I am looking at a g35 that looks super clean. It has 90,000 miles, clean interior and exterior, and the guy says he has maintenance records. Automatic transmission. It looks completely unmolested. I am 17 and I need a car for myself, so I am hoping the low mileage can help me out there with reliability. He is asking 7500. here is the ad if you are interested in looking at it.

Looks nice...
Personally, I paid $10500 in 2014 for an '03 Coupe w/ Manual & Brembo. with similar mileage (88k), also unmolested and exceptionally clean. $7500 5 years later doesn't seem outrageous. These are great cars-- but bear in mind you would be purchasing an a 16 year old car. Maintenance aside, some of the parts on the car will need replacing no matter how clean it is. Rubber degrades, plastic warps and fades, bushings wear out, etc. Having said that, I've only needed to replace one cooling fan after an additional 20k miles in the past several years.

Good luck!

Get a pre-purchase inspection at your local Infiniti dealership. Verify the service records.

Looks clean but looks can definitely be deceiving, as with any new (brand new or just new to you) car ALWAYS check the oil level regularly for the first couple months. I prefer to check oil daily for the first week, then once per week, then every other week so you can get an idea about how much oil it consumes.

VQ35DE engines in the G35 definitely consume oil, if you find one that didn't it's a unicorn so don't just automatically believe anyone when they say "this G35 doesn't consume any oil" when literally 99% of them do to some degree.

The OC isn't a big issue, you just need to stay on top of keeping it topped off, personally I check my oil weekly and top it off as needed.

Price seems fair if it's as clean as the pictures show, you shouldn't be too concerned with the mileage though, they only way you're going to avoid mechanical failure and increase "reliability" is to find one with under 25k miles. 90k miles is still going to have a LOT of maintenance issues that need addressed or will in the very near future.

The entire front suspension is getting pretty shot at the 100k mile mark, ball joints, every bushing, struts, brakes, etc.

Same with the rear to a lesser degree but the rear differential bushing is guaranteed 100% blown by 100k miles (heck they're usually blown out by 60k miles).

If you want my gods honest opinion, unless you are well off and have plenty of extra money to spend in maintenance/repairs you should stay away from the G at your age unless you are doing all the repairs yourself and not paying shop labor. This is a luxury sports car, luxury = expensive maintenance, sports car = expensive maintenance, heck just paying a shop to do spark plugs (which are pretty much shot at 90k miles) is going to set you back a few hundred $ right off the bat.

These cars do NOT respond well to ignored maintenance, if you don't keep up on all those suspension components it's going to cost you a set of tires which will be another $1k or so. Something with a macpherson strut front suspension is much more friendly to ignored maintenance (think Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla). Plus those engines are typically more friendly about ignored maintenance as well.

The G35 is a great car, I'm just EXTREMELY hesitant to recommend one to a 17 year old, no offense intended, it's just easy to lose sight of the bigger cost of maintenance when you are gushing over a shiny sports car. A budget starter car is almost definitely the better option for you until you are established in your career field and ready to purchase your luxury sports car.

No worries, no offense taken. I am working with about 8500 right now and figure I can negotiate down a little bit to give me some breathing room if repairs ever become necessary. I can do basic maintenance (Oil, spark plugs, brakes if necessary) but when it comes to major repairs like engine repairs and the like my ability and tools are limited. What would some of those likely repairs that you mentioned cost?

If you can do spark plugs, oil changes, and brakes then you can do almost every single repair on the car with minimal tools investment (6 point socket set and a 3/8 drive torque wrench, set of angle head needle nose pliers, set of 6 point wrenches, few screwdrivers/prybars, and a 12" length of pipe that for over your ratchet for better leverage). Those will handle the bulk of any maintenance/repairs. For a very solid set of budget socket/wrenches check out the "Performance Tool" brand, they also sell that brand via Amazon. It's pretty much exclusively what we use at work and they are INCREDIBLY durable and very inexpensive, I also use them in the shop.

The factory service manual is available for free on Nicoclub so I STRONGLY recommend you download the one for your ur car if you end up buying it.

Most every repair for this chassis has multiple threads already dedicated to it over the past 18 years, any other questions you might have a new thread will usually have your questions answered rapidly. Knowing HOW to do the repair yourself s the hardest part and this site is an absolute wealth of knowledge.

