robr

It has 90K miles. It's owned by a woman who ended up with it as part of a divorce settlement, it was her ex-husband's car. She was only asking $14K which was already a steal, but it has 20" rims and needs tires. I told her because 20" tires are so expensive that I'd offer her $12K and she took it! Says she just wants it out of her life so she can move on. If it checks out (I'm having a PPI done next week) then I got extremely lucky. I'll just put HTRZIIs on it for about $500 and see if I can trade the rims/tires for OEM plus cash. In this area, cars have no business having 20" rims. The roads will trash them in minutes not to mention the additional rotational mass can really slow a car down. I could care less about "bling". not sure on the blue book price for a loaded G35 with 90k, but that certainly does sound like a steal "robr" . I never checked the blue book, just what they were going for on various used auto sales sites, but I just looked it up. I don't even know yet if this has the sports or other packages, so I excluded just about everything. Here's what edmunds.com says for just 90K miles, nav and moonroof (didn't give me an option for leather or xenons). Trade in: $15,026 Private sale: $16,666 Dealer price: $18,182

that might work, but i certainly wasn't looking for an over the top modded car. i just wanted an every day family sedan that i can take to any ol' shop to work on. as it was i ended up with an automatic anyway, not thrilled about that but at least the wife can drive it on emergency occasions.

It has 90K miles. It's owned by a woman who ended up with it as part of a divorce settlement, it was her ex-husband's car. She was only asking $14K which was already a steal, but it has 20" rims and needs tires. I told her because 20" tires are so expensive that I'd offer her $12K and she took it! Says she just wants it out of her life so she can move on. If it checks out (I'm having a PPI done next week) then I got extremely lucky. I'll just put HTRZIIs on it for about $500 and see if I can trade the rims/tires for OEM plus cash. In this area, cars have no business having 20" rims. The roads will trash them in minutes not to mention the additional rotational mass can really slow a car down. I could care less about "bling".

I was almost certain I was going to get an E39 540i/6 and spent weeks researching them and reading and posting to bimmerforums and 2 or 3 other popular BMW forums. I even went by our local independent BMW specialty shop and questioned the owner on E39 maintenance and what to look for when buying. Basically they all have cooling problems unless it's been previously addressed, almost all of them eventually experience pixel outages on the dash (there were many other issues as well that were common, literally a couple dozen) and most of the 540s I was interested in were well maintained 97-99 models with all issues addressed and they were running $15-$18K. I decided I didn't want to spend that much (yes, others were available cheaper but without the maintenance history). I dropped my budget to $10k-ish but when this G35 came up for $12K (original asking price was 14K) with every option I wanted, I couldn't turn it down. I could not have gotten an E39 with all issues addressed, nav and xenons for that kind of cake. I was THIS close to buying a 2000 RL w/nav for $10K when I stumbled upon this particular G35. While I haven't owned a BMW before, I have owned a 450hp 300ZXTT and the maintenance is near zero and if something goes wrong, it's typically not all that expensive to repair.

Thanks again for the recommendation of the G35, I did even better than the one in that link. I just put a deposit down on a loaded 2003 G35 sedan w/nav, xenons and moonroof as well as 20" rims (which i will be selling, that's just useless to me) for $12K. I'm flying out to pick up the car in about two weeks to drive it the 2700 miles home. A woman ended up with it as part of a divorce settlement and wants it gone so she can move on. Not exactly the 'little old lady' story, but I'll take it.

I regret it now, I don't have to wait 5 or 10 years to regret it :). I'll own another one someday. Have you checked out the Infiniti G35 sedan? I know they make those with 6 speed standards, and they will freaking scream down the road like a bat out of....well, you get the point. Depreciation has become Nissan's worst enemy, and your best friend. You can literally pick one up that is maybe 18 months old w/30k miles for 18-22k. My buddy in Tampa had one, a 6 speed, and loved it. Tried to sell it recently to ease his debt load "spun off his own law firm" and couldn't give the thing away w/o a $8k hit. I'll check that out, but I'm betting there probably isn't a hell of a lot of room in the back seats. Certainly worth checking out though. Before the NSX, I had a 300ZXTT and it was a great car (until it broke 100K miles, then everything started going wrong). Hmmm, the G35 might actually work. This isn't a bad deal http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_...mp;cardist=1555 Thanks again for the recommendation

Thanks very much for the informative answer. It sounds as though a Lexus is not for me unfortunately :(. I so don't want german repair bills though... eesh.

My 91 NSX is up for sale and I've been seriously looking at well maintained E39 BMW 540i 6 speeds as a replacement, however I'd prefer something a bit more reliable. I know almost zero about the Lexus product line so I'm a bit lost. Here's what I'm looking for: 4 door ROOMY back seats for 2 baby seats so I don't have to scoot up the front seats standard transmission $15K neighborhood powerful, nimble and fun to drive Thanks for any ideas and I'll be spending the next couple of hours reading up on the various models. A little tough to sort through the for sale ads, but if I can weed out the cars from the parts, that should at least give me an idea of the $$$ various used models are getting.