The G35 sedan initially was only available with an automatic. While this is very much the sort of car I might buy in the future, I won’t buy a car without a manual transmission. Late in 2002 the sedan became available with the same six-speed manual fitted to the coupe and the Nissan 350Z, two cars with which it shares a platform. I very much wanted to drive the sedan so equipped, but for various reasons did not get around to it for nearly a year. Even then I had a limited amount of time, as I had to get home. While I hope to take a more extensive test drive soon, my brief drive in a manual G35 together with my earlier, lengthier test drive of an automatic G35 enable me to say a few things about the car.
Infiniti’s first entry-lux sedan, the G20, never sold well. Though widely recognized as among the best handling front-wheel-drive sedans, it was also widely criticized for a lack of power. For 2003, Infiniti fixed this problem by making a 260-horsepower 3.5-liter V6 standard in the new G, called the G35 to reflect the larger engine. But far more changed than the engine. Like Lexus and Cadillac, Infiniti recognized that a rear-wheel-drive chassis was necessary to compete with the BMW 3-Series and developed one. The same basic chassis is used in the 350Z, so it’s clearly designed to maximize handling. It does this partly through a “cab rearward” configuration. The engine sits further rearward than in a typical sedan, leading to a nearly balanced weight distribution and a driving position that is well behind the front axle, as in a sports car. Despite the engine placement, the G35’s passenger room remains abundant. Credit goes to a 112.1 inch wheelbase (five inches longer than that of the Lexus IS 300) and 57.7 inch height (two inches taller than the BMW and Lexus). Overall length is a substantial ten inches more than the others, nearly matching a BMW 5-Series. Still, this is not simply a larger car. The G35’s width and weight are similar to those of the BMW and Lexus, so in character it remains more compact than mid-sized. Ultimately, the G35 promises the best of both worlds, combining the agility (and price) of a compact with the legroom of a midsize. Does it deliver?
Infiniti G35 Reliability
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Styling
I was baffled by the introductory ads for the G35. They asserted that the G35 was the realization of all of the promises auto-makers made through show cars in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m sorry, but the G35 doesn’t look particularly futuristic, or even contain too many futuristic qualities. The Cadillac CTS and even the Lexus IS 300 possess much more futuristic styling, both inside and out. In comparison to those cars, the G35 looks a bit bland and generally lacks presence. Perhaps by intent, it looks much smaller and less substantial than it is. Though ten inches longer, it appears roughly the same size as a 3-Series. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The exterior styling is generally tasteful and attractive in a highly restrained, BMW-ish kind of way. It just doesn’t fit the image projected by those early ads.
Infinti asserts that the G35’s styling is unique, calling it “catamaran styling.” This refers to the fact that the fenders rise a bit above the hood. I doubt this does anything for aerodynamics, and it is so subtle that it hardly defines the styling of the car. However, as a result the fenders are much more visible from the driver’s seat, making it easier to place the car in turns.
I do have one problem with the exterior styling. The reverse lights partly continue the taillights into the trunk lid. The problem is in the “partly.” Because they are only half the height of the taillights, the overall shape of the taillight-reverse light cluster is strange, awkward, and generally unattractive. The rest of the styling is so restrained, why did they decide to get goofy with just this one element? Beats me.
Ultimately, the exterior’s main claim to fame is that it is extremely aerodynamic, 10-20% more so than the typical sedan these days. Even better, there is zero lift at the front and very little lift at the rear (zero with an optional aero package), promising a solid feel even at high speeds.
The interior styling is similarly tasteful, at least in the standard car. With the “graphite” leather interior materials look like those in a $30,000 car should. The door panels are largely covered with a rich feeling vinyl—Cadillac could learn something here. In the “willow” interior of the car I tested this time around a few pieces here and there look a bit on the cheap side and the overall ambiance falls well short of the class leaders. To a large extent, the “dark interior effect” is in play here, where a darker color makes the interior look and feel higher in quality and generally richer. Somehow the darker color also seems more suited to the sporting character of the car. A shame, since I personally prefer the lower temps and airier quality of a lighter interior.
“Titanium” trim is standard in the G35 interior. Such metallic trim has become very common. The look is especially striking with the dark leather. For another $250, real wood trim is offered in place of the metallic stuff. Save your money. It is a light-colored wood, and both looks wrong in this interior and clashes with the car’s character.
Even in the darker color, however, the G35’s interior would have been much more competitive five years ago than today. Cars in this price range are beginning to receive interiors endowed with both higher style and richer materials. Everyone wants to match Audi. If Infiniti wants to keep up it will have to upgrade the G35’s interior substantially in the next year or two.
