Hey guys/gals! I've been looking for the past year for a G35. I sold all my fun cars about 5 years ago.

I have been watching a 2005 G35 coupe, black on tan (yuck), M6, Navigation, 19s, etc. that has been for sale at the Nissan dealership near the city. The price dropped big time over the last month and I decided to pull the trigger.

Price is now $14998! Car only has 54k on it. But here is the story...

Upon arrival the car is filthy. I guess this is a given since it has been snowing and icing off and on for the last few months. We take the car for a drive and it drives great. I pulled over at a strip mall to really check it out without the salesman pressure.

The driver side door has been repainted and is rough. The clear is wavy in spots and there is even a 1/4" of rust on the very corner of the door where there is no paint.

The interior is tan... or I'd like to call it, yellow. Are all these "tan" interiors this yellow? The pictures of the car look like a light tan'ish grey. Not the case. The driver seat also has a slight tear in the lower left corner which seems to be a common spot after looking at so many of these cars online. The rear console is missing a cover or something since its just an open hole. Looks like the lid may be missing?

Carfax is clean, no crashes reported but obviously there was something that justified a crappy respray of the passenger door.

After getting back to the dealership, the salesman said he would have the body shop redo the passenger door and have the driver seat reupholstered for the asking price. They would also do a full detail.

They started 2 months ago asking $17998. I'm torn. I dont know if I should buy this car or not. It drove great, no shakes, no chatter, no nothing. Under the car looked good, no rust, no obvious repairs of the passenger side rocker or anything. Completely stock car.

What do you guys think? I cant find anything 2004+ with similar mileage (around 50k) for around this asking price.

Here is a link i guess: http://www.hublernissan.com/preowned...1-7ef867499724

I already have the cash approved but i just couldnt pull the trigger without more input. I'm 29, I've had roughly 12 cars, a few sports cars but never an Infiniti. So hopefully some of you can chime in with some advice.

Thanks!
Brandon

 

definitely NO....tan interior is a big no no...also it's been repainted. I see plenty ones in flawless condition for $13-15k ranging from 03-06 models.

 

just because carfax says it's clean doesn't mean it's clean. there is a good chance the car was in a wreck if the door has been repainted.

 

I've been looking on here (tried posting a WTB but it gets deleted), cars.com, autotrader, and ebay. Find me an 04+ with less than 60k, m6, nav and black, red, or white and I'll show someone some cash. Fact is, there isnt a single one on any of those sites. I've been looking every day for the past few months. For financing reasons, I cannot consider a 03 and for $ reasons I dont want to buy one with more than 60k.

The door is the only thing thats been resprayed. It had PDR and a repaint on the door. My father owned a large collision repair business when I was growing up so I know what to look for to see whats been done. The rest of the car appears to be original paint with some minor wear and tear. But yes, something definitely happened to the door. Could be someone backed into it, scraped a pole backing out, who knows.

And yes, I know the carfax doesnt mean it wasnt in a "wreck". But IF it were as simple as a parking lot bang isolated to the door with some garage body/paint work on the door, then that wouldnt rule out the car or call it something to avoid.

Oh and why is tan a no no? I definitely DONT like it, but, its nothing that cant be replaced with a used black i guess?

I'm not arguing saying its a great car, but if its just door work, then I wouldnt rule it out completely just due to that.

Also, it's common for these to have a high clutch release, right? Seems every one I've driven does, but wanted to be sure.

 

have you tried craigslist? i had a very difficult time finding cars on the car websites but craigslist had new listings seemingly every day.

 

too much trouble to replace thw whole interior, will cost u more at the end. also anything under 100k miles is fine to me, when i was lookign for mine, i wanted one with around 80k miles on it so that way the clutch would have been replace so i wouldn't have to spend another $2k for new clutch.

why would u get an 04 and not 03? they are exactly the same
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/2181280134.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/2176422002.html

 

I'd pass man, many more cars out there to be found. It looks like there is a nasty yellowish stain on the trunk mat.... I wonder what that is from...

