Introduction
On Thursday the 16th I departed Arizona for a trip towards the Pacific Northwest. My rough route was to drive to LA, stay with my cousin for a night, depart for San Francisco, hang there for a few days with another friend, and then drive to Portland and mooch off yet another friend.

I was still a bit upset about my old G coupe getting totalled, (https://g35driver.com/forums/g35-coupe-v35-2003-07/151980-got-into-accident-tonight-think-s-totalled.html), and I knew this would be a great way to become acquainted with my new sedan, which before leaving had 3000 miles on it.

Phoenix to Los Angeles
372 mi – about 5 hours 31 mins
up to 6 hours 40 mins in traffic

This is a drive I have made several times before. 3/4 of the drive is long, flat, straight, and boring. Once I was on the interstate, I began playing with the intelligent cruise control. I never really had a chance before this trip to test out this feature. I began by getting in the slow lane and setting the speed to 80mph (yes people drive fast on the I-10). I was very impressed at how well the system worked. The three proximity settings worked as they were supposed to. I found myself using the middle proximity option because of the rate of speed I was travelling. One thing really irritated me. You are ONLY able to set the cruise control up to 90mph. I know there aren't too many reasons why one would want to drive over 90mph on cruise control, but what I enjoyed doing was setting the speed higher than I planned on driving, and getting behind someone going around 80 - 85. This minimizes having to touch the gas or the brake. There are parts of the I-10 where 100mph is the speed most people are travelling, so it was annoying when the intelligent cruise control was set to 90 (the max) and the flow of traffic was going faster.

One thing about the intelligent cruise control that I noticed is that when enabled, you get AWESOME gas mileage. There's no way I could match that sort of MPG without using ICC. I got about 430 miles on that tank of gas.

Overall this drive went by fast. The car handled well and predictably at high rates of speed. Sometimes the car seemed to wander in my lane, even though the car's steering is perfectly aligned, but after an hour or so on the interstate I got the hang of it.

After arriving in LA, the surface of the freeways and the roads were different than what I was used to in Arizona. Not once did I ever hear a rattle or strange vibrations in the car. I was very happy with how it handed in this city.

Los Angeles to San Francisco
382 mi – about 5 hours 49 mins
up to 7 hours 20 mins in traffic

Well I overslept the day that I was going to go to San Francisco, so I hit the road late. My initial plan was to take the Pacific Coast Highway, but because of time constraints I had to take the I-5.

This portion of the trip was where I really opened up the G. I don't think I used the cruise control once. After about 30 min on the 5, I came up to a pack of nicer sports cars. There was an RX-7, a Lexus IS-350, a really old Porsche, and a Volkswagon GTI. We averaged 90MPH, but there were definitely some bursts of speed that I'll neglect to mention here ! This was where I was extremely happy that I had gotten the 6MT. Driving the G was just plain fun, and hearing the sound coming from my stillen exhaust never got old. The IS-350 and I seemed to both have the same destination, and we eventually broke off and formed our own pack. The cars seemed VERY evenly matched.

After arriving in San Francisco, I began to remember how hilly the city is. This had me slightly worried, because I had never encountered rush hour with a manual transmission on large hills before. The G proved to take the hills beautifully. Not once did I stall or roll backwards without being in complete control. San Francisco is a great city to drive in. It almost feels like you're playing that old video game Crazy Taxi.

The navigation package in San Francisco (or any foreign city for that matter) was about the coolest and most handy thing ever! Even though I've grown accustomed to the birdseye view, I think that the standard view is more efficient for getting around when you aren't familiar with the area you are in. I love the birdseye view, but found it to be less effective than the standard view.

I was lucky enough to have a garage to park in while in San Francisco, and to be honest I didn't really do too much driving. I relied heavily on public transportation. It was a nice break from being behind the wheel.

After a few days in San Francisco I had an urge to keep driving north. I figured that I'd hop on the 101-N and see how far I ended up.

San Francisco to Crescent City
355 mi – about 6 hours 41 mins

This was a spectacular drive. I got to travel through Nappa & Sonoma (wine country for those who don't know), as well as the redwood forest. The roads were empty, twisty, exhilarating, and were a perfect match for the G's sporty handling and power. This is where my rear wheel active steer package came in handy. After becoming comfortable with these twisty roads, I turned off the VDC and began experimenting. Slowly I progressed into controlled slides around sharp turns. The experience was fantastic.

So 2pm rolled around and it was evident that my friend in Portland who I was planning on staying with was not answering his phone. I decided to stay the night where I was at and head back to San Francisco the following day, but instead of taking the 101, I was going to take the 1, which goes right up the coast for most of the way.

Crescent City to San Francisco
381 mi – about 7 hours 45 mins

This was quite possibly the coolest stretch of road I've ever driven on. I had a foggy ocean view out of the right side of my car for most of the way back to San Francisco. The roads were windy, curvy, steep, and even cooler than on the way up. The fresh ocean air made the drive a pleasure. The views were spectacular.

After staying in San Francisco for several more days, I went back to LA for a day, and then headed home the day after.

Summary

The G handled great in every situation I put it in. The bells & whistles came in handy. The car just felt safe and stable the entire way. Rarely was I sick of driving, which says a lot about the G considering how far I drove.

For those of you with the new G sedans, I would highly recommend taking a similar trip at some point. You won't regret it I promise

 

Great read. So, you never made it up to the PacNW?

With respect to cruise control, did you try using the steering wheel acceleration button to go beyond 90 mph once you set the cruise control?

I remember in my old 300ZXTT, the max cruise control speed was 85, but after the cruise control was set, you could use the steering wheel accelerator to go beyond 85 mph and it would hold the speed at whatever you accelerated up to. Worth a shot.

 

Great write up bro. I took my G on a 2300 KM road trip back in July and it performed amazing. We had some awesome twisties (as seen below) on our trip and the paddle shifters worked flawless. I've had a G35 for 4 years now (had an 03 prior) and that was the first road trip I've been on, I wish I wouldn't of waited so long. It really is a fun car to travel in.

 

There's nothing like a good road trip to build the connection between a driver and a car.

 

First road trip for my car is going to be around December/January...me and my buddies are going to drive out to where ever Virginia Tech is having their bowl game (they better go to a decent one...).