(This is a re post from the chat thread, hope that's cool).

Hello everybody, I'm new to the forums and especially to Nissan.

I'm thinking about buying a used, grey/black G37s sedan, manual trans. It's a certified car from a dealer that came off a two-year lease. Mileage is 23,800, and they're asking $31,600.

The car fax is clean. They've given in it's latest service, a new set of Kumhos and fixed a leaky power steering line. It looks good and drives well. Questions:

1. What's a good price for this car? The price they're asking is over the highest in KBB by several thousand $. I'm thinking $30,000 out the door, including a three-year extended service contract sounds about right.
2. If you had it to do over again, is there anything you'd do differently regarding the purchase of your G37?
3. Regarding maintenance and upkeep before the 90k service, are there any expensive, out of the ordinary problems that occur sometimes that I should be aware of?

Your thoughts greatly appreciated!

 

Hi there and welcome

You said a two year lease, my guess is that it's a 2012? I've mostly been shopping coupes but here's my thoughts on the sedans:
- The ones I've been watching have stayed on the market for months
- The 6MT is really hard to move (unless someone really wants it - like us)
- The market is even softer than the coupes because the Q50 is out

Other thoughts:
- Kumhos are a turn off to me. No offense to anyone, and I admit I'm a tire snob, but this is a luxury brand and deserves better tires than what comes stock on a Kia. So it's not a red flag to me but it would make me be skeptical of the dealer. I looked at a coupe a few months ago and that used car manager had set it up right - replaced the tires with Michelin PSS. It was a sign to me that they did not skimp on putting it on their lot. I might have bought it if it wasn't red!
- Check out the tech section / search for the clutch slave cylinder issue. You're still under warranty but it can be a problem for some, so good to find out now before sale. Big $$ because you have to drop the tranny to get to it. Other than that I can't recall any other major issues I've read about here, but I'm not an owner yet so take that with a grain of salt

Anyway all that to say they're asking price does seem high. See if you can find out from the carfax how long it's been on the lot. Use that to negotiate. Or even better walk away for a month. If it were in this market, I would expect it to sit for weeks. The dealer that had the red coupe called me the other day (about a month later) and practically begged me to make an offer. Just not time for me yet...

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

30K OTD seems like a good price for an 6MT. The current 31K price tag is high for sure.

What I can tell you about my car that I recently bough is that I called about it and trid to negotiate... they wouldnt budge. A month later it dropped to basically the price I wanted it so I called back. They wouldnt budge on that either but at that point I was happy with my price, think I could have held out for a bit more though.

 

31k seems high as the brand new non-sport models are selling for 32k per truecar.com.

Have to admit I was biased against Kumho because I used to have 711's that were horrendously noisy and rough riding. However, I just purchased a G37S sedan that had Ecsta LX Platinum tires and they are super quiet and ride nicely. They are rated with very high mileage wear as well.

 

Lumpy gave you good advice.

My experience is that dealerships see the used 6MT Sedan as a niche car, and price it accordingly without a whole lot of wiggle room... until it sits on the lot for months, then it's just another car they want to move. That said, to get a good deal, you either buy the one you find, or play the waiting game for the car you really want, hoping the price goes down before someone flies in from out of state to drive it home.

But good luck finding exactly the color and interior you want in the 6MT Sedan. It's an uncommon car.

 

I forgot about truecar (and clearbook for used values) ... good point bri. My anecdotal research has found it (clearbook) pretty decent for valuation (when there is enough of a sample size).

And I like how Rochester sums up in a few sentences what took me about 4 paragraphs to say ... I tend to be wordy!

Anyway, not sure where you are, but here's some examples (Obsidian):

2011 Infiniti G37 Sport, $24,995 - Cars.com

http:/http://www.cars.com/go/search/...al&listType=1/

Both low miles ... food for thought. And Rochester is right about finding a color combo ... I've tossed around the idea of the sedan instead of the coupe and the sedan 6MT has been nowhere near as common in my searches. I'm the kind of buyer that will go to great lengths (distances) for what I want and even with a large search area I rarely get hits on my preferred color etc.

At any rate you'll enjoy the car, it either boils down to patience or paying the extra $.

 

Took me about three months, a compromise on color, an increase in my budget... AND I had to travel 400 miles to bring it home.

But no regrets. Happy happy happy, two years later.

 

Great points, one and all. The car is a 2012, can't believe I forgot that . . . also, I live in Los Angeles.

I'm not a fan of Kumhos either, maybe I'll Craigslist them and go for some Bridgestones, always slammin' for me. And I'll research/check the clutch slave to make sure it's ok--hopefully it's something you can eyeball?

$31,600 seemed expensive to me as well, they dropped asking to $30,800 today my salesman told me. We'll see. It's only been on the lot since last week. I like the color combo so I should probably jump on it, but I'm out of town for the next week so I'm waiting until I get back to really work it.

Thanks everybody for your responses, definitely a big help! Will post back with more info as it occurs.