Hello all,

Like title says, im looking for a new car and this is one of my top options. My main concern is operating/maintenance costs. I know it is considered a "luxury" car, which are automatically associated with high maintenance costs, but it is basically a Nissan so I have a hope that I will be pleasantly surprised. What are your experiences? How much yearly am I looking at? With a budget of around 15k, anything I can find has a decently high mileage, 80-90k+.

On another note, if you guys have any other good car suggestions im all ears. Im looking for a four door, stick shift, with decent power, and preferably not FWD. My top choice is an 08 WRX hatch but they are IMPOSSIBLE to find.

Thanks ahead of time.

Hard question to answer. It all really depends how long the parts last. I've seen nissan/ infiniti's clutch last nearly to 200k on the original. It all depends on how it was taken care of. If you are good at fixing things yourself the maintenance should be fairly easy and should not have shell out a lot.

The 90K service is a big one for Infinti's. For a rwd G sedan it'll run you right around $1000-$1200. About half of this cost is down to the spark plugs. 90K is your first spark plug replacement service and those little buggers are $30 a piece, and not the easiest to get to either. So thats a good bit of parts and labor right there. Otherwise services on Infinti's are (ideally) every 15K with the 30, 60, and 90 being the bigger ones. Most dealership service departments will break these services up over a few visits if you can't throw down the whole chunk at once. Something like air filters, in cabin filter, and throttle body service with one oil change, then do your diff and trans fluid services on your next oil change, that type of thing. If you stick to the schedule these cars will run forever lol. Clutches are largely determined by how the vehicle was treated before, but I'd say on average 90K-130K is about right for the life of the clutch, which is also not a cheap job btw, ~$1200+ at the dealership to do it.

If you want to break it down by yearly average though, if you figure 15K a year, with 4 oil changes (every 3750 miles recommended) and either a 15K or 30K type service once per year, plan on about $600-$1000 per year, some years will be more than others obviously. This is also taking in to account that you take it to a dealership to have the maintenance done, if you do it yourself its obviously going to be less.

*small bit of advice: If you can handle doing the maintenance yourself, there are several sites online run by Infiniti Dealership parts departments that sell their parts at a fraction of retail price. My dealership runs one too, I can't plug it on here obviously because I'm not registered as a vender, but know that they're out there. Best way for a DIYer to get genuine Infiniti parts

If you do your own work you can save lots. As mentioned above the services at the dealer can be expensive. I usually only use them for flushes (except brake fluid) because I don't want to deal with fluid changes anymore. You also want to find out how much maintenance has been done to the car via previous owners as that will impact future cost. Location of the vehicle through its life can also be key as a southern/western vehicle will be much more reliable as they age than one driven in harsh winters.