Anyone From Nz?

[windmill]

Thanks Windmill!

My car (arriving next week) is a S2... any idea if the stereo is similar to urs?

Cheers!

I don't know - Chris Rogers is the expert on audio.

[Ant]

Seems like lots of ppl are importing spare parts from the US! Sounds like a good alternative (esp. for parts that we don't need urgently and more for servicing of the car).

Is it easy 2 get parts flown in fr the States? How long does it usually takes and do you guys shop via ebay?

Thanks!

There are quite a few Infiniti dealers out there who will ship overseas - I've used Riverside Infiniti who were good. They also have an EBay store.

Just do a search here first - quite a few G35 parts do not fit the JDM models for one reason or another.

[win4ever]

Thanks Ant for the update. Well my car is not here yet n I'll probably need to save up b4 any more additional spending on the car. So will search the forum here for more details on the mean time. Has anyone considered flying Chris Rogers here for some work on the car? I m just thinking if there r a few fellow aucklanders who is keen to do this it may be good tat we can share the cost to fly him over n get a few things done.

Have anyone tried this method b4?

There are quite a few Infiniti dealers out there who will ship overseas - I've used Riverside Infiniti who were good. They also have an EBay store.

Just do a search here first - quite a few G35 parts do not fit the JDM models for one reason or another.

[win4ever]

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/C...n-300933933.htm

Saw this trademe posting today.... is the seller in the forum? Such a nice car... wondering why you would wanna sell it....

[win4ever]

Hey Dave, saw in another post by Andy saying that the english conversion for the s2 m35 n v35 is going to be ready soon! You keen on doing the conversion when it's available or you have already gotten used to the japanese display ?

The Japanese to English translation of the V35/M35 navigation is very well covered in a couple of threads here. Start here: http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/So...re-t194126.html

Your S2 V35, like my later M35 doesn't have a conversion yet, although those with earlier models can have them done. Contact details for Aussie and NZ are at: http://www.xanavi.com.au/ The guy in Auckland dealing with this is Shaun and he's contracted to handle this through Andy65b in this forum who arranged this with a Russian company. I think it's unlikely we'll ever have NZ maps for this system, but we can live in hope. It would be awesome if we did as it's a really nice screen and integration. The workshop manual, if enough people commit to it will be NZ$150 I believe, but they'll need at least 150 people first. See www.jpnz.co.nz for more details. Luckily the list for the M35 is a lot long longer currently at around 66 or so and they only need 100 committed sales. One reason the list for the V35 is shorter could be because the USA Infiniti G35 manual is easy to find on the net as a free download.

[Spong]

Hey Dave, saw in another post by Andy saying that the english conversion for the s2 m35 n v35 is going to be ready soon! You keen on doing the conversion when it's available or you have already gotten used to the japanese display ?

I haven't decided for sure yet whether I'll get mine done. I'm getting quite use to the Japanese menus now, and it's hard for me to justify the cost at this stage, but that may change. I don't know what the S2 conversion will cost, hopefully less than the S1. Do you have a link to Andy's recent post re: the S2 M35/v35 progress? As far as I know, there are at least 2x S2 versions to deal with, an earlier one, possibly without Carwings and/or bluetooth and a later version with Carwings/Bluetooth. What year is the V35 you have coming? I have the later version Nav unit and managed to pair my mobile to the inbuilt handsfree bluetooth. Initially it would drop all incoming calls after 1x second, but someone here pointed me in the right direction to disable this. Apart from that, there's the service schedule, fuel economy and trip meter figures, and compass, and of course the bluetooth, and TV. Once you remove the navigation DVD, it disables pretty much all the stuff we can't use anyway. I see you still have your Atenza, and a few idiots have been offering silly money. You tend to get that on Trademe Any decent offers yet?

Edited July 4, 2010 by Spong

[win4ever]

Hey Dave, saw Andy's posting here:-

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/V3...on-t319023.html

Post #18.

I am also thinking of whether i need to get it done or not. My wife knows chinese and hence should be able to read some japanese to hopefully understand what's stated there. Without any modifications to have anything included in the sat nav screen (dvd, GPS, etc), i think the only useful info there is probably the fuel consumption statistics and trip meter reading which I am sure I can understand.

