Hello from Los Angeles, California. Nice active forums you have here.
I got a call from a close relative last night asking me if I'd want their one-owner, dealer serviced, 2003 G35 Sedan, 89,000 miles, very clean and straight, garaged. $3500. My only hesitation is what I read about brake wear, a possible recommended oil capture upgrade (not a problem for me really) window & door motors, and the chance of parts being expensive since it's a lux car.

It's been nice having fewer car expenses - using my motorcycle and taking the wife's car only when really needed - but man, this is so tempting! It's a swell car.
Any thoughts or recommendations?
Thanks,
Moto

 

The premature brake wear was only on the Brembo equipped vehicles, if you have big gold colored calipers that say BREMBO then if you drive the car hard the pads will wear faster than a regular set of brakes on a regular commuter. There's nothing actually WRONG with the brakes, they do exactly what they're supposed to and wear out at a reasonable rate for a piece of performance equipment but people are dumb and had different expectations and convinced a judge in California that their argument was legitimate so...

If you plan on upgrading the vehicle my ONLY concern would be to make sure it has the later style of ECU and not one of the early '03 ones that are not Uprev compatible, if you DONT plan on getting the engine tuned as part of a performance upgrade then this is a non-issue. The window motors are a piece of cake to replace when they do fail but they cost about $150 apiece. The VQ35DE non-rev up version doesn't consume AS MUCH oil as the rev-up motor in the '05-'07 6MT equipped G's but you should be able to simply ASK these close relatives if it's ever been an issue for them. Consuming oil is pretty much "normal" for these vehicles so just get in the habit of checking your oil weekly and topping it off as needed, it will consume LESS conventional oil than it will synthetic but if the consumption is minimal then feel free to use synthetic if you like that stuff.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy the vehicle if you're ok with the issues above, they've very comfortable vehicles with a lot of potential for upgrades and drive amazing on the highway. At that price point with low miles and getting an HONEST vehicle history from the one owner I'd jump on it in a heartbeat if I was in the market for a sedan...

 

Thanks for the reply cleric. I fell into the honey pot of modding cars and bikes too many times to ever use this one as anything but a stock get-around so it sounds pretty good. Was also considering turning it for a few bucks. Thanks again.

 

You know those are the same words many of us here have uttered when buying our G right? The mod bug is strong and when it bites it bites hard lol. However, I beat the curse when I bought an unmolested 06 GTO with 27K miles a couple of years ago and swore the same thing. To this day she's still 99% stock so it CAN be done.

Cleric's spot on, that's a great deal for the condition of the car and it's history. My guess is if you buy it, you'll have a hard time deciding to flip it, they really are fun cars.