Hi, all.

Joined the forum today, after we recently bought a nice low-mileage G for my wife. She had her sights on a new G37, but with no deals available on the new model, we decided a nice used G35 would be a nice stop-gap, and perhaps we'll trade up to that G37 in a year or two.

We picked up a 2004 G35 Sport Coupe Leather 6MT, with Aero, 18" wheels, and Bose. 18,000 miles on the clock, and it still looks like new inside and out. It's a Certified Used car, and still has six months' factory warranty remaining, so one of my objectives is to find out all the little things that we should be sure get addressed while Infiniti's still footing the bill!

The first thing that I'd like to run past you all is the clutch. We've both had many and varied manual transmission cars before now, and we've never felt a clutch quite like this. My wife test-drove it first, and summed it up as "the clutch feels 'gritty'."

From a more technical viewpoint, the "grittiness" appears to be transmission or engine vibration being felt through the pedal. It's most noticeable when accelerating away from a halt, and when changing into 2nd. It's still noticeable, though to a lesser extent, shifting up to third. It's all but absent in higher gears, and it's completely absent when coasting or decelerating. At times, when it's particularly noticeable, it seems as though one can almost hear an accompanying buzz from somewhere down around the transmission tunnel.

My initial thought was a bad throwout bearing, but that would be noticeable under all conditions, not just under load in low gears. My current suspicion is that perhaps the engine is moving on its mounts under high torque, to the point where something is touching and allowing drivetrain vibrations to be transmitted to the pedal.

We took it back to the dealership this week and had their shop foreman drive it, but he pronounced that he couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary. He implied that we should expect a certain degree of harshness from a "race-inspired" transmission.

Well, I've driven a good number of cars, including dedicated race cars, and I've never felt a clutch like that, so I'd like to hear from you if you think this is "normal".

So I welcome any and all suggestions, along with any other pointers for things to look out for before the warranty's up.

Cheers!

You seem to know a little bit about cars. Did you test drive others to see if there's a difference?

LOL, y'know, we never did. The wife fell in love with this one straight away, the deal was good, so we never got around to trying others. Guess I should go find a couple to test-drive around town.

well here's the deal man... if it is something with the clutch...

Infiniti considers the clutch a "wear" item. This includes the throwout bearing. It is not convered under warranty. I have gone through this.

The G35 clutch is kinda akward I think but once you get used to it, it will be ok for ya or your wife.

I am not familiar with the other scenarios you're describing. Another thing is if you have peculiar noises like this and take it to the dealer, they really wont give a sheeet. If they dont hear it right away, they won't try to do anything more from a research perspective.

^^^^ i got my throwout bearing replaced under warranty...

jetkins thats the G clutch for ya....

Welcome to G53Driver.