Don’t try this in your average street car. If, on the other hand, you have a $150,000 prepped World Rally car, then maybe. If you’ve got an awesome driver.
I’ve now had my Mazda3 about a month and a half, and I thought I’d scribble down a few thoughts that I’ve had in the interim.
No car this affordable should be this well equipped and optioned
156 horsepower is almost as much fun as 280 was
Gas prices aren’t so bad any more
Seriously, though, everyone who has been in it has remarked at what a nice car it is, and especially for the money. The interior fit is approximately equivalent to the Infiniti, and it actually squeak less. This is quite impressive for $15k less money.
So far I’d have to say I’m 100% satisfied with my purchase.
Today, a period of time ended. Namely, the time during which I was driving a 2003 Infiniti G35 coupe. It was, and continues to be, one of the most beautiful cars currently in production, and certainly, I think, the most beautiful thing under $75k. Having said that, the lease was coming to an end, and it was time for something new. So, I bought a Mazda3, which so far I have been delighted with. It’s not the same beautiful face, but it is fun to drive.
In order to return a leased car, though, you have to get it inspected. This was a task that had me dreading the day, concerned that maybe I had a few too many spots on the carpet, or that a scratch on the wheels might be construed as needing to replace the entire thing ($800/each). Fortunately, the gentleman from AiM, who handled the inspection was professional, and quick, and I walked away with a zero dollar bill. Now, I just need to schedule the return.
On a strange side note, when I got in the car this morning—not having driven it for over a week—I realized how starkly different the two vehicles are. Where the Mazda3 is “light and airy” feeling, with a feathery clutch and light, but crisp, gearshift mechanism, the G35 is a bit dark and brooding in its nature, and by contrast, the clutch requires the quads of Atlas to actuate properly, and the gear shift, though distinctly gated and pleasant, is heavy and feels attached to substantial machinery under it. Just very different experience.
I will miss the sound of the G35’s exhaust spinning up like an out-of-tune Ferrari in the tunnel in Rock Creek Park, though.
I love my car. In spite of the tickets I’ve gotten, and in-spite of so many other things, I do think it’s one of the finest cars built today. Unfortunately, it is also a first year car. It was one of the first off the boat from Japan, and that means it comes with certain issues that others might not face.
Today is one of those days. I dropped my car off last Thursday for its 45K service, which is a pretty extensive one. In addition, I had asked them to tighten the front driver’s seat since it has come loose again. Finally, just the week before the “service engine soon” light had come on. I thought perhaps because I was over my normal interval, but I was wrong.
I just got a call from Jeff, the head of service for my dealer, and it’s going to be tomorrow before I get the car back. So far, the things it’s had done in this exciting trip:
45K service, and all that that implies (oil, lube, filters, tightening, etc)
Replaced the entire fuel line from tank to engine (recall that was issued the day I dropped it off)
Replaced the clutch throw-out bearing (rattling, replaced under warantee)
Replace oxygen sensor (the cause of the light, and under warantee)
Replaced driver-side valve cover gasket (leaking, and under warantee)
Replaced belts that somehow have frayed at 45K? That’s odd to me.
And what happens today? I find out some minor bracket, that probably costs 50 cents to make, is out of stock so they’ve had to order it to fix the seat. Fun! So I get the car back tomorrow, it seems.
At least my loaner car is a G35 sedan, and not a Yugo. :-)
Overall, I’ve been very happy with my G35 coupe. Overall, I’ve been very happy with the dealer I use to service it (Passport Infiniti). Unfortunately, I’ve been having issues with my A/C system in my car the past week or so.
It started last week, Wednesday, when the A/C just pooped out and started blowing hot air into the car. I checked all the fuses, and called the dealer. They got me in, though without a loaner car, the next day, and “fixed it.” They said the car had blown an O-ring seal in the system, which caused all the pressure to leak out. Reasonable, it happens, not a major issue.
