the finger at them.

Well, that's it, that's the story, any thoughts/commentary is much appreciated for my first post. Just trying to get on the G train here. But want to do it right.

 

Rotor hat is paintable, no issue there. As for the car, I'll look when I get home tl;dr.

 

i didnt read any of this. but no matter what you pay, they paid less.

you will never win over a dealer no matter how cheap you get. the best thing you can do is never take the "bottom dollar" they will take that same day. let them call you back a day or two later.

 

It's not going to make any difference. Finance the car if you can get 0-3% interest, but I wouldn't use that as a strategy to lower the sale cost.

BTW, the rotor hats are rusty. That's gonna happen to any unpainted rotor. Lots of aftermarkets come with the centers painted to avoid that. A can of paint will take care of that. The rotor surfact (from what we can see from pics) looks good. No major gouges ot grooves from what I can see.


Oh and $10K is very high. I would figure more like $7-8K would be a reasonable number.

I have an '06x as well. Fully loaded, with Navi and very clean. A couple years ago when I had 110K miles on the car, I almost traded it in. Dealer offered $5.5K on trade in.