Hello everyone! I just bought a G35x sedan a few days ago and thought I'd see what kind of communities there are out there to talk about them and ask questions. Because of the pathetic inventory in the midwest, I won't actually get the car for a month, so I have a bare-bones '06 G35 from the dealer until then. Mine is currently on a boat somewhere in the Pacific.

I went ahead and got the premium, nav, and tech packages, because hey, I'm a techie. :-) But I'd be interested to here what others have done with the tech abilities of the car since the dealer here had no idea. I'm assuming, for example, that I can plug my portable DVD player or laptop into the AV jacks and display a movie on the LCD screen using the AUX feature, but I don't actually have the car to test this--so does someone know if this is correct?

I've also heard that the CD ripping/buring feature does put the songs from CDs onto the hard drive, but no one around the internet seems to know in which format it does this (MP3, AVI, WAV, etc.). In other words, can I just put MP3s on an SD card and load them into the hard drive through the SD slot, or does it require you to burn from CDs? I did burn a data CD with MP3s from my desktop computer (an improvement over having to burn audio CDs) and played it without any problems on the loaner, but it'd be nice to just have them all on the hard drive instead of having to mess with CDs.

Anyone happen to know if you can pair the bluetooth capability with an LG Fusic phone? I have a portable navigation system that does the whole hands-free thing with bluetooth, but the Fusic isn't supported (other Sprint phones are though). So, I'm afraid other systems, like the Infiniti one, will be like this.

Like I said, I'd just play around with the car myself if I actually had it; that's my one complaint about the whole buying experience: it was impossible to actually find the exact car that I wanted, so I had to upgrade further (and pay more) and then couldn't negotiate the price (other than a free spoiler and transportation cost for the dealer trade we had to do to get the car). Apparently only about 5 of these '07 sedans have been sold in my city so far (400,000 people in the metro area) because of the limited availability. I guess some really like the exclusivity that the sales guy kept talking about, but I'd rather just be able to have a car I really like--even if everyone else on the road is driving it. :-) Even the guy from my bank/insurance company, who was supposed to handle negotiations for me (sounded like a nice feature!), told me that I would be lucky to just pay the MSRP around here since they have taken the attitude that since they don't have a large inventory, they will wait until someone comes by and pays full price or more. Oh well--still less expensive (and looks cooler) than the competition.

Hope to talk to you all soon...and let me know if you can answer my techie questions above. Thanks!

--Brendan--

 

I can answer the movie question - yes, you can display movies on the screen using the AV jacks, but only while the G is stopped and the emergency brake on. I use an iPod, but a DVD player or laptop should do the same.

 

Thanks for the reply! I don't have an iPod, but if you are using the AUX button to run it, I assume it lets you continue listening to your music even while the car is driving; so can you do the same using a laptop? I'm all for safety, but I'm not a big fan of companies blocking you from using the equipment you bought :-\

--Brendan--

 

It's hard to believe the G35 is that hard to get where you live. A population of 400,000 is a good size.

Yes, you can continue to listen to the audio input from the auxiliary device while the car is moving. It's the video input that stops working when the car moves. There's suppossed to be a way to defeat this so that the video will also work while the car is moving, but it involves a hack. Not sure what other folks have done... probably messed around with the wires connecting the unit to the parking brake.

I also got the G35x with premium, nav, and tech packages. I knew I wanted to get the premimum and nav packages, but after I test drove the car, I decided to get the tech package as well (the intelligent cruise control is really nice, at least from what I experienced in my test drive). I also got the interior wood trim, which I liked a lot more than the washi aluminum look. My wife liked the aluminum trim, but I didn't. IMHO, the wood trim was well worth it.

The G35 doesn't take an SD card. It takes a CF (compact flash) card. I think it does MP3, but I'm not sure. I just picked up my new G35 last Saturday, and haven't gotten a chance to play with all the features.

Somewhere buried deep down in the Infiniti web site is a list of compatible cell phones. Just enter "bluetooth" in the search field. If your phone isn't listed, it doesn't necessarilly mean it won't work, as long as your phone is bluetooth compatible. But, if it doesn't work, might be time to upgrade your phone :-) .

The G3 has so many features! In fact, it comes with more than 600 pages of documentation (all in English, so it really has a lot of info in it). FYI, while you're awaiting your G35, the Infiniti owner's manuals are available in the following URL:

http://www.infiniti.com/iapps/techpubs

 

1 - The CF card does MP3s just fine. It may do others but I havent tried them out yet.

2 - Dont worry if your phone isnt listed, the Treo 700wx isnt listed either and its worked just fine so far.

 

Verified CF card will play WMA files as well.

 

Oops--yes, I meant CF card, not SD. I think I still have one somewhere...but instead of buying a new, larger one, does anyone know if you can just download (or I guess it would be upload) MP3s from a CF card to the hard drive in the car? Or alternatively, can you load a data CD with MP3s and rip from it onto the hard drive?

As for the hack to be able to view movies while driving, I think found one here: http://www.kptechnologies.com/ (Products > Navigation "OK" Bypass Module), but like it says, it requires soldering onto the nav system, and I'm not about to mess with that...and I doubt the dealer would do that for me either. Of course, my wife thinks it's a great feature to turn off the movie-watching capability while driving, but hey, it's my car :-)

I did find my phone on the Infiniti website--thanks! It's only 2 months old, so my only concern was that they hadn't gotten it to work yet. But they have manuals and all there. In case anyone else is looking for the area, it's: http://www.infiniti.com/bluetooth/

Thanks for the replies!

--Brendan--

 

you can only rip CD's that are burned with WAV files or store bought. can't rip an MP3 CD or from CF due to piracy reasons

if i'm not mistaken, the "OK" Bypass Module only does just that; it makes use of a Time Delay Relay to simulate a press of the Enter key to get rid of the nag screen at startup.

you'd still need to defeat the Parking Brake, which is simple if you ground the wire at the Nav, but Speed Sense will be more difficult. if you ground it, the Nav will never get speed info and might not be able to calculate certain info. it may or may not be critical, but no one knows for certain just yet.

i suspect that it will be a little while until there is a solid fix or hack for these issues, mainly because i feel that alot of people (including myslelf) that are into piracy and hacking will get the new Coupe in July. About a month or two after its release, i'm sure there will be plenty of hacking taking place

 

Again, very irritating that they dictate what you can and can't do with the equipment you purchased.

"Piracy reasons"...yeah, because all WAV files and audio CDs are legal :-P So I suppose you could just burn an audio CD and put it on the hard drive...or just convert the MP3s to WAVs. Maybe I'll just stick with burning 6 MP3 data CDs. But then what's the point of the CF slot?

That Nav bypass module says that it will allow nav input while driving; that really isn't my issue, though, since I have the package with voice recognition. I just want to be able to have a movie playing so my passengers can watch it from the front screen.

When you guys do all your hacking, try making a wireless way of doing it so we don't have to take apart the whole inside of the car and solder something to the nav system. :-)

--Brendan--

 

Where are you located, anyways?

 

Answered in PM :-)

--Brendan--