Buying a 99-01 Q45

[cowtown]

i live up in canada and its impossible to find a 99 - 01 q45, so im heading down to california to pick up one. i source two Q45 one from a infiniti dealer ship in scaromento and one at a nissan / bmw dealer ship in San Luis Obispo. both have around 85 K, so i was wondering what are some issues would the Q have with that kinda milliage on it ? also what are some maintence should be done or have been done at that milliage?

also how would i be able to obtian a history record for the car ? would the dealership have them?

last but not least, is it safe to drive a Q with that much millage to montana? im scarred it might break down since millage is pretty high.

thanks

[maxnix]

It won't break down, but plugs, valve covers, shocks and struts and all rubber in the suspension is most likely due to be replaced.

I would add EGR, TB, IAC and plenum cleaning. Check there is no stumble at idle (bad coilpack) and all filters and fluids are new. If mechanically exchanging ATF, I would add an auxiliary cooler.

Keep reading, but CA the home of crap gas second only to AZ is not where I would look. Northern CA might be better (where mine came from).

I would look GA, FL TX. A dealer should pull the history for you if you ask for it before you see the car, which is waht you should do before considering any Infiniti.

[oldmako]

Wow.....lots to say and for you to consider. It really depends on your point of view. Read old threads regarding maintenance on this site and you will get a wide variety of opinions. Here's mine:

If it's been properly maintained 85,000 is nothing. Id' drive it to Montenegra and back. "Properly maintained" however is a highly subjective statement.The dealer will be able to pull the VIN and give you a printout of all the maintenance work done on the car since it's birth. That will be all the work done by Infiniti shops, not any other garage. So, if the car was dealer maintained then you will have a pretty good baseline of the car's history. If it wasn't, then the whole exercise could be a waste of time.

At 85K, your car is just rolling into an area of potential intensive care. How intensive is dependent largely on how it's been driven and maintained over the years.

At the least, it should have had regimented and consistent oil changes. IF you care to research this site you will see that clean fresh oil is a major component of maximizing the engines life and reliability. However, I stole a Q last year without such a record and my engine runs like a string trimmer on NOX. My car was dealer maintained for only it's first few years and at whoopeee lube after that. Now, it may blow up tomorrow, but I have put 20K on it in the last 9 months and I'm not worried, The engines in these mothers are well engineered and robust. There are plenty of guys here who have 250K on their engines. Of course, I would have rather bought a car from someone who was super anal with the lube, but I was not so fortunate....or at least have no record.

In general, fluid changes are considered the Holy Grail of maint on this site. ALL fluids. Trans, Diff, Brake, PS, Blinker etc More often is mo' good.

Ditto on all filters. Intake, fuel, cabin air, etc etc.

At 85k the suspension is probably ready for some rehab, and this will cost you plenty. Shocks can only be purchased from two sources, the dealer ($$$), and aftermarket sources in Japan ($$$$). Stay away from a touring model unless you're loaded. It's too heavy a car to justify that kind of gizmometry in my opinion. At 4000 pounds, handling is not it's forte, but on the interstate it's a wonderful beast.

I spend some time in BC and I have never seen a Q there. Are you going to do your own wrenching? If so, take the plunge. If not, I'd recommend an Acura or similar. Changing the plugs takes about 3 hours....ditto the belts. At 85 bucks per, even routine maint on these mothers will kill you. And God forbid it actually breaks (can you say transmission four thousand???? whaaaatheffffff??).

I'll quit and let others opine. I am one of the sites premier slackers because I am less than anal with my ride. I do a fair amount, but within reason considering I only paid 4500 bucks for it, and it's now 9 years old. There's only so much rehab that I can justify on this thing. But nothing is busted and it's clean. But I do have limits. I am not going to tear into it just to find things to fix (beyond reason). ie I have not polished my caliper pistons, armoralled my seat springs, etc. Perhaps if I bought it new...but not at 120K

These are really fantastic cars. They are well engineered, well built and a freakin' joy to haul a$$ in. Hell, they're even nice doing the boring posted speed limit. I stumbled across this site AFTER I bought mine and nearly shat myself with fear while reading some of the doom and gloom posted herein. But I put on my depends and jumped in with zeal to bring it up to speed. I have now have reached a level of detente with it. I treat it good, but not too good. It's my high maintenance beeotch, looks and feels like a million bucks. When it gives my crap, I drive my truck.

Skin your knuckles!
Modified by oldmako at 5:01 PM 9/26/2008

[maxnix]

At 4000 pounds, handling is not it's forte, but on the interstate it's a wonderful beast.

Well, with about $4.5K of springs, shocks, wheels and tires + labor, it can become pretty remarkable, more than I want to find the limit to. Surprised a few Z cars when I passed them on the outside.

