Pictures do not do the new Z justice. Nissan is sitting on a gold mine with the Skyline and Z brands.

I decided to have my brakes flushed by Nissan and the closest Infiniti dealership is now 30 miles away (Nissan is a marginal dealer experience to be honest). I really like this car, albeit I admit to being a Nissan fanboi; interior materials aren't worthy of a 55K car. The Nismo Z looks insane, but it also has a 70k sticker! Poking around online, it sounds like the Z performance is now selling at invoice in some states. 55K out the door.







Standard Z interior.

 

SC doesn't have inspections so I don't much care re: tint, but when I worked with LE agencies they always told me that if I get stopped, especially at night, roll down the front windows and turn the dome light on. Basically, don't give LE a reason to ask about your tint.

My G has florida dark as heck tint and I've never been questioned about it.

We're about to tint my wife's Q5 front windows to match the rears... no idea of %, but the light down here is so brutal it's a necessity. Sunlight through the windshield can totally dry rot your steering wheel.

RE: CX-5... we drove the new one and the nonturbo one and they are very nice. I'm considering turning in my company car and asking for the stipend instead, and driving the Mazda as my company car. I can probably get it to 250k without an issue. Ours is the old 187HP non turbo.

(Alternatively, it's for sale in eastern SC - $7500 with maint receipts since new)

 

No inspections, cheaper registration fees, cheaper insurance I am guessing... that is why half the cars in NC are registered in SC, lol.

 

More expensive, by quite a bit (insurance). Registration is cheap but annual property taxes are up to $500/year/car. Conversely, I see a lot of trashwagons on the road with a cardboard sign saying 'tags applied for' which essentially means they have no insurance.

I'm thinking that your Wilmington folks think NC is too liberal so they get their cars inspected at their beach residences in Myrtle LOL - NO ONE I meet in Myrtle actually lives there full time. Not even most of my property managers.

 

Was just being facetious. Go through any subdivision here and a strong third of the cars have SC tags. Is what it is. Property taxes here are nothing compared to what I was paying in NY but then we do not get nearly any of the services that come forthwith.

Believe me, if I could afford it, I'd move back to NY faster than these people can eat a dozen hot Krispy Kreme "donuts."

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is what it is.

 

I hear you. Charleston is a very cosmopolitan place in a sometimes pretty backwards state. If it weren't so darn beautiful, and that I *need* to live near the beach for my sanity, we would have tracked northern through the years. Although, I'm originally from DE / MD / VA, so I'm not terribly enthused about those states.

I actually get differentially policed a lot here in Charleston, since my work car has NC tags. Haven't gotten an 'actual' ticket though, once they realize that it's a company car and I'm on my way to court. TBH, it's all been for 'lane change without enough signal' or aggressive acceleration (but not speeding) BS stuff. There's only so much hooning one can do in a 3-cylinder CUV.

 

In case anyone is looking there is a brand new set of square (front) Nismo V1 wheels on ebay. Good deal if you ask me!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/13522091086...Bk9SR7rw14a3ZA

 

Now, dealers are actually playing ball on new Z's. Head on over to "The New Nissan Z" facebook group and a few dealers are offering $45K +TTL. These are not moving right now and during winter months I can see used performance examples going for high to mid $30K.

 

Dammit. Yeah that's a great deal. I'd be all over it if my toy budget wasn't out of money for now... decided to compete again in CMP EIC matches so I had to build a tool for that.

 

Thats insane. A Performance model for 10k off window sticker? Feels like 2018 again and buying cars under invoice. I have seen one. In traffic the last time I was in Seattle. None here in SoCal, but I haven’t been up to LA for some months. The Nissan dealer near me still acts like they are sitting on a pot of gold. I’m guessing I could order one from a dealer in the southern US and get that deal and better service. Any thoughts on taking the car to Nissan for warranty service? Any firsthand experience with good Nissan dealerships? Guessing the one near me may be an anomaly.

 

It's becoming more common especially on more expensive cars. Some dealers are still stuck in their ways and trying to get over sticker on cars that are sitting on the lot

 

Just FYI, Rock Auto has a bunch of stuff for our cars (coupe and sedan both) on clearance: https://www.rockauto.com/closeouts/?...=CloseoutEmail

 

Here's a question for you all: How many of you have ever had a vehicle with really high horsepower (500+) and what is your experience with it? How is it to feel like your car is fast enough to blow the doors off just about anything you see, even the typical Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, "fast trucks", etc. Do you get a magical feeling of being "king of the road, don't mess with me?" if that makes sense.

Especially when considering the driving dynamics may be worse when not just going in a straight line, such as handling, extra weight, possibly being an automatic vs MT, etc.

I've mentioned in another post I've been thinking of a replacement vehicle. In fact it's been on my mind for quite a while now. I'm always tossing around different ideas in my head to see what's going to eventually stick. The current one is to sell the G for a 2020 BMW X3M that's 473-503hp (underrated from factory), AWD, and handles close to a sedan. With a simple tune and downpipe it can easily achieve 600AWHP+.

The thing is, I don't really even take my G on very many twisties anymore nowadays, it's not like I'm going to be bothered to drive an SAV that handles 5-10% worse or whatever. And it wouldn't be bad to have some better ground clearance and extra storage space. I just don't know if I can make the transition. Most of the comments from people who have moved from coupe/sedans (even fast ones like F80's) to the X3M don't regret it because it's just so fast and fun to drive.

I realize this is all opinion-based but it's nice to stir up conversation. I also understand the fact there will always be a faster car out there, but it sure would be nice to spank 99% of everything on the road if they want to line up lol

 

from my experience there are alot of cars that are faster than a 500w hp vq. And can get to those numbers a lot cheaper than we can. Seems like 700hp is in the 500hp in the car game. I’m planning on keeping my G37XS as a daily/winter beater. Hopefully to get into the new gen m2 manual. Still waiting for prices to come down as the car market in Canada has no logical sense atm. I’d like to own a z or a supra but I’m too big for those cars as I’m 6 foot 3.i basically want something manual but especially up north it does not leave me with much somewhat affordable options

 

In my experience anything above about 400hp is too twitchy for daily driving. Traction nannies on newer cars might make that opinion moot.

Even with 315 to the wheels my sedan wants to step sideways anytime I don’t tiptoe around a corner. I won’t let my wife drive it for that and the tramlining.

otoh - we recently test drove an Audi Q5 phev and the combined hp is 362 and it scoots. Very fun. Too expensive for what it is but 🤷🏻