So I was in Denver for 4 days to attend a friends wedding and I had initially paid for a mid size car from Hertz. Once I arrived, the guy at the desk offered me an upgrade to the luxury segment for only $45 over the 3-4 days so I told him I'd like to try the Infiniti G35 sedan.

The car was a non sport, non AWD model (Journey?) with 8k miles on it. Overall, the car felt good however the one complaint I had was the shifting of the car in MM mode. There seemed to be a significant delay from when you pushed the lever up to when the transmission actually made the change. I took the car up to Rocky Mountain National Park (beautiful park btw) and most of the roads I took were very treacherous (30 deg. incline, one way veeery NARROW unpaved-mud roads. Most of the cars were 4x4's like Jeep Wranglers and/or other SUV's, although I did see a guy in a convertible mustang going up the incline .

Either way I was worried that I was driving the non AWD model considering the fact that the road had no barrier/guard rail, and we were up at 12,000 feet looking down a very steep ledge. One small mis calculation and you and your passengers were tumbling down to a slow death!!

Overall though I was very impressed at power delivery especially on the highways and downhill portion of the trip. The brakes were firm/strong and didnt fade even after the 20 mile downhill from the top of the mountain we traveled up to.

Overall I give the car a 8/10, mostly b/c of the issue with the transmission, otherwise it would've received a better score.

If any of you ever get a chance to go to Colorado, check out Rocky Mountain National Park....the waterfalls, rocks, mountains, wildlife, trees and everything are simply breath taking...

 

Wait, is that 8 out of 10 for on-road or off-road use?

 

In the sport, the paddles shift quicker with noticeably less delay if that helps.

Even in the Journey, the shift seems faster than other similar automatic cars though. It's not a DSG.

 

yea i noticed that the other day as well...i always use the paddles in MM but other day i wanted to be old school and use shifter...definate slower.

only thing i hate is the hard shift from 2nd to 3rd

 

RMNP is a killer place to be. I lived in Steamboat for awhile and during the summer, the best way to Estes Park and Ft. Collins is through that park. Did you stop and look at the Elk up at the preserve in Estes Park? That's a great great drive through there, especially in an open jeep.

 

You know, it took a long time to get to RMNP from Denver (about 2-2.5 hrs) and we left late so we arrived around 3PM. We drove through Estes Park and entered the park through the eastern entrance. The fee was $20 which wasnt bad considering the views and various other attractions. We took Old Falls River Rd (or Old River Falls Rd) which was the unpaved road which took us all the way up to Alpine Summit which was at around 11,790 feet. That was the top of one of the mountains we climbed, and you're absolutely right an open top jeep would've been spectacular. Only problem was it was 85 in Denver, but at 11000 feet it was freezing cold.

We looked like fools I am sure, we had planned to go to waterworld (water slides, lazy rivers etc) so we were wearing swimming trunks/suits w/ sandals then as we arrived decided to continue on to the park. needless to say it was raiining in the mountains (although it was sunny all the way there) and it was at least 20 deg colder at that altitude!!

Rock climbing in swimming trunks and sandals FTMFW!!! Now if my gf or I had gotten hurt or died it would read FTMFL!!

 

Yea, it's never really that warm up there... but that's the fun part. And anyone that knows the mountains of CO knows that you never go without your sweatshirt or jacket in the car at all times, year round. An open top jeep is great. Like you said, shorts, tshirts, sandals in Denver, when you get to Estes Park, throw on your sweatshirt and keepa goin. lol Hell, it's not uncommon at all to get snowed on up in that park in July.

What a fun trip... makes me a little sad that I can't be there right now.

 

Yeah I don't understand why even in MM the transmission just takes sooooo long to get that next gear on. It takes somewhere between 1-2sec for it to complete, much like switching gears on a 6MT at an avg speed.

 

it does seem using the paddles, the higher the rpms your in, say 2nd at 6500, the quicker it shifts when you tap the paddle. at 6500 / 6800 rpms, my 2nd to 3rd shift is pretty quick.

 

unfort rental didnt have paddles

 

Even at higher rpms the paddles shift noticeably faster. The difference isn't as great as at lower rpms, but it's still there.

Not only does it shift sooner (more quickly after you tell it to) it shifts harder (less time to shift) with the paddles.

With the paddles, you don't have to "plan ahead" as much for your shifts as you do with the shift ****.

 

and it's actually a tad better with the grounding cables...

 

Hoping that will be an improvement once thats done in a week or two.

 

I've figured out that different people define shift speeds in an automatic differently.

1) The time it takes for the transmission to respond when you hit the paddles or

2) The time it takes the transmission to actually shift from one gear to the next.

For 1) the car normally shifts between 7,000 and 7,500 RPM under load. I've noticed that if you try to force it to shift early under load (say around 6,000), the tranmission will hold off beggining the shift until 7,000-7,500. I guess it's because the transmission programming does not want to let you bog down the motor? This may be the reason you feel the delay in manual mode when driving around the hills.

2) Is what after market shift kits try to minimize because that is where the transmission fluid gets heated up causing things to break. The obvious negative of a shorter shift time is the "head jerk" feeling (like popping the clutch on an MT).

 

That's how the shift in my car. Is the padle shifter faster?