Hi! I just bought a 2003 G35. Does anyone have any helpful insight into owning one? Or know any of the little problems that these cars have?

 

There's all sorts of various little issues, many of them are simply due to the vehicle being 15 years old so every suspension bushing is probably shot, struts, wheel bearings, ball joints, tie rod end links, etc. The only items that really jump out at me for being items of failure that are G specific are the rear differential bushing, the CAM and CRANK position sensors (crank will leave you dead on the side of the highway when it fails), the AC blower fan relay which is hidden BEHIND the cabin fuse box, and the fuel gauge will fail and not show the vehicle being empty even though it is.

I would definitely run the car down until the gas can light turns on just to verify the gauge is actually working. Also check the DOT date stamp on your tires, they are inside an OVAL shaped box and it's a 4 digit number, first two digits is the WEEK they were produced and the last two digits is the YEAR. For example 3213 would be the 32'nd week of 2013. If your tires are more than 5 years old you should seriously consider replacing them, the depth of tread is not what sticks you to the road, that's what diverts WATER off the tread of the tire, tires are a specific chemical composition that decays over time and it's this special composition that allows the rubber to grip the road. Anything over 5 years is unsafe and the tires may behave unpredictably when you need them most during hard cornering or hard braking.

I also STRONGLY recommend you download a copy of the factory service manual (FSM) which can be found here.

http://nicoclub.com/archives/infinit...e-manuals.html

The FSM starts at the FWD document, download each of the individual sections because NICO could be forced to take the FSM's down again like they did this summer.

If you have a sedan your trunk wiring harness will probably break in the future sometime, it's not a matter of IF it's a matter of WHEN. Make sure the emergency release cable actually works, the rear seats have a red pull cord wedged in between the rear console and the seatback, dig around and find it and make sure that works also. If you can't manually open the trunk and that wiring fails (it breaks due to stress and age) and you can't get the trunk open manually you will be hating life.

 

Wow I would be so mad if that happened lol.

 

Wecome Rouge, I've got a 2004 6MT G35 which I bought a year and a half ago to get into cars. I'm assuming by "getting into cars" you mean "learning how to wrench". I'm also assuming you bought a cheaper car which may not have been maintained by its previous owner, as that's what I did as a young guy wanting to get into cars.

That said, this is a great fun car to learn on IMO since the transmissions and engines are solid while you focus on getting everything else back up to spec, and they're not a huge pain to work on like some German cars and front drivers. As cleric said there's all sorts of things that will go wrong, basically anything original that is made of rubber is worn out due to age alone and should be replaced... If you don't replace them they will break one by one as you drive the car and you'll have a bad time with a clunky, bad handling car which eats expensive tires every 5k miles.

Expect to completely rebuild the front end of the car replacing all of the bushings with polyurethane, new compression rods, etc. Obviously shocks/struts. The differential will need to be dropped to install new poly diff bushings, or you can use the quick fix some people have been doing by filling the rear bushing with expoxy or polyurethane.

Change every fluid on the car. Power steering, transmission, differential, coolant. When you change the coolant, replace the thermostat, radiator hoses/cap, and the coolant temperature sensor. Make sure you bleed the system properly, have a Lilse-style no spill funnel on hand or you'll have a terrible time. The water pump is intended to be a lifetime part on these cars and shouldn't be replaced unless it starts leaking as it's a PITA.

If the engine/transmission mounts are original they need to be replaced as well eventually.

As far as the engine goes it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace the cam/crank sensors with OE parts (aftermarkets are known to fail early or cause intermittent issues).That's the only "common" problem on unmaintained Gs which would strand you other than a cooling system failure. While you're doing that, clean the MAF, air filter, and throttle body with the proper cleaners, making sure you don't move the throttle body valve when you clean it. Then replace the spark plugs, checking for oil on the plugs or anything else which could cause problems down the road. This will ensure your VQ35 will perform as it should. Another good thing to do is replace the PCV valve and install an oil catch can. Buy a couple spare used coil packs (~5 each) for when one of yours inevitably breaks and causes an easily diagnosable misfire.

These engines burn oil so do your own oil changes and figure out exactly how much it burns so you can add oil mid cycle. Not doing this is probably the #1 cause of people blowing their older VQ35s in normal use. 1 QT per 1000 miles is on the high end of acceptable.


Welcome to old car life! This may seem like a lot but unlike a lot of other older performance cars none of this is really "critical" so you can take your time fixing things while still driving it regularly. Once you do all this, you'll have a "forever" car which IMO is worth something now that all new cars are heavy, disposable and the RWD / manual transmission is a thing of the past.