The instruments and controls are generally well-designed. Aside from orange lighting at all times (which works well even in strong sunlight), the gauges are classically styled, with no goofy stylistic advances (i.e. the IS 300’s). They did, however, look a bit downscale to me this time. Instruments these days often have more style to them, and more style is needed here (orange graphics don’t count). The stereo and climate control buttons are large and logically laid out on the center stack--for Japan. The major knobs are on the right side of the stack, where you'd expect them for a right-hand-drive car; Nissan must have decided that the minor ergonomic issue this posed did not justify tooling up a second set of controls with the button locations reversed. To get the car's price so low, some tough choices undoubtedly had to be made, and I suspect this was one of them. As in many recent designs (Accord, TL, 9-3) readouts for the climate controls are located a half foot above the controls themselves. This is both good and bad. They can be reviewed there with a quick glance, but if you cannot find the buttons by feel alone you’ll be looking back and forth between two locations to adjust them.
Accommodations
The driver’s seat is a nice place to be. To begin with, the driving position is excellent. Even with the power seat adjusted to its lowest position you sit high, well over the level of the dash and hood. I personally strongly prefer such a position. The compact width of the cockpit combines with a high and wide center console to lend the interior a sporty character. The steering wheel is nicely shaped and padded. A lightly-padded door armrest is another plus. Too many cars have hard vinyl armrests, leading to a sore elbow for those of us who steer primarily with the left hand. Finally, the instruments adjust up and down with the steering column, so the driver’s view of them is always unobstructed.
The seat itself is comfortable, and provides good support in most driving. In hard turns, however, I slid right over the modest bolsters. The standard seats in the Cadillac provide much better lateral support. While the G35’s seats are easily a match for the base seats in a 3-Series or Audi A4, and thus will be fine even for most performance-minded drivers, those cars provide more aggressive sport seats as an option. Perhaps Infiniti could follow BMW and Audi’s lead and make more aggressively bolstered seats part of the sport package? The passenger’s need for lateral support is somewhat mitigated by long downward sloping grab handles perfectly positioned well forward on the doors.
In the typical Nissan fashion the front seat tracks are extremely long, such that even those with very long legs should be able to adjust the seat as far rearward as they like. My inseam is only 30”, so even though I like a legs-and-arms outstretched driving position (people a couple inches taller than me tend to like the seat where I put in) I don’t come close to putting the seat all the way back.
With the front seat where I like it, leg room in the rear seat is very generous. The competition, even the larger Cadillac CTS, does not come close in this area. Thank the long wheelbase. Headroom is a bit more restricted—those over 5㤓” or so will have to slide their rear forward a bit. The rear seat is mounted even higher than the front seats. Combined with a good deal of air between the tops of the front seat headrests and the ceiling, this makes for a nice, airy view forward. (In more and more sedans—such as the new TL and 5-series—the front seat headrests largely block the rear passengers’ view forward, making them feel closed in.) The beltline is also low enough to provide a good view out the side windows. All in all, the rear seat would be perfect for two passengers if its cushion were better shaped. As it is, it provides too little thigh support for even someone of my height despite its high position. As in more cramped rear seats, I had to cross my legs to feel comfortable. A bit of a tilt or a raised forward edge would help here.
I have not driven a G35 coupe, but I did explore one in the showroom. The sloping rear roofline severely restricts headroom, and legroom is also much less than in the sedan despite the same lengthy wheelbase, so adults will not be happy back there.
The interior possesses a large number of modestly-sized storage areas, including one over the glove box.
As in other rear-wheel-drive compact sedans, trunk space is on the tight side. (The brochure says there are over 14 cubic feet, but it doesn't look that spacious.) What’s more, the rear wheels and suspension intrude quite a bit, so the shape is not the best. As in the IS 300 and TL, the rear seats do not fold down. A small pass-through is standard, but this does no good with larger objects. I have used the fold-down rear seats often in my own car. BMW offers this as an option. Infiniti should as well. The G35 coupe has this feature. Why not the sedan?
One possible reason: On the sedan, rear seatbacks that manually recline are available as part of a $3,200 “premium package.” While these would allow rear passengers to nap better on long trips, they appear to slightly reduce space in the trunk.
