Taking the G on a 300 mile road trip today with my daughter. The weather is gorgeous, the car is perfectly clean, and I haven't driven it in 3 weeks. Going to be a fun weekend.

 

It's the little things right? Headed up to Oregon to see my daughter this weekend. It's been too long. Where does the time go John?

So I'm assuming the new curbs are in place and the G is no longer trapped in the garage?

 

Well, yes and no. The new gutters are in place on both sides, and yesterday (!!!) I had the town swing by with crew and a bed of gravel to add to the apron and wing out one corner a bit. I haven't tried getting the car out yet, but am pretty confident I can do it with minimal scraping. The road itself won't get milled and paved for another couple of weeks. My street is a mess, LOL.

Pretty close call too, because if that didn't happen yesterday, then everyone's vacation plans would have had to be scrapped.

I'm leaving in about an hour. Haven't road tripped the G since this time last year when I took it up north of Toronto.

 

Just changed the tires. No alignment even (although that is coming, it's a little left-of-center)

 

Changed the tires and also installed some spoilers, just for fun. There were also some other changes to my car like for example new car navigation system, installed used and had to go to find some manual https://manuals.online/furuno to help myself. Actually this car navigation system has proven to be quiet good, although it is used

 

I always thought that they could use toe to minimize the effects of trammeling (allowing grooves in the road to influence steering)

 

Well, the heater hose connector finally blew on the one day that my wife actually decided to drive the car.
Fantastic. Oh well - towed it back home, scraped out all of the remnants and repaired with a 3/8 connector. Re-filled, bled out the air with a $16 Amazon bleeder kit and, everything was great...

Or so I thought. A couple days later, noticed the temperature gauge started to creep up again. Looked under, saw a small puddle. Checked the coolant level and, needed to add half a bottle.

Took off the engine cover and could not see anything obvious from up top. I just don't have the time anymore - newly married and now have a son. Took it to my mechanic who I have been going to since 2005 w/ my 4th gen maxima and, he found the source. He put it on the lift and we looked underneath and I saw it dripping down from the rear of the motor.

It was a small hose which developed a pin hole leak. He said it was one of the throttle body hoses. Now, I checked both of the throttle bodies after I removed the cover and, I didn't see anything wrong. Is there another hose that runs toward the firewall or something?

Either way, he replaced it and she is running great now. Oh, I also did the sunroof drain bypass - tied them into the AC condensate line. Tired of getting into the car after it rains to find that it smells like wet socks.

Grateful for this community because I'm happy that I had the background knowledge to handle these repairs on my own (apart from the TB hose but, that was simply due to a lack of time.)

Stay well all, and drive safely. Thank you.

 

From brand new to 247k miles, I don't think new wheels will be going on her, although I've always wanted some. So I've decided to test my skills on painting them. Two wheels were bad with scratches and paint fading away. After I finish, I wished I fully did a better job of sanding the scratches.

 

Didn't turn out bad. If you want to have them professionally media blasted and powder coated, it runs about $125 per wheel near me. The color you selected looks like the "Sport Gray" that was recommended to me when I was looking to have this done.

My set is in near mint condition, so I waffled and ended up finding a chrome set instead. My original Hyper-Silver set is boxed up in the garage.

 

Thanks. This is the color I wanted few years ago when I was planning to powder coat them. That price near you is not that bad. I never got a quote, the 24hr dry process wasn't an option for me due to no additional transportation. This color is graphite from Dupli color.

 

Sometimes you have to look at projects like this and ask yourself, is it better than it was before? If the answer is yes, then it's a win.

Seems strange that you would do all this work while the wheels were on the car, but you probably have your reasons.

Either way, I like the gunmetal color.

That's really amazing. A brand new luxury sport sedan, 13 years and 247,000 miles later. Incredible.

 

With one jack, it was gonna be a pain in the neck, take a wheel off and do them one at a time. Definitely a win for me.
Thanks.

 

In the spirit of "What did you do to your sedan today", has anyone been proactive towards potential issues with the 7AT? Meaning, our cars are all >12 years old at this point and I continue to see "cooked" posts on Reddit where coolant is mixing with transmission fluid (recall our 7AT radiator shares cooling responsibilities with both), which is far worse than any heather hose connector burst or sun roof drain clog.

There is no real means to verify there's an issue other than waiting for the toxic mix to destroy the torque converter then valve body and clutch assemblies, and at that point you are looking at thousands in repairs.

I spoke to my long time service writer friend at Infiniti, and she said that she sees the plastic portion of the radiator break loose and coolant loss as a result (would be easy to catch), but the mixing of the two fluids is rare. However, I think most would not take a >12 year old car to the dealer, so her insights may be skewed.

John at IPT Trans feels that the issue is fairly common on the G and he suggests replacing the radiator (Through dealer: $1000 part, $800 labor, so no way Jose) or bypassing the internal transmission cooler and installing an external unit; many of the coolers I've seen appear to be added "in addition to" vs "in replacement of" the internal trannie cooler.

Wondering if any of you proactive types are also pondering this misfortune waiting to happen.

 

A dipstick on the transmission is a good start. It has the hole for it like the 5AT did, it's just bolted shut. You can add a dipstick from like a Pathfinder to it, bolts right on. My transmission was replaced at 90k km just because a friend was a Master Tech at Infiniti and he used my car to teach how to swap a transmission and I got it for free as a result. He mentioned there were fairly large metal chunks in the old transmission. At 190k km, so 100k in the new transmission, third gear grinds at low rpm now, So I try to avoid it. I don't launch the car or try to do burnouts or anything with it, just normal driving with a few light track days here and there. I did consider either putting a q50 transmission or splurge on the bulletproof automotive one if my current one goes. I'm too emotionally attached to sell the car, but can't justify spending anymore on it either. Hard place to be.

 

@hexotic Great feedback. Does the dipstick measure accurately, or is it off slightly? Also, if coolant gets in the transmission, I think you have hours before you are "cooked", so while the dipstick helps, once you notice the problem it may be too late.