 

I'm in Indiana. I cant buy a car from Cali. The car I'm looking at looks perfect online and I wouldnt have seen anything until it arrived. I've bought from out of state before and had them shipped and I've been lucky so far, but I'd rather not press my luck any more.

As I said before, for financing reasons I cannot buy a 2003. 2003 = higher interest and short terms, basically a personal loan with collateral. And I'd prefer around 50k. Figure in two years it will be around 80k. If I buy one with 100k it will be upwards of 130k... not worth anything if I chose to trade in or sell.

The first one you linked is a 2003 automatic for $17k... thats 2 years older and $2000 more.

The 2004 is same asking price, not the color I'm wanting and 20k more miles. Better interior though



The "yellow stain" isn't a stain. Its the wear mark from a foot's heel on the floor mat that's sitting in the trunk.

 

I'll definitely look around for you. Is there anything in particular that is absolutely necessary?

 

I'd say it looks like a fine ride and if they are willing to take care of the issues for you then I see no reason why the car is not worth $15k. At least it appears like it did not belong to some young kid that modded the heck out of it, bone stock is the way to go with these cars when you buy used. Add a nice 3 year/36k warranty on there and you'll be set, we did this on our 05 and have already put it to good use with front hubs and a 8/32's rear tire that took a nail in the shoulder.

Best of Luck,
Jason

 

I appreciate it. A good friend is a car salesman for Penske and he has been looking weekly for the mast few months at their car auction lists and hasnt turned up anything worthwhile. I've been looking for a solid year lol

"requirements":
2004+
<60k
Manual
Navigation is a huge plus even if its not as good as aftermarket
19"s (which mostly pushes me to the 05 as well as the slightly updated interior)
Black, white, or red. No other colors and in that order.

Thanks I'm leaning towards this. It could have been worse and they could have attempted to hide these things. I'm going to call in the morning and offer something even lower with those things corrected. If they bite I may go for it. A door bang thats been half *** repairs is no where near what some cars experience that no one knows before they buy. I'm really looking for GOOD reasons not to buy it. The year and mileage make it worth the price IMO, but, the physical blems can be corrected. It's just a matter if I want to go through with correcting them. I thought maybe someone on here would magically say, hey, I have exactly what you are looking for but if I havent found it in a year on here (within a decent distance) then I dont have high hopes.

 

Has this car been checked for the possible oil consumption issue?

 

uncertain. How does one check? What are the warranty details for this?

 

buy mine 04 with 55k miles for 14500, black interior and starfire lexus pearl exterior

 

Funny you should post this thread, as just yesterday I ran an Autotrader search and found this same car. I already have an '04 OB with Black interior, but mine's an AT. I'd been toying with the idea of looking around to see if I could trade mine for a little newer one with the 6MT. Figured it'd cost me a couple thousand if I could find a dealership willing to deal.

I couldn't get past the tan interior on this one though. Since the interior is what you see most of the time when using a car, I couldn't give up the black...though one thing I did like was how the color change at the windshield pillars and headliner wasn't as obvious as it is with the black interior (I'll never understand why Infiniti did that...it's horrid).

The car didn't have nav listed either, and though I almost never use mine, it's nice to have occasionally. Upon closer inspection, it looks from the photos like it might have nav.

I think you might need to realize that finding a low mileage, unabused '04 or newer with the specs you're asking for, at the price you're looking to pay is a pretty tall order. I did a search within 200 miles of Cincinnati and didn't find anything worthwhile that was less than $17k-$19k.

G35 coupes with around 50,000 miles, well equipped, with a 6MT that hasn't been abused, and little or no damage history are going to be tough to find. 50k miles on an '04 is still considered low miles and will command a premium.

Good luck with the search. Personally I'd recommend waiting a bit and saving a little more so when that "perfect" OB with black interior, nav, and 6MT comes along you'll be in a position to buy it...

...assuming I don't see it first and decide to work out a trade before you get there!