Hey guys,

I've been snooping around this website for a while and everything that I have read on here has been great and very resourceful. I just wanted to introduce myself and tell my story.

I bought my Liquid Platinum 2010 G37x Sedan 7AT last September with 40k miles on it and it is CPO. It has the premium package but no nav I wanted to get a S Coupe but to get it CPO it would have been out of my ballpark with pricing as this is my first car out of college when I graduated in May from Temple. I had a 02 Saturn before this, so this is a big upgrade for me. Go big or go home, right?

So the first month was great with the car until a disaster happened. I left my house on morning for work, was a block from my house and the car just shut off on me at a stop sign. Tried to start it, wouldn't even attempt to turn over. I got it towed to a different dealer than I bought it because I figured it was a minor problem, battery or something, and this other dealership was closer to my work so I could have picked it up easily. Long story short, I was being fed the "we haven't found the problem yet but when we do, we will let you know" story for about 2 weeks before I went there in person and wasn't taking any more crap. They towed it back to the original dealership because they took off the engine cover and found sludge all in the engine, metal fragments in the oil pan. So basically, the POS that had the car before me didn't maintain it correctly obviously and they just slapped the CPO on the car without actually looking at it thoroughly. They had to get a new large block engine shipped in, obviously free of charge or I would have went ape**** on them. Now a couple months later there is about 5k miles on the new engine and has been running great with no problems at all.

Since owning the car I have done minor things to it, nothing crazy like I have seen on here. I tinted the windows 15% and had a black overlay put on the roof, just to see if I liked it enough to get it painted, which I love it and plan on getting it painted soon. I switched out all of the interior lights for LEDs. A few days ago I plasti-dipped the front grill to see if I liked it and either get it painted or buy a midnight grille, which will eventually happen. In the next day or so I am going to plasti dip the emblems and rear spoiler and same thing, ill get them painted if so. My JDM window visors are arriving today. (I hate it when I'm driving on the freeway and want my windows down and have to listen to the wind)

In the future, I would like to put on the Stillen Gen3 CAI but am afraid of hydrolocking so that may deter me from that. Maybe an exhaust but not for a long time. I also want to get a rear roof spoiler and front lip for the car. Maybe a rear diffuser but not anytime soon. I also want to set up bluetooth in my car or do what I had seen someone on here do recently and that is put a touchscreen overlay on the screen and display my iPhone on the screen for nav, netflix, etc. Or maybe put an iPad Mini in there somehow, we shall see.

Good thing I have a brand new engine in this bad boy so it will last longer and can do all of the things I plan on doing.

First day I had it


After tint and roof overlay at night


After tint and roof overlay during the day


After plasti dip grill


Thanks for reading this, if you got this far. Tell me how it looks and voice your opinion on what I plan on doing. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

 

Welcome to the site, nice looking G. Glad you were able to get the motor taken care of and nice to have 0 miles on your engine now
Any plans for wheels? That's one area where the sedans get short-changed compared to the coupe.
Have fun w/ your "new" ride!
Brad

 

I would love to be able to get new rims & tires but at this point in time between car payments & student loan payments (which are astronomical, but i didn't think they were going to be), I won't be able to do them anytime soon unfortunately.

Darn private student loans!

I would also like to install a new sub & amp, the bose aren't that bad but don't hit hard enough for me.

By any chance, I want to video out from my iPhone to the screen but I have the USB input and not AV. Do you know of any way to convert the USB input to AV?

 

Forgot to also add that I had the Viper SmartStart added to my car, which is amazing, and also I had a module installed to be able to use the factory key to start the car on 3 pushes of the lock button. If anyone is debating on whether or not to get SmartStart, do it! It's awesome. Being able to start your car through cellular service is awesome, as well as being able to lock, unlock, and open the trunk. You have GPS on your car at all times and can get an instant update on your car to see if it is locked or not. I am one to always think, did I lock the car? This eliminates that question very easily. Do it, you won't regret it. Especially if you had to endure that past winter that was terrible in the Northeast.

