I have a 2005 Infiniti G35x, fully loaded with navi and I loved the car when I got it in April 2005. Now after a little over 6 months of ownership, I am feeling some remorse because of the small but irritating problems the car has. I have an impossible schedule and the closest Infiniti dealership is an hour away but I wanted an entry level luxury car that would be reliable and have the fewest warranty trips possible to the dealership since most luxury dealerships (minus BMW) are far away.

Right now I have rattles in both rear doors, an annoying vibration in my rear speakers when music is louder than level 12 and rattles in the center stack and passenger side dash. I contacted the Infiniti dealership closest to my home and left a message requesting a service appointment two weeks ago and still haven't received a call back yet. So much for the top dealership in the tri-state area.

On top of all this, I keep reading about rotor and brake pad problems which I don't know if it applies to the 05 model but at 8,000 miles, I'm not looking forward to finding out. And the last annoyance is the amazingly inaccurate navigation system. I bought it because I needed to use a navigation system frequently and I'd only estimate it is accurate 65% of the time and the interface is not very intuitive.

On the bright side, the car looks great inside and out, the engine power is phenomenal and the AWD seems to work pretty well (only driven in rain so far) although the traction control seems a little spastic during dry weather.

This is my first brand new car so I apologize if I seem really impossible with the car but I expected something better from a "luxury" brand like Infiniti. Am I the only one who feels this way or are there others in the same boat? Thankfully I leased the car so I could always try to sell the lease on SwapALease.com but it's going to cost $1150 for the "Peace of Mind" program and listing fees!

 

Sorry to hear about your problems. Hope all problems become fixed.

 

It sounds like all his problems could be fixed by a visit to the dealer, NO new car is without some issues, I damned sure wouldn't be "waiting" for a call back, I'd be calling them after ONE day, not two weeks! As far as the brakes on the '05 X, I can't comment.

 

It'd be nice to call them after one day except when you are either on the phone with clients or doing home tours, going to closings/inspections/appraisals and managing a real estate office day to day. The free time I do have during the week is occupied by a personal trainer. If you would like to lend some time, I'd be willing to borrow it and waste days at the dealership trying to fix all of these problems.

 

It's pretty generally agreed on here that to get the car you got (read: the engine you got) for the price you did, Infiniti had to cut a few corners regarding sound dapening and general interior quality. Call your service manager again and have him accomodate you - don't wait for a call back. Infiniti service, just like any manufacturer, is hit or miss depending on where you go. Most of us had a rattle issue or two, and most of us got them fixed under warranty pretty easily. In my case my seat squeaked. I am lucky and am only 20 min from the dealer, but I still didn't have time to drop it off/get a loaner etc... so the techs picked up my car, fixed it, and drove it back. All I had to do was meet them at the door. If in the first 6 months of owning the car you're only problems are rattles, you might want to look at it the other way around - quite a few new cars have much more serious problems in their first 6 months. I do understand your frustration, but as you own more cars you will learn what I mean.

 

I suppose I might be a little naive to the dealership service quality experience but the local Nissan dealer has always responded promptly to inquiries and provided all the services I needed in a timely fashion. I guess I just expected more from Infiniti. If I ignored clients in my business, I'd go out of business! I had to block out time for tomorrow morning and call this dealership to try to resolve this drama so I can stop dealing with these rattles. I knew going into the G35 that it wasn't exactly a Lexus and the navi wasn't exactly as accurate as Honda's but I guess I underestimated exactly how much of a "trade off" I'd be making.

 

Excuse me.........?

 

I'm not trying to offend you with the above post but don't judge me like I'm just sitting here with the rattles and not doing anything about it. The closest Infiniti dealership is over an hour away without traffic or about 60 miles... That requires taking 4-6 hours out of my day to get this mess taken care of and when you work 7 days a week, where do you find the time?

 

Yeah we know Infinity is no lexus.

 

Regarding the question about buying a Lexus that you've since removed from your post, the ES330 is FWD and has a transmission problem as noted by many owner reviews. The IS300 was not considered because I knew they were updating the IS soon and the rear seat legroom was too small on the IS300. The better question is why didn't I go with the Subaru Legacy GT Limited and that's because it did not have HIDs, navigation system, steering wheel audio controls for the near $30K price.

 

That's a good reason not to buy a car from a dealer so far away, because from my experience, like I said every new car has some issues, and if it's not convenient to get to the dealer, it makes it hard. I have to agree with picus112, if a few rattles are the main issues you've had, you are lucky. Every new car I've had has had some issues, most of them minor. Have you inquired to see if the local Nissan dealer could do the warranty work since you are so far away?

 

Nissan dealers are not allowed to touch Infinitis for warranty work "under any circumstances".

 

Oh, sorry, after I re-read that it seemed rather rude, so I removed it.

 

Where is that written? I have heard of people on this forum going to Nissan dealers, don't get a loaner of course. Anyone?

 

That came from the Infiniti dealer. I asked them when I was leasing the car because I didn't want to travel to the Infiniti dealer for warranty work. With all the smoke and mirrors in the auto sales industry, who knows if it's true.