So, I drove down to Chapel Hill for my sister’s graduation. While driving to the graduation itself, with my father in the car, the A/C failed exactly the same way, and I called the dealer immediately. This was Saturday, so they weren’t open for service. I left a message.
I went in Monday, when I could, and they were good enough (thanks to Jeff, the service manager), to get me in immediately and they diagnosed it as a compressor issue. Apparently the compressor was “over pressurizing” the system, which can happen. They would have to order a new one, since they had none in stock, and the other local dealer was out as well. This is an annoyance, as it’s not something they should be “out of” easily. Begin supply chain stupidity part 1.
Since I had to go down to the tidewater area of VA to work with a customer, my friend Kristen generously loaned me her SAAB 9-5 Aero, which I just returned. That went great, but I got a call yesterday from Jeff saying the part still wasn’t in, and that it hadn’t even been released from Infiniti’s parts depot in California. Frustrating supply chain stupidity part 2.
Today, I get another call from Jeff saying that while the part has been released and shipped, he has no way to track it, and that he doesn’t know when it will arrive. Apply to that silliness (who in this day and age can’t track a freaking box?) that the part has to go to Baltimore before it can come down to Alexandria, and they think it might be in tomorrow sometime, but maybe not till Monday.
Monday makes a week without A/C in my pretty little red car, something that is not impressing me with Infiniti’s service level. Sure, they’re nice, sure they’re apologetic, but in the end, they’re not getting the job done.
Update: The car is finally done. The compressor showed up Wednesday morning, and I dropped the car off before heading to Austin for the weekend. Will pick it up when I return.
The saga of my G35 exhaust system damage takes another step. I just got a call from someone in Fairfax County Public Works, who had received judgment from VDOT that in fact they did owe compensation. So they are forwarding it to the final contractor whose insurance will cover it. I am supposed to hear from the contractor within 2 weeks.
I finally got all the repairs done on my G35, and as you can see from the before photo, the amount of damage done is substantial. Fortunately, almost $1k later, it’s all better. I’ve taken a bunch of photos and plan to use them in my argument to VDOT that they should cover the damage to the car. As of end of the week (a week after the occurrence) the problem had not been fixed. This means other people could be impacted.
It’s nice to finally be back to the normal, and quite nice sounding, factory exhaust system. I can now hear my stereo without having to turn it up quite so loud. I also don’t feel like I’m driving a riced-out Honda any more. As someone at the dealer pointed out “some people pay good money to make their cars sound like that.” True, but all I had to do was rip the exhaust system off my car nearly. Click on the photo for a bigger version, in color.
So, I spoke with a nice lady at VDOT today and she pointed out that I needed to write up and document what happened with my car, and provide all the evidence I could to the local Engineer for the Fairfax district of VDOT. I’m in the process of doing that, but I need to get a photograph of both the man-hole cover situation on Columbia Pike, as well as the damage to the flange joint on my car, plus all the bills. Once I do this, which I won’t be able to until next weekend, I can send it to the Engineer, who will review it, and then send it on to headquarters in Richmond, where it will be swallowed into the depths of the government for “60 to 90 days.” Then I will know if they’ll pay.
Yesterday, after dinner, I’m driving down Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads, and smack a manhole cover that is apparently so far above ground (because the area around it sunk into the ground) that it smacks the exhaust system in my car. After, my exhaust system sounds like a pimped out Honda Civic with a 5” coffee can on the back. But louder.
I just got back from the Nissan dealer (who was open on Saturday, and since my car is nearly a 350Z is competent to deal with it), and it’s going to cost me $800 in parts alone, and another $175 in labor to fix. Why? Because it cracked a flange mounting between two pieces of the exhaust system, bending one, and tearing the other. This forces both toe be replaced, and each are $350+. The joys.