[ViruzOne]

How much are you looking to spend? I have a 2000 Q45 Anniversary Edition I could considering parting with. I live in northern utah which if your going up to montana it would be closer. 91K. 3rd owner. Im looking to get into a Y34 or F50. Have serviced the car regularly and recently replaced 02 sensor, spark plugs, fuel, and air filter. All OEM parts. Have some stuff from japan not on the car,(all OEM as well,) mostly cosmetic if you want. If interested let me know.

[oldmako]

Well, with about $4.5K of springs, shocks, wheels and tires + labor, it can become pretty remarkable, more than I want to find the limit to. Surprised a few Z cars when I passed them on the outside.

Perhaps if my crack habit weren't so overwhelming, I might have a few boxes of ziti lying around with which I could beef up my beeotch. It do have a bit of body roll that I'd like to eliminate. Alas, short of it's wide tires, it's bone stock and somewhat obese in it's handling. Muhfug sure goes down the highway nice though...especially when in triple digits.

[maxnix]

It wasn't a plan to spend the money, but I couldn't understand why the great roll control was coupled to such a soft springy ride. Now I am happy, although at first it was a little sudden in its control.

[cowtown]

thanks for all the info oldmako.

ViruzOne - check ur email

maxnix - wat u mean by crap gas ? i thought gas was pretty much stander through out the U.S.A..

so yah im perpare for the maint cost, as to any luxury car maint cost is very expensive but i have another car on the side when it gives me trouble. sick of driving a honda plus the Q would be a rare car up in canada haven't seen one in person before.


Modified by cowtown at 7:23 PM 9/26/2008

[BadQ45t]

He probably means that we only get 91 octane, but I can tell you CA is a great place to buy a car. I'd take a CA car over a Texas car any day of the week. If you want to find well cared for cars we have far more per-capita in CA than any other state.

As for trusting the Q, my 97' just rolled over 90k. I would drive it to NY and back without even considering it. If you have the car well taken car of these Nissans can go for way more than that. I had an 85' Maxima I drove betweeen Los Angeles and San Francisco 50 times, never a breakdown.

that said you need to find out who much real work was done to the car. My car is not for sale and i hae no plans to sell it, so I have done 3 total dumps of all my fuilds in the 8 years I own the car, I have put 50k on it. That is probably excessive for transmission, brake, power steering etc but for me pink and healthy fluid exchanges at 20k or 2/3 intervals are worth the extra money. Now if i had planned to sell the car at this point I wouldn't have bothered, let the next guy worry about it.

Get the records, that will tell you. if they cannot show at least 30k and 60k major fluids exchange than be more warry...I'd of coures also have a total history on the car and inspection before you drag yourself all the way down here.

The gas in the major metropolitan areas is completely fine..trust me my 1984 Nissan 300ZX with 200k on it runs JUST FINE and has since 1984 on gas pumped in CA>

[Jesda]

You're likely to find a nice well-maintained car in CA or TX, but CA has terrible gasoline. The '90 I bought in Los Angeles and sold to Evan had been through almost THIRTY FUEL INJECTORS, including a whole new set within its first year on the road!

Never ever buy a car from NY or NJ. Chicago isn't so great either.

These are all things I know from direct personal experience.

[maxnix]

Yeah, I think SoCal blends are far different from Bay area.

I believe there are around 25 regional blends in the US, not at all homogenous.
Modified by maxnix at 5:30 AM 9/27/2008

[BadQ45t]

My Z was in SoCal for 1/2 of its life and experienced no issues. The usual injector issues were seen but frankly Nissan replaced me injectors in 1996 at no cost, but everyone was using some extra crap additives....I still would not lump CA cars into a bad gas bucket, I see way more thrashed cars in TX than CA. People in SoCal tend to be into their cars more than anywhere else in the US and there are big deals to be made there, I wouldn't lump it into bad gas.

NoCal has very expensive gas and they say it is cleaner than other areas, but I do not even care if the gas is Costco or Chevron or Rotten Robbie, it all burns about the same and on the 2nd gen Q as long as the person you guy it from used Super I think your okay.

[maxnix]

My Z was in SoCal for 1/2 of its life and experienced no issues.

Yeah, but the question is when gasoline blends changed over time. They had great leaded pemium in the 60's, but you couldn't see or breathe most days.
Modified by maxnix at 6:20 AM 9/27/2008

[cowtown]

Yeah, I think SoCal blends are far different from Bay area.

I believe there are around 25 regional blends in the US, not at all homogenous.

Modified by maxnix at 5:30 AM 9/27/2008

dam 25 differnt blends thats alot