Go to the link below for the Factory Service Manual. Browse through the Interior section and usually there are pretty good diagrams with every bolt/ piece in an exploded view.

http://psedog.com/cars/fsm/g35/sedan/

 

Did they quote you on just the rails? Or the entire seat bottom cushion??


I just had my entire bottom cushion, and trim replaced on my passenger seat to try to fix the pass airbag light prob i've been having. Dealer diagnosed it as a faulty seat sensor, and ordered me up an entire lower seat assembly. When i was shooting the **** with the service writer, she mentioned to me that their cost for the seat cushion which gets billed to nissan was ~ $4500ish for the entire lower seat assembly. To make matters worse, it didn't fix the issue...so back I go. Thank god for factory warranty. But that is up in 3 months.


whether or not that was BS i don't know since i didn't get the bill, but in context of our conversation, it seemed like a real number to me. But they do call them stealerships for a reason. My Friend didn't wait for me to do a brake job on his '06 C230 Sport...and attempted it on his own and ended up damaging his calipers. He needed the car ASAP so we couldn't shop around so he went to the dealer. NEarly $2K later he had a new set of calipers and I put them on for him. Did he get ripped? Yup. Does it happen a lot? Probably.

The vast majority of the public knows jack about cars. Most won't go on the internet and spend hours reseaching their prob and ask questions and search around for the best rock-bottom price. Most don't know any better...and pay $500 for services which pretty much are just dealer "inspections" every 15K miles. We represent a huge minority of car savvy people...and dealerships are strictly a business aimed at generating as much profit as possible.



As for the gear issue...someone send me a busted up gear if you have one and i'll see if i can whip up a cad drawing that you can take to a machine shop and pay $50-100 for so that when this issue happens in the future, it can be easily fixed. Unfortunately it is gonna be very tough for me to estimate the thread pitch from a mangled up gear...but i can give it a shot esp if you are gonna toss it in the trash anyway.

 

This is so true and I really can't blame the dealerships/shops. They simply go by Nissan book time and whatever markup they put on parts. Nissan's prices are rediculous, so you really can't blame the dealership too much. They have to make some money too with a 20% markup. The thing is, mechanics can usually get the job done in far less time than what the book time calls for. This is how they really make their money. I believe the book time on replacing the front pads and rotors on a G is in neighborhood of 3 hours. A DIYer like myself can do the entire job in less than an hour and I'm sure any Nissan tech can do it the same, if not quicker. That's about $300w/tax in labor.

Most people really aren't mechanically savvy and popping the hood open scares the crap out of them with all the wires and hoses going every which way. Cars these days are advanced, but I wouldn't really call them "complicated" as many seem to believe. Cars these days can tell you where the problem is and what to test/replace. The field service manual (free), voltmeter, Mity vacuum gauge, basic set of metric sockets, breaker bar, torque wrench, jack, jack stands, and a $150 ODBII laptop logger can allow to do most any mechnical job on this car. Basically $500 in tools will allow you save a few thousand over the course of 4 to 5 years of ownership. I've figured working on my cars over the past 15 years or so has saved me about $15K and that's not cracking a valve cover or removing a tranny. The internet is an amazing resourse when it comes to auto repair.

 

I agree with Dave

alot of people are scared to do anything but put gas in

I work with engineers that dont know how to change the oil in their cars.

Size and spec a 10,000 gallon VOC vessel in 10 min, sure. But not a 10 min oil change

same guy almost paid $700 for a timing belt at a Honda dealer, luckily I knew a guy and got it fixed for $300 with parts (I didnt have the time)

 

Yeah, i have a guy like that at my work. Engineer who can design you an awesome widget in 10 mins, but just paid $300 to have a $200 sway bar installed on his camry and even got a rental for the day. Then again...he can afford to pay someone to do his work even if he knew how to do it.

I'm an engineer too. I'm not like him lol. In fact, i have a shaft from a Ford 5-spd manual sitting on my desk at work so i can toss in our CNC lathe and modify so i can run an upgrade bearing design to increase torque capacity slightly by decreasing shaft flex. Fun times.

 

No issues with my car either. Just the axle click. I have a rocking seat, but thats about it. Mine has been bullet proof as well.

Our 04 had an ABS electrical issue, but the dealer fixed it.

 

I'm on page 93 of the service manual...and I can't pinpoint the motor or the gear. Is item #25 the motor?

 

Good job
$60 sure beats ~$3000 that's for sure!!!

 

Do I need to disconnect the battery before I replace the motor and gear?

 

^I was about to say don't worry about that, it's just a stupid thing the manual tells you to do before everything... "Disconnect Battery, add washer fluid reconnect battery"

But then I remembered the airbags... so YES. If I were you, I would disconnect the battery before you mess with the seats.

 

Looks like I have to remove the seat in order to do the motor swap? Is that right? This gets more complicated the more I dig into it!

 

electrical problems are inevitable

build quality could've been a bit better, i have squeeks and rattles every now and then, but they go away and then come back later, and go away again LOL

but the VQ35 is....excellent, 60k miles & runs like a champ

 

seat removal isn't that bad. Just be sure to start early on a saturday morning and take your time.

 

any special tools I'll need? I've got the TSB for the seat rocking that shows how to take the seat apart as well as the service manual. Hopefully that's enough.

 

It wouldn't hurt to pick up a Haynes manual too. They're not the greatest thing ever, but do come in handy sometimes. BTW, it will be in the Nissan section not Infiniti.