So the question is, can I go after Falls Church, or whomever is over this stupid road for leaving such a huge risk in the middle of the road. I was going 30mph, max, since I had just started from a stop light, and to have done nearly a thousand dollars in damage is absurd.
Of course, now I’m driving this for a week while parts are ordered. It’s 90dB loud inside the car, and the same outside. It’s not fun.
Update: Apparently, in NoVA, if it’s a VDOT maintained road (which this is, Route 244), you can call 703-383-2335 to initiate the process of claims. This is basically impossible to find out on the web, but I was able to get it from a nice person at the VDOT/NoVA office.
I don’t know what it is about me, road trips, and my cars. This has always happened. I’m on a road trip to Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta and back—-long story, some other time—-for work related activities, and so I got everything packed this morning, stuffed it in the trunk of my car, which is no small feat, let me tell you, get in and start the car. Now keep in mind, it’s summer in DC, it’s 90 degrees at 10:30am, and 439% humidity, to be exact.
The cold air is not to be found—-no fan. The compressor is switching off and on, so that’s good. Try restarting the car, perhaps a computer issue. Nope. Try checking the fuses. Nope. Call the dealer and they say bring it right over. So, after looking at it, it turns out the fan motor is burned out, and “of course,” they don’t stock them. I don’t blame them, my car hasn’t been on the market even 2 years yet.
So, they kindly loaned me a G35 sedan, in lovely appliance white, which is better than the last time, and the escapade with tire, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and a lovely Chevy Cavalier. Fortunately, I made it to Raleigh in a reasonable period, and obviously it’s a nice car to drive. Not as nice as my coupe, but it’s also less likely to get me pulled over.
So, last Wednesday, coming home from my friend Jenny’s house in Arlington, I hit some of Arlington County’s wonderful construction… at nearly midnight, in the rain, with no signs. I hit it at 40mph, and bent a wheel. I did not know this, alas, until Thursday morning when I was packing my car to go to the Outer Banks. Then, just before leaving, I decided to check the tire pressure. 0psi. Nothing, nada, zilch.
After renting a car, and now having returned from the beach, and a relaxing weekend, I just got done talking to the dealer about a new wheel. Their initial price was something like “we rape you, then we pour salt on it, then we kill your children.” In dollars, that’s just a hair under $1,200—-for a wheel. Just one. I managed to negotiate it down to rape and no salt, but still, $840.22 for a single wheel. No, that doesn’t include a new tire, at $260.
So I’ve now had my car for 10 months exactly, and I still really really like it. It’s a lot of fun to drive, and meets all my needs, even though on occasion I find the trunk is a bit too small (i.e. non-existant). Having said that, it’s time for it to get detailed and get all those little scuff marks and dirt out of the interior before winter comes, so I’ve made an appointment at American Service Center in Arlington to get it detailed, and even though it’s $150.00, I figure it’s worth it, as they come highly recommended. Plus a nice wax job will make the “whore red” look even better!
So I made my decision. No satellite radio. Why, you might ask? Because Infiniti was deceptive in their advertising, and it turns out that you need not only the $350 module, but on my edition, it’s 2+ hours of work, because they have to install wiring, which was implied to have already existed on all G35 models by the advertising. On top of that, the worst part, is a $20 external “turtle shell” antenna that will get glued to my trunk.
No, I think not. Not even close. Why would you “integrate” it all without dealing with the antenna issue on a car that draws a huge amount of its attraction based on the design? Morons.
Yesterday, I took my car in to switch it over to Mobile 1 synthetic oil, and while I was there, I bothered to ask about whether Infiniti had released the modules for the stereo to connect them to the satellite network players XM and Sirius. One of the neat things about the car is that it has a changable module that allows you to choose which system to use, rather than having the manufacturer choose. When I had bought the car originally, the modules hadn’t been scheduled for release for another 6 months.