 

That's good to know, maybe that's something I'll do this summer. Where did you have it installed?

Looks good so far, I like what you did with the roof. The black grille looks good though I'm not crazy about plasti dip. That said, I had mine painted and picked up a rock chip second day out so maybe it does make sense?

I ran 35 sport sedan rims with spacers and it flushed it out nicely. I've switched to Ray's since then but if you don't like the stock rims you may be able find some lower cost options if you were so inclined.

 

I'm not a fan of the dip either, its not gloss black. It was just to see if I like it, and after a couple days I love it so I will probably just get it painted gloss black. Yes I may go for a cheaper option with the rims. If I do, have you heard any bad things about powder coating rims? I was thinking black but maybe silver rims.

I hate to say this but where I got it installed started with a B and ended in a Buy. Best Buy... Honestly, the only reason why I got it installed there was because when I was browsing there and came across this the tech that I talked to seemed like he knew what he was talking about and previously installed it on a 350z, which is basically the same.

I made sure he did the installation and it runs exactly as it should, even throughout the cold winter in PA. I have Verizon and the time from I push start til it starts up is about 5-10 seconds depending on how good of service I have.

That being said, I would have not gotten it installed there if it wasn't for him. I did shop around for prices to get it installed and shops were telling me $800 to $1000, i paid about $500 for it to be installed and parts, which isn't bad at all.

This is what I bought for the factory remote to start the car within distance is the XPRESSKIT - Databus All-In-One Interface Module which was $100:
XPRESSKIT Databus AllInOne Interface Module DBALL - Best Buy

This is the SmartStart GPS module I got is the Viper VSM250 which is $300:
Viper VSM250 SmartStart 2-Way GPS Module & Geek Squad® Advanced Security Add-On

You can get the SmartStart module without GPS for $150 but i figured its nice to have peace of mind with the GPS location. And you do not need a current Viper alarm or anything to get this, it is stand-alone and isn't an add on.

 

Your car and story is about the same as mine (before the engine issue).
I had 02 Pontiac Grand Am and just got my 2010 G37X in silver in Feb (not CPO). Previous owner also did not treat it right and I had to have the paint fixed as they tried to rattle can some issues and left dried paint runs.

Any chance you and take a better pic of the roof? I was thinking of doing the same thing. Still need to get my windows tinted.
Also plan on Plastic dipping the wheels black to see how I like it before having them painted.

 

I sure will, I'm in work now and will take the picture after.

 

@Bears04r1 Heres pictures of the roof

 

If you went to Temple you're in the Philly area correct? Are you going to sedan meet in Wilkes-Barre on the 26th? I don't recall seeing your name in the thread but I also lose track. Right now I think we're at 16 sedans rolling in for a BBQ and some in person droll over each other's cars.

I have both my sets go forged Rays powder coated and so far no issues. You have to watch the chemicals used to clean them but I think they look pretty dang good. I was thinking to do the same thing to sport sedan rims but since I'm going to sell them it didn't make sense. My uncle is in south jersey and has a shop if you don't have anyone local.

As long as the tech there got it right that's a good thing. I bought my son an alarm through Best Buy and it was a bit of a trial. At the same time when I had mine done in Pittsburgh by my local speed shop I had issues with it initially so it all depends on the tech and probably whether they were drinking the night before.

 

Yep, im in the suburbs of NE Philly. Thank god I'm out of that dump. I was thinking about going to the meet and check out everyones rides, just imagining what I could do to mine in the future. I'd be the noob of the group there since I don't have anything done to my car at all and everyone would have some sick whips which has deterred me a little bit.

I honestly would not go to Best Buy to get anything done but the guy who installed it for me seemed very knowledgable and I trusted him doing it. They didn't even drive my car anywhere, they let me pull it into the garage and pull it out when it was done.