I've had the car a couple of months and think I can accurately assess the pros and cons of my purchase.

1 - Love the power. It's addictive. I played by the rules during break-in but have had the chance to get her well into triple digits since the 1200 mark passed. Hard to keep the foot out of her on public streets. Very hard. It's much harder to brush off challenges (and I get them often) in this car than it was in the Maxima I traded. So far so good.

2 - Love the exhuast note. Just loud enough to enjoy but not so loud as to annoy. The roar under brisk acceleration is exactly right for me. A buddy has a TL-S and his car sounds much more reserved by comparison.

3 - Ride quality is great. I thought I might regret not getting sport suspension but I was wrong. The base suspension suits my driving style without being too harsh on the backside. I toyed with my tire pressures a bit and have decided to run them at 33 PSI. A comfortable balance of ride and performance. The Eagle RS-As are okay, but make a little more noise over rough surfaces than I would like. Not enough for a thumbs down, but the next set of rubber will be quieter. Tire pressure sensors work as advertised. They helped me deal with a slow leak issue in the right rear until I could get the tire repaired. (that pissed me off, but it isn't the car's fault)

4 - Interior quality is good - i.e. no rattles to speak of yet. I get a creak or two when I'm on rough pavement but it's to be expected on these crappy roads. Ergonomics have become instinctual as I'd hoped they would. not crazy about the sunglass holder and I wish the center console area had a little more space - other than that no complaints. Dual zone climate control is very nice and works as advertised.

5 - I like the Bose but I'm disappointed with the 'bass/treble' settings' bug. I have my routine down to a couple of seconds on start up, but it is still an annoyance I could do without. I'm not going to request service until I see that someone sonewhere has a valid fix for it. MP3 capability has performed flawlessly so far. Thinking of doing a AMP/SUB mod in the future - nothing major but if the bass were a little tighter and firmer I'd like it even more.

6 - Ride comfort - great for me, but the wife doesn't like the location for the power seat controls. Still haven't ridden in the back seats so no complaints about rear legroom. LOL. Handling is great - whether tossing her through the corners or dodging crap in the road driving the G is ALWAYS pleasurable. Very stable in transition and no surprises - I had a backhoe pull right out in front of me and swerved pretty abruptly to clear him and the car behaved perfectly. Out-around-back in lane easily.

7 - Love the keyless system. Too cool. Very handy.

8 - Auto headlights are a waste. Don't see the need. Tried them in the beginning but thought my headlights coming on everytime I pulled into the garage was cycling on the HIDs I didn't need. Wish the car had dual HIDs rather than single, but no biggie. Shopping for good bulbs that will color match better than the factory installs. Haven't found anything with decent reliability yet. Silverstars seem to die too quickly for my taste.

9 - Brakes kick booty and make no dust. Hoping Infiniti got it right with the 05s and that the brake problems from the past are corrected. No complaints so far. Thinking of a set of cross-drilled rotors for Christmas - mostly a cosmetic appearance thing. I think they'd look nice behind the wheels. Wondering why Infiniti elected to go with the foot emergency brake rather than a center mounted hand brake, but no biggie. It's not like I'm trying to drift the car...

10 - Paint has held up great. No major dings - only one the car had on it when I took delivery. Being conservative pays off - at least so far. Lots of MOTHERs helps I'm sure. I'm sure over time I'll get mine but I'm pleasantly surprised that it's been so far, so good.

11 - Wish the trunk opening were a bit bigger. I have had a couple of packages REJECTED because I couldn't shoehorn them into the opening. Plenty of space inside but limited access.

12 - Gas mileage is better than I expected. Averaging over 22 MPG on a mostly city mix. I got better mileage in my Maxima, but it wasn't nearly as much fun to drive. I'm not disappointed, based on the posts I read here I'm actually very pleased. Not crazy about the gas flap. I wish it was locked all the time and had a mechanical release vice the solenoid. No real complaint though.

13 - (edit - DaveB - thanks for reminding me..) 5AT is pure sweetness. Manual mode is quick enough for what I do, rev-matching downshift feature is extremely cool and in DRIVE it performs like a champ. It holds it's gears just like a manual and allows for more controlled driving, but still allows me to relax and 'boat' along when I want to. I'm a bit biased, but this is a sweet tranny. No vibe, no howl, no takeup issues - step on her and she rolls.