Anyway, apparantly both modules are out, and now I have to decide if they’re worth the money ($400.00), and which of them I would prefer. There are trade-offs to both services when it comes to what channels are available, and unfortunately, I don’t know anyone with Sirius, though I do know 2 people with XM. There’s another factor at play, and that’s survivability. There’s a good chance one of the two players won’t survive the next few years, and my question is which one?
XM has substantially more subscribers, perhaps a 10:1 ratio with Sirius, however they just recently found out that they launched some broken satellites that won’t have much life span, and are spending something like $400 to replace them, which was not in their budget. Decisions, decisions. Who is going to survive?
Updated : So I went through the radio channel listings (100 per service) and figured out which, if any, I would listen to. It was 30 with Sirius, 24 with XM, but honestly, without actually listening to the various channels, I can’t say as they’re the right blend for me, just that they cover the right genre that I would like to hear. Either way, that’s 23+ more stations than I listen to today.
I have to admit, though, that Sirius’ channel 42, which they call Wax has a pretty cool lineup that isn’t on XM or even close. A whole station dedicated to turntablism and freestyle spinning? DJ Red Alert? Now you’ve got my attention.
The other thing, Sirius lets you listen to some bit of their lineup (I’m at work and can’t right now), where-as XM doesn’t seem to. I should try and go by somewhere to take a listen to the two styles. I’m sure they’re roughly equivelent sound quality.
So I just got a call from the tire place. Now they’re saying “oh it’s on a truck, it’ll be here this afternoon.” This is after being promised it Monday, which they failed at, then Tuesday, which they failed at, then Tuesday, promised it “by 11am Wednesday,” which this morning slipped to “noon,” and now “sometime this afternoon,” which is sufficiently vague to allow anything to happen.
You would think that the purchase of a single tire was a logistical challenge on par with rebuilding the Wilson Bridge given the sheer incompetence demonstrated in managing their suppliers. Who do they think they are, Verizon?
So, I ordered the tire last Monday, it was supposed to be in yesterday at the latest. Since I was traveling, I called them, and they said “oh, it’s in, and we just need to pick it up, and will do that first thing in the morning.” OK, so not a major impact to me. I call them this morning, and they’re going to go out in a bit, but are waiting for more staff to get in. Fine. Now I just talked to them, wondering where my tire is, and am told “well, we have a confirmation number, but our warehouse swears it doesn’t even exist as a model.” They have no idea who the confirmation number came from. Now, where were they going to go pick my tire up from?
You’d think when you’re buying one tire that costs $275, that they could manage to actually do it correctly. I should have ordered it from Tire Rack.
Well, I just got back from Merchant’s Tire, which is the place the dealer recommended I use for a repair, and unfortunately, no repair is possible. I was looking in the wrong place for the puncture: it’s on the inside of the tire, facing the car, not the outside facing the world. Unfortunately, all side-wall damage is not repairable, even more so on a low-profile tire.
So what’s the damage? Basically, Merchant’s wants $267 for a new Michelin Pilot Sport in the 225/45WR18 size that my car needs on the front, and that’s an installed price. Just for grins and chuckles, I called Tire Rack and they want $249 for the tire, without shipping or installation. So that’s no advantage, if not a major loss. The dealer was $345 for just the tire, and no installation included—-which is laughable, and they knew it.
The end result is, I have a new tire on order, that won’t be in till Monday. Until then, I’m on the laughable spare tire that’s included. I feel a bit odd. Fortunately, I’m out of town Wednesday through Sunday in Austin, TX to visit my sister and mom.
Once again, I find myself dealing with a flat tire. After the concert last night, at roughly midnight, I find out one of my front tires is flat. Jack, change, unjack, go home, whine.
Hopefully the damage is patchable, and doesn’t require replacing the tire, as they are $250-300/each. No fun.
Well, after 2 months, I finally got my Virginia license plates, so that I don’t have paper tags any more. That also means I needed to go get my inspection sticker (since I bought it in MD, the dealer couldn’t inspect it), and my tax sticker. Woo hoo! Yay me.