So i guess it really depends on the price of the conversion I guess but will be good knowing it's available. Hopefully we'll here some good news from Andy. My car is a late 2004 (Nov 2004) to be exact so should be the first few batches of the s2 which means it should be the older version of the Nav unit. I don't think I can pair bluetooth or anything based on what I see from the auction sheet and what my dealer told me. So guess we have a different nav unit. I haven't really thought of wat i want to do with the screen atm. When I was looking for a car, i was hoping for one tat has a nav unit as I thought it's quite good to have the fuel consumption data. Looking back now, perhaps one without the TV will be easier to sort out in terms of changing the stereo etc. But still like the car with the nav system as it looks more cool!

I saw ur photos of ur stag and there's one showing the tv screen with a picture there. Is it that a DVD player hooked to the screen or did u somehow manage to make the TV screen work?

Finally, yes, my Atenza is still on trademe atm. I had someone a month back offering $13k for it then but I couldn't sell it tat time as I won't get the v35 for another 5 weeks and I need a car to drive to work n back so had to reluctantly refused. Initially listed the car as I thought I'll get a car fr a yard here and was not expecting to import myself. So far, there has been heaps of watchers (50+ prior to relisting) It's getting quite a number of watchers again this time after 5 days of listing it. I had someone calling me last weekend to set a time to view the car. Suppose to come at 3pm but I've waited for the whole evening without hearing from him again! Horrible ppl. And yes, there has been a few ridiculous offers below $10k as well which is rejected flatly. Anyway, saw quite a few cars around the same mileage n year going for fairly similar price by some dealers. But would still say it's a fairly good price for age n mileage + the few additional little add-ons I've put in. Hopefully there'll be someone taking it soon. Just need the garage space for the new car!

Saw a stag in Flat Bush area last Thursday and tot it could be you until I remember urs is a blue one and the one I saw was a silver. I gotta say I haven't really seen too many stags around in Botany n Howick area where I live.

I haven't decided for sure yet whether I'll get mine done. I'm getting quite use to the Japanese menus now, and it's hard for me to justify the cost at this stage, but that may change. I don't know what the S2 conversion will cost, hopefully less than the S1. Do you have a link to Andy's recent post re: the S2 M35/v35 progress? As far as I know, there are at least 2x S2 versions to deal with, an earlier one, possibly without Carwings and/or bluetooth and a later version with Carwings/Bluetooth. What year is the V35 you have coming? I have the later version Nav unit and managed to pair my mobile to the inbuilt handsfree bluetooth. Initially it would drop all incoming calls after 1x second, but someone here pointed me in the right direction to disable this. Apart from that, there's the service schedule, fuel economy and trip meter figures, and compass, and of course the bluetooth, and TV. Once you remove the navigation DVD, it disables pretty much all the stuff we can't use anyway. I see you still have your Atenza, and a few idiots have been offering silly money. You tend to get that on Trademe Any decent offers yet?

[Spong]

Hey Dave, saw Andy's posting here:-

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/V3...on-t319023.html

Post #18.

So i guess it really depends on the price of the conversion I guess but will be good knowing it's available. Hopefully we'll here some good news from Andy. My car is a late 2004 (Nov 2004) to be exact so should be the first few batches of the s2 which means it should be the older version of the Nav unit. I don't think I can pair bluetooth or anything based on what I see from the auction sheet and what my dealer told me. So guess we have a different nav unit. I haven't really thought of wat i want to do with the screen atm. When I was looking for a car, i was hoping for one tat has a nav unit as I thought it's quite good to have the fuel consumption data. Looking back now, perhaps one without the TV will be easier to sort out in terms of changing the stereo etc. But still like the car with the nav system as it looks more cool!

I saw ur photos of ur stag and there's one showing the tv screen with a picture there. Is it that a DVD player hooked to the screen or did u somehow manage to make the TV screen work?

Finally, yes, my Atenza is still on trademe atm. I had someone a month back offering $13k for it then but I couldn't sell it tat time as I won't get the v35 for another 5 weeks and I need a car to drive to work n back so had to reluctantly refused. Initially listed the car as I thought I'll get a car fr a yard here and was not expecting to import myself. So far, there has been heaps of watchers (50+ prior to relisting) It's getting quite a number of watchers again this time after 5 days of listing it. I had someone calling me last weekend to set a time to view the car. Suppose to come at 3pm but I've waited for the whole evening without hearing from him again! Horrible ppl. And yes, there has been a few ridiculous offers below $10k as well which is rejected flatly. Anyway, saw quite a few cars around the same mileage n year going for fairly similar price by some dealers. But would still say it's a fairly good price for age n mileage + the few additional little add-ons I've put in. Hopefully there'll be someone taking it soon. Just need the garage space for the new car!

