evoltap

Hey folks. Brand new member here. My wife and I were recently given her mom's 2011 G37x. It only has 64,000 miles on it, but it has lived it's whole life in the Northeast US, where rust it a big deal. We just registered it, and went it for inspection. They failed it, saying it needed a new subframe. I did some research here, and looked around under there myself, and it seems that it actually the cross member, not the subframe. I have included pictures.

My question is this. My wife was planning a trip of about 350 miles in two days. From what I gather, the cross member is not a safety issue, in terms of the structural stability of the suspension and engine. Is this true? Would you drive this car temporarily in this condition?

Thanks!

evoltap

Any thoughts?

socketz67

It looks pretty bad to me, so I'd likely get your wife a rental car for her trip and start looking into what's required to repair the G.

evoltap

Thanks. She ended up borrowing a friend's car. I am also going on a 850 mile round trip at the same time. I was considering taking the G37 since my car has some other issues, but they don't involve structural safety. I drove the G to work today and if feels fine. I guess it would feel fine right up until it failed. If it did fail on the road, would it be undrivable?
I guess I will take my Avalon.
I did locate a salvage crossmember for just over $500, but it won't get to my mechanic's shop for a week or so. I assume it's a pretty quick job to put on?

socketz67

That's some pretty advanced rust. You should have your mechanic put it on the lift and look around to see what else needs to be replaced.

The good news is that the mileage is really low, so once you take care of the rust, you will likely get years of trouble free usage out of the car.

evoltap

Well this issue came up during inspection, so I assume they looked at everything else. The odd thing is, it passed NY state inspection a month ago, and they said it was in great shape. As my mechanic said, I guess they were blind.
I should probably get it undercoated for the next winter.

Would you all agree that I shouldn't drive it 850 miles this week?

beefychicken

The cross member / subframe in question supports the rear mount for the front lower control arms (Infiniti calls it the transverse link). I would not recomend driving it as a failure could make the car uncontrollable

evoltap

So, I finally tracked down a used crossmember. It's from a southern car, so not rusted at all. If I were to install this myself, should the car be on jack stands so the wheels are hanging free, or on ramps?
Or does it matter?

beefychicken

On stands.