Just got delivery - birth + 129 miles
I wanted to thank all the participants here (G35driver.com too)for the commentary, experience and advice. I just bought an Ivory Pearl (Willow Leather) 6MT G35 Sedan and I couldn't be happier.
I'm trading up from an Acura RSX-S - I got married last year and got tired of cramming the family into the RSX-S. We test drove it home to make sure it fit into the garage. My wife drove it back to the dealer and had a grin on her face the whole way back.
One wierd thing was the clutch/shifter on the 6MT will take some getting used to after I've been driving an Acura for the past 2.5 years. The clutch on the G35 pops out really quickly and I'm used to feathering the clutch on the RSX-S since it doesn't have enough torque to "idle" in 1st. My wife, who usually picks up driving stick in a different car really quickly had trouble with this one. Does this seem common? I'm sure I just have to get used to it - more torque and RWD make it a vastly different car than the Acura. Also, the shifter isn't as precise as the RSX and it vibrated quite a bit - only reason it seemed odd to me is that the RSX-S shifter doesn't vibrate at all.
I could feel the power of the car but didn't want to rev it up too high for break in purposes. Man - does it feel like a tank compared to an RSX. On the plus side, it's one h*ll of a maneuverable tank! My tires were starting to go on the RSX-S and I was getting a fair amount of wheel hop on launch. Two days in the G and I'm a fan of RWD. I got the all-season tires and although I know they're not great, they've got to be better than the stock skins that came on the RSX-S (Michelin MXM something or others). We'll see how the winter works out - I learned to drive in Chicago on an early 80's Chevy Caprice station wagon - the G has to be an order of magnitude higher in handling than that.
During the test drive there was a wierd "flapping" noise in the rear right of the car. There is a "master tech" at the dealership in my town and he found out that on the right rear door the litte window behind the one that rolls down wasn't seated right in the weather stripping. They reseated it and it's perfect.
Second problem is when I got the car home from the dealership, there was a 1' (that's 1 FOOT) long scratch on the top of the trunk. I freaked out because we had the car in a parking lot for 15minutes while we got something to eat before going home and I thought I got keyed. Dropped by my friend's house and he pointed out that the right hand end of the scratch had started to be buffed out. I called the dealer and they're having another ivory pearl G sent so they can swap the trunks and get rid of my scratch. Top notch service. My dealer has been fantastic. I had a bad experience with the Acura dealer in town when I bought my RSX-S - so bad in fact that I cancelled my order and drove over an hour to another town to buy the RSX. But this Infiniti dealer has been awesome. I went to Infiniti.com, saw that they had a car in stock close to what I wanted, I called, spoke to the fleet manager and basically got the price I wanted. I got the all weather mats, a bra (o la la), splash guards and the trunk mat. They've been a step up from the Acura dealer here.
I don't think I'll mess with the PAC audio aux-in. I got a cassette adapter for the ipod and I doubt that the PAC aux-in will make the B*SE stereo sound any better than this. To get an improvement, I'll have to replace the stereo and 1) it ain't cheap 2) requires lots 'o' cosmetic work.
I'm glad I stumbled on this forum. I'd been envying the G35 for a while and didn't realize they were so "affordable". I was looking at possibly getting a Dodge Magnum (heh) when for grins I checked the price on a G35 and that sealed the deal.
|