My opinion is the money is better spent on buying the tools for the job rather than paying a shop to do it. Plus the experience itself is hard to put a pricetag on.

really really appreciate this comment. Honestly what has stopped me from repairing my last car in the past has been that I am hesitant to **** it up. My dad has zero experience with cars, so I’d be completely on my own. I just have a huge fear that I’m going to finish a job and be driving down the road and the whole thing starts falling apart because I didn’t torque something correctly or I forgot to put something back on.

You can probably find a YouTube video for every single repair on the car. I strongly recommend watching a few different videos for each repair though because you're going to get more than one person that really doesn't know what they're doing and it's just sort of half-assing it to make it work. watch the video so you get an idea what it's going to look like to remove all the parts and how to put them back together, then reference the factory service manual for the same repair to see how it's actually done with all the correct steps and all the correct torque and everything. Then if you have any questions just hop on the forum and make a new thread with some pictures of the points where you're at and you'll usually get a lot of good advice.

Doesn't hurt to make a thread before you start the repair also because there are a lot of tips and tricks for various different repairs that you're not going to find in the factory service manual they can speed things up considerably.

I'd say the number one mistake that people make when they're new to turning wrenches is using 12-point sockets on a 6-point bolt. That's almost a guaranteed way to strip the head on the bolt. Always always always use a 6-point socket on a 6-point bolt, I don't think there are any 12-point sockets on the G35 until you actually start tearing the motor down so you will be fine with 6-point socket/wrench sets.

The number two mistake is definitely over torquing bolts and snapping the head off, every single fastener on this car has a torque specification and I strongly recommend you follow them. I also recommend getting a 1/4" drive torque wrench because a lot of torque values are measured in inch/lbs and a 3/8 drive torque wrench won't go low enough. Then you just need to get a 1/4-in female to 3/8 male adapter so you can use the same sockets.

All my torque wrenches got stolen a few years back when the shop got robbed, I used to have nice proto wrenches but I ended up buying a LOT of tools all in one shot to replace everything that was stolen and I went with the Tekton brand for all my torque wrenches. Been using them about 3 years now and they work perfectly. It's not quite as fast getting the torque set on the wrench properly since it's the style that uses a jam nut screw on the bottom of the adjustable handle. However they've proven themselves to be really solid items and I don't have any reason to go by a second set of Protos right now.

If you end up getting a coupe I also strongly recommend that you buy a set of low profile ramps so you can get the car up high enough in the air to put a full size service jack under it to lift it up on jack stands. The coupe sits too low to the ground so you can't get a service jack under it to the jack point. Always have the vehicle on jack stands when you're working on it and don't ever get under the vehicle when it's just on the hydraulic service jack. If you end up buying the coupe just send me a private message or reply back to this thread or make a new one and I will send you a link to a good cheap set of ramps, jack stands, and pinch weld adapters. You can get away with not using the pinch weld adapters as long as you are gentle when lowering the car down onto your jack stands.

You don't necessarily NEED an electric 1/2" drive impact wrench but it will speed things up considerably for most of your repairs that need to be done under the car, there are a lot of 14 mm or larger bolts that are torqued at 50 or more foot pounds. A cheap 1/2-in drive electric impact wrench we usually work out just fine, not going to be nearly as cool as a pneumatic Ingersoll Rand wrench but it will definitely get the job done.

Just get in the habit of buying tools that you need for repairs when you actually need to do the repair and it won't be so cost prohibitive is just trying to buy everything you need all at once right off the bat.

For probably my first 10 years working on cars I did almost everything using a 3/8 drive set of sockets, wrenches, a ratchet, a few various lengths of extensions, and a 3/8 drive swivel. My number one used tool for almost any repair in the engine bay is a 45° angle needle nose plier to unhook electrical harnesses and take off those squeeze clamps they use for all the vacuum lines and such.

I would strongly recommend that a seventeen year old not purchase an Infiniti for their first vehicle.
Way too expensive for parts and labor.
Start out with a Honda Civic stick shift. Much cheaper to run,and maintain.
Check with your insurance agent on the costs between an Infiniti and a Honda
Do some research on expected MPG between the two vehicles especially for short trips.
As I write this gas prices are sharply rising.
Do you have sufficient income or are you using the bank of mom and dad?

Good luck

Well as an older guy who has always been sensible, I say buy the car you actually want. I honestly don't think the difference in the price of parts is all that big a factor.

And the coupe is an absolute joy to drive. It will make you a real car guy and you will always remember her fondly.