14 - Wife doesn't like the sound of the blinker..... (WTF?) I have no issue with it. LOL..

That's it. So far - great car. I've had her on the road now for about 10 weeks and have gotten more compliments on her than I have ever gotten with any other car I've owned. Keeping her clean and polished/waxed is a pleasure.

Now if I could just keep the right foot under control....

 

Nice write up. While my G is only an 03, I too find the auto headlight function a waste if you have a garage. The HIDs come on everytime I pull into the garage even though day light and the garage overhead light kicks on. I probably should turn this function off to save my HID bulb from excessive cycling. Another function I don't see much point for is the seat auto in/out function. This seems to cause uncessary wear of the power seat motor. Luckily I can turn that off.

As for ride, I've got the Sports suspension along with a .6" drop in the front thanks to the G coupe springs. I find the ride to be good until pavement heaves/cuts are encountered which is often in Kansas City. The ride can be a bit harsh when encountering these road obstacles. I found that my Maxima with H&Rs/Koni struts had a better around town, but was a lot more punishing when hitting heave/cuts. I guess that's jsut a factor of the progressive rate springs. I find the G to be far more solid than my 96 Maxima, but it should be seeing that it's carrying around 300+lbs more engineered heft

As for acceleration, I'm amazed and a bit dumbfounded. The auto is nearly perfect and with few flaws. By dumbfounded, I talking about how this car is running the same 1/4 mile ET/MPH with a 350Z intake pipe in 70 degree weather as my old 3000lb 5 speed 205whp Maxima did with a JDM variable intake manifold, intake, y-pipe, ECU, and the passenger seats removed in 70 degree weather. The G doesn't feel as fast, but it is. The "feel" part has a lot to do with the lack of noise or shift rocking/lunging of the manual.

 

Nice review. I have had a very similar experience with this 2005 G35x that I purchased. I really like the chassis and engine. Coming from the Passat, it's just what the doctor ordered, exactly what I wanted my Passat to drive like.


The Keyless/go is awesome.
The motor is fantastic, exactly what I expected.
Seems they really addressed the issues voiced in this forum and others, for the 2005 model year.

Complaints
Coming from a Passat which had the Bi-Xenons(OEM German units), I also wish the lighting was better.
I agree that the auto-lamp features is not really necessary.
The Bose system is decent, but the display and buttons, and Bass bug are sort of lame. Sat Radio, MP3 features are awesome.
This X model could really use a 6-speed as she is revving pretty good at highway speeds.
This X model comes with last year's brakes. Lots of dust, and they are obviously smaller than those on the RWD models.

Smooth sailing so far-

 

Your not alone. The day I bought my 05 sedan I came to a turn, flipped on the turn signal and my wife says "Well that's annoying!" I have no idea what she is talking about...

 

Something that is driving me crazy about the stereo...

1) Sometimes it remembers that it was on "shuffle" when I last powered it off, sometimes it doesn't.

2) When in shuffle, and I use seek - it doesn't randomly go to the next song, it goes to the next one on the cd.

1 & 2 may be related. I think that sometimes I have seen the seek shut down random, but not sure if it is 100% of the time or not.

Either way - bad design in my opinion.

Other than that - love the stereo.

 

I've had mine just over a week and the exhaust note is one of my favorite things about the car. Even though I can't go over 4K rpms I can still pass slower traffic pretty quickly. I can't wait til she's broken in and I can let her stretch her legs. The one thing that drives me nuts is whenever you wash the car you can never seem to remove all the water. I've used a leafblower to dry the car and I still get drips under the door sills. Hard the keep the black exterior clean for more than a few days, but have no regrets in my color choice.

 

Good review- I have mine (03) since they first came out and have had similar experiences (althought the brakes were fixed but still dust up). Its worth the trade off as they stop almost as well as my old 911, and objectively the G is as fast (well maybe not in the twisties). One huge improvement occurred when I replaced the original tires at 45 k miles with a set of larger Mich Pilot Sport AS. Likely any hi perf tire would be good but the handling is so much better that anyone with factory rubber could hardly do better than just to swallow hard and move up- cheaper and easier than suspension mods and a good foundation to go farther. I wish Ihad done that the day I got it.