Hi all.

My wife just got a 2003 G35 with only 66K miles. Awesome car. Thing is, it has a manual transmission. Everything I've read about the G35 says that a manual trans wasn't available for the 2003. CarFax says that it was first registered in February 2003. Four door car has leather seats and 17 inch wheels. I'm just curious about the seeming discrepancy.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the recommended fuel. The manual says it should have 87 octane premium. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but to me, 87 octane is regular. Manual says the compression ratio is 10.3:1. If so, I would expect it to need 91 octane or higher.

Thanks very much for any information.

 

2003.5 sedan had manual trans.only the coupe needs 91+ octane, sedan its "recommended". I think...

 

Correct. "recommended" for the sedan

You can run 87, but max performance would be with 91+

 

I found i get a little better mpg with premium. The cost of premium over regular and the little better mpg comes out to a wash, so I use premium to make me feel better. You might lose 2mpg and 5 hp by using regular instead of premium.

 

Really only 5hp? Feels like more than that. Almost like running the a/c

 

Pretty sure the ac uses about 3 hp.

 

I don't feel any HP loss from running the A/C. In fact, i think the G35 is one of the best cars's i've driven in terms of low parastic loss from running the A/C. I've driven cars that feel like they lose 50 HP when you flip the A/C on.


As for my personal experience, i've run 87 and 91+ in my car and never really noticed any SOTP difference