First post in here, highly highly wanting to sell my car and buy a G35 Coupe I've test drove and looked into. Need opinions ASAP. I have someone ready to purchase my vehicle if I can get this one.

I currently own a 2006 BMW 330i (136k miles), unfortunately I had to get this car due to being ripped off with my last. Long story short I want to go back to manual and I've always loved the look/sound/expandability with the G35 coupes. I'm currently looking at a 2005 G35 Coupe with rougly 121,000 miles on it.
I went and test drove it at the dealership and it's one of the best condition one's I've seen around my area.
I drove 2 hours to test drive it and literally made a list of everything I could possibly check that would throw red flags and nothing popped out at me. Researched online, purchased reports, etc.

HOWEVER, the carfax shows the car was in minor accidents back in 06 and 08. When I looked at the front end the fender bolts still had OEM paint, which from my knowledge showed they had never been replaced. From the information given is this still something I should look into? I really really want one of these and want to go back to driving manual and modifying my car, as I can't do much to my current autotragic 330i.

I will link the listing below, the price has since dropped so listing is a little higher, however I plan to negotiate as low as possible on this price. Please give me your opinions, what I should look out for, and what a good price for this vehicle would be to take home.

LINK [[url]https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/t-Used-INFINITI-G35-Coupe-RWD-Schaumburg-t27113_L7359#listing=215529516]

Someone else I know that owns a G37 suggested I look for one of those over a G35 for reliability and power but as I said I'm not super familiar with them.
THANKS IN ADVANCE!

 

Idk, I like my G35 a lot. The G37
Never really did it for me. If you like RWD centrally weighted coupes I think you'd really like the G. If it's a REVUP Engine one see if the engine was replaced under warranty.

 

If it was a minor incident and you couldn't see any obvious damage then you shouldn't have much to worry about. You can always take a magnet to the fenders/doors/trunk to see if there are any spots filled in with bondo, but the bumpers are plastic and hood is Al so that method won't work. Again, if it was just a minor incident you shouldn't have to worry about frame damage, but check the tires for abnormal wear which could indicate that something is askew. These cars are also getting pretty old, so expect to have to replace suspension and drive train bushings in the near future.

Good luck and happy driving!

 

Yeah at this age make sure you are aware that anything (especially plastic/rubber things) can break at any time, although the VQ35s and 6MTs are still solid as ever as long as you have one that doesn't drink excessive oil (what UrbanE referred to). The G takes pretty well to suspension modifications as long as you've got the $$ to spend on proper (not Ebay) parts like camber kits for the front and rear.

You might as well forget about modifying the engine for any significant power gains unless you mean built internals and a quality turbo system and tune. There are bolt ons (lots of info on these forums) but they don't do much for the price compared to other cars. The VQ35s are already very well tuned from the factory, meaning the original parts (with the one exception of the intake spacer) are very well designed and don't limit the engine's power. IMO it's cheaper to go the whole hog and do an LS swap as opposed to turboing the VQ.

Other spots to check... Make sure the rear differential bushing has been changed out, otherwise you'll have to do it yourself (or pay someone ~$500) as dealerships want to replace the whole damn subframe for way too much money.

All in all, I think the G makes a great daily driver / weekend racer combo car, and still looks great 14 years later.

 

Thank you guys for the quick responses!
I spoke again with my friend who has a G37 and suggested I look at one a little way out of town.
However when I went and checked it out it was in the shittiest condition, rear brakes completely gone (I'm talking worse I've ever driven on), clutch was obviously on it's way out, windshield cracked.

CSWLightning, I did check to see if there were any signs of oil leaks and it looks like the valve cover gasket had been replaced and oil levels were good even with me matting it on the test drive.
These two models that I've looked at are some of the ONLY manual transmission G's I've been able to find within a 150 mile radius of my town.
I don't want to jump at the first one that comes my way but the one I linked above is easily the cleanest one I've seen. Just a bit skeptical due to past issues buying used.

UrbanEngineer, it is the REVUP motor, but the records don't show it being replaced ever. It looked like valve cover gasket was replaced and the bay was well maintained from what I could see. (However the dealer could have detailed it and cleaned up spots)
They actually went out of state to pick up the vehicle themselves due to the condition so all of it's records are from Wisconsin.

Would you guys suggest me taking another trip up to have it put on a lift and the suspension checked at a local shop?
A bit was said on here about the suspension with it being an older vehicle. I've only checked it out once so far for the sole fact of it being a 2 hour drive for me up near Chicago.

Thanks again!

ALSO - what do you guys think of the price on this?

 

You misunderstand, the REVUP engines are known to burn significant oil starting even before 100k due to poor quality piston rings wearing out too fast. I'm not sure if there's a way to test for that other than asking the owner and making a general assessment of how well the car was taken care of - someone else might know. Definitely take it to a shop and have the suspension and DIFFERENTIAL MOUNTING BUSHINGS looked at.

Even a good looking car can require a lot in maintenance underneath to make it a fun sports car again, especially if you're a perfectionist.

To get my G from 110k to 130k, it NEEDED engine mounts ($200 plus about 10 hours of miserable DIY work), troubleshooting and replacing a bad coil pack to fix a crippling misfire($30, plus several days of downtime before I figured it out), and a new alternator which failed on the way home from an autocross ($150 and about 4 hours DIY), as well as pads and rotors (~$400 for everything for my Brembo G, and a DIY brake job).

To get it to ride/handle like new and not clunk like crazy over every bump or every time I drop the clutch, I replaced: Shocks, struts all around, upper control arms + poly bushings, lower control arm poly bushings, 4x end links, 2x new compression rods, 2x Whiteline poly compression rod bushings, Whiteline poly rear differential bushings, inner/outer tie rods, poly steering rack bushings, rear camber arms, SPC rear camber kit, poly sway bar bushings.

Not all of that was necessary (it only NEEDED rear struts, the end links, and the compression rods) , but I didn't trust 15 year old suspension and steering wear components (ball joints and bushings) with my life enough to drive the car like I wanted to (high speed cornering, triple digit backroad pulls, etc), hence the full rebuild. Once that mess was taken apart, it didn't make sense NOT to replace everything else while I was in there.

I learned a lot and don't regret anything for that reason, but if I were to do it again I'd look for a rust-free, clean G that had at least some of the above done already. It's a great driving car now that it's sorted, and I plan to keep it as a track car after it's done bringing me to work every day.

 

Would it be worth it to get a compression test done for this reason when I get it put on a lift to look at suspension? Thinking of heading up there 1 more time to double check things...