Saw a stag in Flat Bush area last Thursday and tot it could be you until I remember urs is a blue one and the one I saw was a silver. I gotta say I haven't really seen too many stags around in Botany n Howick area where I live.

Yes I saw that posting of Andy's back in May. However, way back, the Russion guys promised the conversion for the S1 M35 "soon", then it dragged on for around 18 months more while they worked out how to protect their intellectual property. Andy also mentioned more recently in another thread that he hasn't had any updates on progress recently, so I figure they may have been held up again. Let's hope not. They may have more to do this time, with at least two versions, and what appears to be more menus than last time.

The picture you saw on the TV screen on my Stag was "daytime drama" on TV in Japan at my friends yard in Saitama, before it was shipped to me in NZ. Sadly it's never shown a TV picture in NZ of course, but as there is an AUX input, I'd like to send either an IPOD video or media player signal to it at some stage. When I was visiting my friend in Japan last year, I setup a wifi network for him, and when he got the car back to his yard, he was able to give me a video tour of it via Skype. I also had photos of course prior to him bidding on it.

When I listed my S1 Stagea on Trademe recently, within days I had a couple of people outside of Auckland keen to buy it sight unseen, but they never got back to me. Then within a day, I had a genuine buyer arrange to come around. They had looked at another couple of Stageas, and looked at another one after mine, and later came back in the afternoon with cash for mine. I think we were realistic with our expectations in this flat market, and it was a good fast sale. Good luck with your sale.

[Blade NZ]

Hey Guy's, just thought I'd update you after my service at City Nissan. All in all I was happy with the work done and the service provided. The people there are very good. One sticky point I've outlined in the direct injection thread so check that out.

It was a 100k service with an underbody check and a trans flush. They found that the two front shocks had very slight dampness but still performed well, that the lower control arm bush had slight cracking and both air con & alt belt will need doing. All would be fine until next service. Full synthetic oil used and matic fluid J. All up it was NZ$650 which is pretty good and on par with Holden pricing here and better than BMW. They also provided quotes on future parts required. To sum up, I will go back there! Cheers.

[win4ever]

Hey Dave,

Yeah, i suddenly note that it's actually already past the half year mark! Silly me! Guess the russians are taking longer than expected but I guess with the investment of time n cost into the conversion, they need to be really careful to avoid having someone replicate their work without them getting the necessary benefits. Well, let's wait n c how it goes.

Will be keen to c how u get on with getting an Ipod connected to the AUC input. Do keep me posted. Haven't seen my car so not too sure how this can be done atm.

With regards to my Mazda, well I guess I am not as lucky as you. I did sold another car prior to this when I got my Mazda and that was sold relatively quickly and for a price that I am very happy with. It's just timing as had I got my car 1 month earlier, i would have sold my Mazda at the price I want. Now it seems like it's a little quiet although I do think and hope my price is not too high (based on what i see on trademe). And yeah, thanks for ur well wishes! Do hope the car is sold within this 2 weeks to clear my garage n get some $$$ back into the bank!

Yes I saw that posting of Andy's back in May. However, way back, the Russion guys promised the conversion for the S1 M35 "soon", then it dragged on for around 18 months more while they worked out how to protect their intellectual property. Andy also mentioned more recently in another thread that he hasn't had any updates on progress recently, so I figure they may have been held up again. Let's hope not. They may have more to do this time, with at least two versions, and what appears to be more menus than last time.

The picture you saw on the TV screen on my Stag was "daytime drama" on TV in Japan at my friends yard in Saitama, before it was shipped to me in NZ. Sadly it's never shown a TV picture in NZ of course, but as there is an AUX input, I'd like to send either an IPOD video or media player signal to it at some stage. When I was visiting my friend in Japan last year, I setup a wifi network for him, and when he got the car back to his yard, he was able to give me a video tour of it via Skype. I also had photos of course prior to him bidding on it.

When I listed my S1 Stagea on Trademe recently, within days I had a couple of people outside of Auckland keen to buy it sight unseen, but they never got back to me. Then within a day, I had a genuine buyer arrange to come around. They had looked at another couple of Stageas, and looked at another one after mine, and later came back in the afternoon with cash for mine. I think we were realistic with our expectations in this flat market, and it was a good fast sale. Good luck with your sale.

[win4ever]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the update! Looks like City Nissan is pretty good then! Will definitely consider sending the car there for major services then. So did you need to replace any parts at all or u basically had a full service + trans flust n underbody check?