So my car has Michelin Pilot Sports on it, which are amazingly high traction tires—-in non-freezing conditions. Driving home tonight from dinner was a bit treacherous in the snow/ice that’s coming down. Because it hasn’t been over freezing for a day or two, the ground is cold, so snow is not melting at all when it hits. I must say, it’s nice to have excellent ABS, traction control and vehicle dynamics systems. However, driving 25mph is a good decision too. So is driving gently with generous distances between myself and the car in front.
Unfortunately, I was nearly run off the road by some idiot in a Ford Expedition who is convinced that 50mph in the snow/ice (in a 35mph zone) is his God-given right—-as well as an exemption from the laws of physics. Hopefully he’ll hit a telephone pole.
Just as I was complaining earlier about not having my owner’s manual, etc., I received a call this afternoon from the dealer letting me know they’d finally come in, and I could come by and pick one up anytime. Strangely, I’m also driving to Martinsburg, WV tomorrow, which requires me to basically drive past the dealer—-so good timing.
So I’ve now had my new car for 1 month, and thought I would write a bit about my impressions and feelings. As most of my friends know, I traded in my WRX for a G35 Coupe from Infiniti. I don’t regret the trade at all, and I am quite enamoured with my new car. So far, it’s turned out to be a great decision.
First, I’ve never owned a car that garnered this much attention from everyone around it. Just today, I had someone who works in the same building as I do, stop when I was getting out of the car (they were driving out of the lot) and chat me up about the car, how him and “the guys” had been looking at it, admiring it, and looking up the information on the web about it. Add to that, people who have walked past things like the Acura NSX to admire my car, and I have to say it’s a fun sensation. Not like driving a Ferrari, annoying, but just nice, smiles, things like that. I’ts truely a work of art. Visually, it is the rightful heir of the Fairlady and the Skyline—-more so than the regular 350Z would be. Restrained lines stretched taut over a strong muscular frame.
Second, this is one of the most fun cars to drive I’ve owned. It’s a different kind of fun from the WRX. With the WRX, it was fun when you drove it hard, beat it, made it work to hold grip on a corner. The G35 is quite fun regardless of how you drive it, and the feedback from the car is the equal of the WRX in my estimation. This is saying a lot, especially about the steering. The brakes, I simply don’t know where to begin. Provided by Brembo, the same people who outfit Ferrari, they provide gobs of stopping power, zero fade, and progression in application that is very impressive. A nice side effect to the materials used is that the rotors don’t rust when they get wet and sit for a while.
Third, I’m still missing my damned manuals for the car. Apparantly, they were held up because of the port strike several months ago, but that’s no excuse for that not being resolved at this point. “Soon,” has long since passed. In the mean time, I was able to find PDF copies of both the owner’s manual as well as the navigation system. These are identical, and while I can’t leave them in the car, at least I can read them.
I guess in the end, I just really enjoy the car. I’ve been looking for excuses to drive it, and worse, slowing down at the entrance to the tunnel in Rock Creek Park, so that I can rev the engine and race through the tunnel, with the sunroof open. What a beautiful exhaust note. Doesn’t sound like a V-6, more like a slightly detuned V-12. I’m looking forward to many more miles coming soon.
I finally got all the repairs done on my G35, and as you can see from the before photo, the amount of damage done is substantial. Fortunately, almost $1k later, it’s all better. I’ve taken a bunch of photos and plan to use them in my argument to VDOT that they should cover the damage to the car. As of end of the week (a week after the occurrence) the problem had not been fixed. This means other people could be impacted.
First, I’ve never owned a car that garnered this much attention from everyone around it. Just today, I had someone who works in the same building as I do, stop when I was getting out of the car (they were driving out of the lot) and chat me up about the car, how him and “the guys” had been looking at it, admiring it, and looking up the information on the web about it. Add to that, people who have walked past things like the