On the Road
With 260 horsepower pushing 3,300 lbs., the G35 is a strong performer. In the automatic I felt that while thrust was very good at higher RPM, below 3500 the engine sometimes felt soft. I labeled it “peaky.” Hooked up to a manual the six feels considerably stronger and more responsive. It also sounds and feels less refined—or perhaps I just remember the engine in the automatic G35 as more refined than it was. Either way, this engine lacks the music of sophisticated mechanical bits present in the BMW and the thoroughly refined noises that emanate from the Acura TL’s slightly more powerful 3.2-liter. This time around it seemed more American in character to me than German or Japanese. The same engine in my father’s Z struck me the same way. The exhaust note is deeper than the Japanese norm, and with the manual the engine feels positively torquey.
Although the G35’s automatic can be manually shifted, this is no substitute for a true manual. For one thing, too much thinking is involved. With a manual, I intuitively know where to move the lever to get second gear. With a manumatic, I have to count clicks and observe the number on the dash readout. It will simply never be second-nature, no matter how familiar it gets. A manual takes advantage of body memory in a way that a manumatic cannot. Second, with a manual you can precisely adjust when and how quickly gears are engaged with the clutch. Devoid of a similar control, a manumatic simply does not provide the same feeling of connection to what is going on.
Well, the G35’s manual certainly provides a feeling of connection. Make that too much of a connection. As in the 350Z, the shift effort is significantly higher than today’s norm and the feel is very mechanical. I like a mechanical feel to a shifter, but I draw the line when this reaches the point of preventing slick shifts, as is the case here. The character of the shifter lends a much coarser character to the G35. One thing I plan to investigate on a longer test drive is what I feel about this change. There is something appealingly brutish about the car when fitted with the six-speed, but I have not yet decided whether this character would be so appealing months down the road. The clutch is a bit more clear-cut—it could stand to require less effort.
The G35 will be available with all-wheel-drive this year, but only with the automatic.
Brembo brakes are standard on the six-speed G35 coupe and the top-of-the-line 350Z. They are not available on the sedan, perhaps there is little use for stronger breaks in anything resembling normal driving.
During my earlier test drive I found the regular brakes to be powerful, but not very progressive. At low speeds they were quite touchy, making smooth stops difficult. Additional miles might help here, as it is possible that the pads were not quite broken in on the car I tested. The second time around the brakes elicited no criticisms, but as I’ve mentioned this drive was relatively brief.
My impression of the G35’s handling during my first test drive was very favorable, and to a large extent I continue to like it. The chassis always feels very balanced, with hardly a hint of understeer. Even with the standard suspension, roll is minimal, and the tires grip the road strongly. With automatic I didn’t find the car terribly exciting to drive. Although I only drove the manual G35 for about ten minutes, I could tell that I enjoyed it much better. The connected feel provided by the manual made the whole car seem more alive and responsive. The manual does have the sport suspension optional on the automatic car as standard equipment, and this was probably also a factor.
Even with the sport suspension I again felt that the steering could provide better feedback. I felt I could precisely place the car in turns, but I didn’t feel as connected to what was going on where the rubber meets the road as I would like to be.
The G35’s chassis has a complicated relationship with oversteer. I personally like a moderate amount of progressive, throttle-induced oversteer in a car. I found this difficult to come by in the G35. With the VDC on oversteer is unobtrusively suppressed. With it off oversteer is hard to induce in small amounts. The throttle either provokes little response from the chassis or too much too abruptly.
These days it is not acceptable to kill a car’s ride in the pursuit of good handling, and the G35 mostly matches the competition here (if not quite BMW’s 3-series) with the standard suspension. The sport suspension rides more firmly, but I still found it sufficiently absorbent. I would not, however, describe the ride as luxurious despite moderately low noise levels. There is a bit too much noise of the wrong type and the structure does not feel as solid as others. This should come as no surprise, as something has to give when the significantly longer G35 manages to weigh about the same as a BMW 3-Series.
Pricing
For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.
The following is from when the review was originally written:
With the G35 coupe the manual transmission is only available with xenon lamps, larger wheels, and Brembo brakes, forcing the base price to just under $33,000. Thankfully the same is not the case with the sedan, although the manual is not available with the rare, cloth-upholstered base model. The base price for the leather-trimmed six-speed sedan is $30,395. A very reasonable price given this car’s performance and passenger room. This price is $750 higher than last year’s, but then last year’s $450 heated seats and a previously unavailable limited slip differential are now standard.
