I've been looking to buy an infiniti g37x and I stumbled across a post up on Facebook here's the link if so you guys can see it and help me out ( https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/115325983212378/ ) the person is selling it for 180k miles on it for 5k$$ which I believe I can lower it to at least 4,500 or maybe even down to 4k if possible but i was just asking if this is a good purchase or not since I'm barely getting into the infiniti community.

 

I wouldn't buy it for more than $3500 as long as it doesn't have problems (that car is not a sport model by the way). Probably going to need a transmission soon. The RE5 has a normal lifespan of 160k-190k if is hasn't been beat on too hard. I have seen more but I doubt it's a 1 owner grandpa car with black wheels and listed on Facebook I passed on a car like this for $2500 but it had a few sensor problems and 220k miles. When these cars get over 180k miles nobody wants to touch them because of maintenance. If you are capable of changing a transmission, wheel bearing, sensors, water pump (NOT FUN), diagnosing old age gremlins these cars are still a great deal. If you have to take it to a shop and get things fixed I would steer away from a high mileage sport luxury car.

 

Looks like good info, let me parse that
* Tranny Swap
* Wheel bearings (so Knuckle swap?)
* Sensor swaps
* Water Pump (always have to do this...)
* Diag on non-binary (EOL type) failures

All that looks totally do'able to me. I think the responder is right in pointing out that the key pivot is
* You going to do it?
* You going to pay to have it done?

The absolute make/break of any build is cost of hrs on work. I have put in thousands of hours... and... I have come to the following conclusion
* Pay yourself 50% shop-Rate on repairs (cuz you will be doing Shade Tree work)
* Bonus yourself with the skill and knowledge gained***

On a long enough timeline, the skills and knowledge gained in doing the work (if you are in the right industry) will pay you back in spades. At the Engineering Startups I work, we try to hire Wrenches wherever possible. Engineering is, in many ways, about
* Reliability
* Serviceability
* Documentation
* Process
* Value Engineering
* Manufacturability
* Blah Blah Blah

So... tearing into every job you possibly can... SHOULD... make you a more valuable employee... or at least a more empathetic engineer.

My gut feeling is that if someone is not planning to take "the long walk" of DIY repair, that... any vehicle with over say... 120,000 ... may be no bargain at all. You can watch CL and see where people (who dont wrench) sell various makes and models of cars. Sometimes at 60K, 100K, 120K...

and
Final thought
Mechanics become less and less enthusiastic about working on higher mileage vehicles. Not only are they a cooked-out, tweaker-rigged, oily mess to work with, but... the probability of compound failures weigh on them heavy. A mechanic may very well do "good work" on your older car, only to have the car fail again... due to a secondary or compound failure. Since most consumers dont want to bother themselves with understanding machines... it becomes a problem.

Customer says
* I paid you to fix car
* Car not work!

Right?
Customer does not care why the car does not perform as expected... Anyway... I am sure folks get the point. With older, high mileage, cars... it can be hard to get a good price for 3rd party repair unless you have a long standing relationship with a Mechanic. I know lots of guys who wont work on a car unless they have always worked on it. Mostly because they have to spend so much time un-tweakering various ghetto fixes etc.

-methods