2008 Infiniti G35 xAWD Reviews

Very quiet inside, very very fast, amazing steering and brakes. Great Nav and ergonomics. Very stable at high speed and during windy conditions. Needs rain-sensing wipers, adjustable pedals, midrange control on Audio System, and DRL's. I love how it blips the throttle when you downshift via the titanium paddles. Waiting for snow to sample the AWD system.

Really nice car.  Have an 08 G35XS with NAV.  Initially didn't want NAV but couldn't find the car I wanted without it.  Realtime traffic is great.  Currently 31K and I've owned it for about 1.5years.  Car is rear-wheel biased and transfers power/torque to the front wheels when rear wheels spin (nice most times, but perhaps not as confidence inspiring as other setups in the winter? ... you get used to it and it's a trade off - rear wheel bias is great for a sports car - which this is!). Only problem so far was that the drive-sport mode of the auto trans didn't always detect shifts.  It was replaced under warranty.  The car is very fast, but I'm used to a turbo which generates more torque at a lower RPM.  This engine doesn't really shine in my opinion until 5000RPM and above.  The sport package is great, but the firmness of the ride and seats can get a littlebit tiresome at times.  Stereo is nice, but I expected more.  There is no mid-range EQ adjustment, which I would like.  Build-in harddrive for recording music from CD works well.  Unfortunately I can't say the same for the software to navigate the songs.  It's too slow to search through songs because they have leagally (I presume) taken away some settings once the car is moving (like search by category).  Really agravating when you want to get to a specific song and you're forced to scroll forever.  Not sure who thought this through.  Makes no sense when you can spend forever being distracted with vehicle settings, navigation, etc.  Build quality has been good.  I did have a squeak in a door panel fixed, and I have a bit of a sound that comes from between the windshield and dash if I hit bumps hard when its cold (not a big deal).  Really enjoy this car.  Lots of compliments on the appearance externally and internally.  I wish Infiniti would have added weather monitoring to the NAV system.  I love the car, but don't like my payment (LOL).  Can't beat this car for features, performance, equipment, reliability.  I wish it had another 50 horsepower (I'm a guy).  It's plenty fast though - way faster than most will ever need - makes the car a great daily driver.  VDC vehicle dynamic control (infiniti's name for electronic stability control ESC) is really a serious nanny in the winter, to the point that it retards throttle too much in my opinion some times and perhaps could create a dangerous situation when you need the card to move faster (NOW).  This car uses drive by wire (a throttle position sensor).  I complained about throttle response/delay below 2000RPM ... not a big deal, but it seemed to be a bit of a slight delay from when my foot moved the pedal to when the engine responded ... not much, but irritating.  Dealer check it out and could not find anything wrong.  Said the TPS has a small natural delay.  Sure enough, the loaner I drove also had it.  It's only slightly noticable if you're picky like me, and only noticable below 2000RPM when letting off the gas and then pressing it again.  Great car.  The Xenon lights are very effective and the LED taillights are also very responsive and bright on stops.  By the way, voice commands for navigation is really cool.  Makes it possible to only use the voice botton on the steering wheel once and then use voice commands to specify a destination.  Bluetooth is also great and works well.  I really wish the back seat folded down (it doesn't.  Irritating when I needed to pick up my son from ski club and couldn't fit his snowboard in the trunk.  I knew that when I bought it, but it would sure come in handy once in a while.  Also, the trunk has a CD changer that in this configuration is useless because with the harddrive the system records each CD (if you want it to) by the time it gets to the 3rd song on the CD it's on the hard drive.  In the matter of a few days of normal work driving you can record all of your CD's and then never use them again.  Makes the CD changer useless and it's just taking up valuable space in the trunk.  Mileage averages 20.2 for me consistently (I do mostly highway driving - 100Miles/day).  Another gear for the transmission might be nice.  I know the 2009 has a 6 speed.  Haven't driven that yet.  The 5 speed is very very nice however and works well.  Overall a can't be beat package.  I do not regret the purchase.  Reliability, warranty, test specs, equipment, great bang for the buck and FUN :   )

Rating: I did not give it 5 stars or the highest rating in all categories because there is not perfect car.  There is always room for improvement.  

After visiting every dealership in North Jersey this round came down to an Infiniti G35x and Mercedes C300 Sport 4Matic.  I really liked the C300 but there were a few things that turned me off.  First was the attitude of Mercedes (Prestige Rt17 Paramus) .  I purposely went shopping in a pare of shorts t-shirt and a hat.  It is very interesting to see the different responses dealerships and the people the work in them give.  

The attitude of Mercedes is, we are the best, you should bow down and kiss our feet to drive our cars.  We will sell you whatever is on our lot and not go out of our way to accommodate you.  Maybe this is the reason people continue to go to other manufacturers.  Beside a good friend that used to work there told me not to buy one due to the mechanical problems.  I would still like to, and will own one some day.

The G35x seemed to offer more standard features and hoarsepower over the C300 and a lot less attitude.  Made the final deal over the phone at Ramsey Infiniti and picked it up the next day.

So far so good.  Have had it about a month.  It costs a lot less than the Tahoe gas guzzler I turned in.  I only have to fill it up once a week at a cost of around 60-70 bucks.  Still down 40-50 over the tahoe.

At first I hated it.  I thought it was stiff and felt everything. Now that is has broken in a bit, I enjoy the way it sticks to the road and corners on rails.  The inside is like a plane cockpit.  Everything is right at your finger-tips.  I have spent the last month loading a few CD's at a time into the built in MusicBox.  At first it was a little confusing, but after playing I have figured it out.  I still have my 60gig ipod hooked up and connectivity with my iPhone is a breeze.

Some improvements would be the ability to load music directly off the compact flash card.

Overall I am very happy.  I will provide an update in the future.

Remember: In ones lifetime you get around 18 opportunities to try different vehicles.  Enjoy the experience and get the one that you want, and well can afford.

I was tired of the bmw service and repairs.  I went japanese, the ride is not the same but many features and done better thatn bmw