Options can substantially increase the G35’s price. If this is a problem, avoid them. The standard manual model includes nearly everything most people need: heated power driver’s seat, in-dash six-disc changer, 17” wheels, and the usual slew of power accessories. The most I’d personally add is likely the $1,000 sunroof, and maybe not even that. For the sake of comparing the car to the Acura TL, with its standard sunroof and ultra-premium sound system, I’ll add these to the G35—but keep in mind that they add nearly two grand to the G35’s price. So equipped (as the car I drove was) the G35 sedan lists for $32,295, and Edmunds suggests the dealers typically discount this by only a few hundred dollars. (I’m not so sure of this myself. I’d expect a larger discount. Maybe it’s too early in the model year for good data?)
An Acura TL at $33,195 is $900 more. The new 270-horsepower TL looks great, likely has an excellent shifter (only the automatic is currently on sale, the shifter in last year's CL-S was excellent). and has a nicer interior than the Infiniti. It is, however, saddled with the disadvantages of front-wheel-drive and has a less roomy rear seat. This one would be a tough call for me, but I suspect the G35 would win out.
The Mazda 6 is a much less expensive front-drive sedan. It has excellent handling for a front-driver, but rides more harshly than the above sedans and does not match even the Infiniti for luxury ambiance. It is also less powerful.
The Nissan Maxima, once a legitimate sport sedan, is mostly about style and comfort in its latest form. Those interested in a manual transmission will not find the Maxima’s handling acceptable. That said, it costs a bit less than the G35 with a list price similarly equipped of $31,150 and dealer discounting that takes the typical price to just under thirty. (For xenon lamps add another S1,100 or so.)
Lexus failed to make much of a dent with its IS 300. I have suggested that the IS should have been badged as a Toyota and sold for a price in the mid to high twenties, but as a Lexus with an uncharacteristically cheap interior it still has an appeal as a more compact, more agile car than the others here. Soft sales mean good discounts. A comparably equipped IS 300 lists for $31,835, nearly as much as the Infiniti, but typically sells for around $31,200 according to Edmunds.
An unconventional alternative to a sedan is the new Mazda RX-8. The Mazda is a true sports car, not a sedan, with outstanding steering and handling, yet it contains two rear seats usable by adults and accessible through a second pair of rear-hinged doors. Its main weakness is a very peaky rotary engine. If you’re into low-end torque and midrange power you can forget the RX-8. Its price is similar to the Infiniti’s.
Other alternatives are more pricey. A similarly equipped BMW 330i will set you back over $40,000. The BMW is less powerful yet still about as quick owing to shorter gearing. It has a tighter interior but a more refined, more precise chassis. Based on numerous magazine tests it remains the best. Yet in normal driving it feels dated and all that much fun to me. I did have the opportunity recently to drive a 330 on a race course, and in this milieu it easily lived up to everything that’s been said about it, but my normal driving requires much less of a car. For me the BMW only gets fun when near its limits, and thus rarely in normal driving.
A Jaguar X-Type resembles the BMW in price. I personally don’t care for the styling and have found that the sport package, necessary to get well-bolstered seats, destroys the car’s ride quality.
A Saab 9-3 currently costs about $35,000, though later in the year substantial rebates will likely be available. I have a hard time buying a turbo four when I could have a normally aspirated six for less money. That said, the Saab has a more precise, nimble feel than the Infiniti, and this together with its unique character will appeal to some.
There aren’t really any American alternatives to the six-speed G35. The manual transmission Cadillac CTS is not a viable alternative this year, as it is not available with the new 3.6-liter engine. The 2005, though, could be quite the car. Lincoln ceased to offer a manual shift LS after 2002.
Overall the G35 seems very well priced for a high-performance rear-wheel-drive sport sedan. Similarly priced cars with nicer interiors don’t handle as well, while European alternatives are much more expensive.
Safety
The Infiniti G35 incorporates all of the safety features currently available in this price range: stability control, curtain airbags, brake assist, electronic brake force distribution, enhanced headrests, and so on. I first noted this when someone concerned about safety emailed me asking whether they should buy the G35 or a Saab 9-3. My initial inclination was that the Saab had more leading edge safety features, but closer inspection revealed the G35 had them all as well. Whether Nissan has implemented these safety features as well as the Scandinavians I cannot attest to.
Last words
For most people interested in a near-luxury performance sedan, the G35 is hard to beat given its price. Its basic engineering is excellent. Peak engine power, a stable rear-drive chassis (with the stability control turned on), generous rear seat room, and safety features are strong points. The manual transmission lends the car much needed character. Perhaps too much. The six-speed G35 has a coarser, more bestial character than its competition. I suspect this might appeal to me even over the long haul, but that many other potential customers will happily trade the G35’s more balanced handling for the new TL’s nicer interior and higher level of refinement or will spend the extra cash for a BMW that largely avoids such tradeoffs.
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