$650 for it seems pretty alright I guess although I haven't really sent a car back to Mazda / Toyota (my current and previous car) for servicing.

Hey Guy's, just thought I'd update you after my service at City Nissan. All in all I was happy with the work done and the service provided. The people there are very good. One sticky point I've outlined in the direct injection thread so check that out.

It was a 100k service with an underbody check and a trans flush. They found that the two front shocks had very slight dampness but still performed well, that the lower control arm bush had slight cracking and both air con & alt belt will need doing. All would be fine until next service. Full synthetic oil used and matic fluid J. All up it was NZ$650 which is pretty good and on par with Holden pricing here and better than BMW. They also provided quotes on future parts required. To sum up, I will go back there! Cheers.

[Blade NZ]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the update! Looks like City Nissan is pretty good then! Will definitely consider sending the car there for major services then. So did you need to replace any parts at all or u basically had a full service + trans flust n underbody check?

$650 for it seems pretty alright I guess although I haven't really sent a car back to Mazda / Toyota (my current and previous car) for servicing.

Yeah they were good to deal with. Not sure if they are better than say Manukau Nissan or any other one closer to you but I have noticed that every time I'm there they have at least one skyline or Stagea going thru the shop. I believe they are also the only official GTR dealer in the north island. So all in all they are very skyline/stagea friendly which is good considering most of our cars are imports

As for my service, a big component was fluids with the full synthetic oil (at my request) being $120 and the trans fluid also at $120. The requested trans flush was outside the normal service and with labour probably accounted for $200 of the bill. That said a 100k service probably required spark plugs and at my request was not looked at. The reason for this was that they only had the $62 each plugs in stock with the half price alternative not available till mid July. I will purchase these then and fit myself.

The quote for future work consisted of air con belt & alt belt at $38 each plus labour to fit and front shocks at $472 each plus labour. Belts yes in 10k, shocks no. I think I'll eventually go aftermarket for this as I'd probably get 4 for the price of two, especially with the quoted 3 hours labour to fit on top.

I know you can get a cheaper service but I've always believed big services are best done at the dealer.

Cheers

[chad bob]

Yeah last time I checked, you could get coilovers for the m35 for LESS than the price of OEM shocks.

Regarding City Nissan Takapuna, I suppose my opinion of them is a little off because last time I took the Stag to them for a WOF, the CEL was on. Instead of coming out to talk to me about what could be causing it and how the issue may be rectified, the technician just reset the ECU without telling me!

Not very helpful... What if the CEL was not due to my own doing and it was signifying a serious fault ?

[win4ever]

Seems like some difference in opinion on City Nissan. Well I guess it's really down to a who's the mechanic who did the service there at that time. Would assume there r good ones and some not as good ones. Chad, when did u sent ur car there?

Someone mentioned that they may have improved with the new GTRs now being serviced by them n Nissan actually making sure that they are more well trained n equiped to do the job.

Hopefully that's the case! So far, still haven't seen a more unanimous decision on a good place to send the car to. Has anyone tried TMG in Newmarket? They seems to say they are Nissan experts as well!

[chad bob]

Chad, when did u sent ur car there?

Last WOF which was a couple of weeks ago.

[win4ever]

Well, we now know there's some good mechanics in City Nissan and some not so good ones!

I am still looking around for some so called Nissan "experts" outside the usual Nissan dealers. I've seen workshops stating they are Subaroo, BMW, Merc, Audi, etc experts, but just haven't found one for Nissan.

Wonder if it's because Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda are all highly popular Jap cars that are relatively easy to fix that there's no market need for someone to advertise themselves as the experts.

Last WOF which was a couple of weeks ago.

[Spong]

Well, we now know there's some good mechanics in City Nissan and some not so good ones!

I am still looking around for some so called Nissan "experts" outside the usual Nissan dealers. I've seen workshops stating they are Subaroo, BMW, Merc, Audi, etc experts, but just haven't found one for Nissan.

Wonder if it's because Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda are all highly popular Jap cars that are relatively easy to fix that there's no market need for someone to advertise themselves as the experts.

Anyone can call themselves "Experts" but really this is just a subjective opinion. Having been self employed in the electronics and computer service field for over 30 years, I tend to believe that you're probably safest in the hands of an official Nissan dealer when it comes to the more involved work. They have access to more factory backup, factory service bulletins and diagnostic tools than the average independent garage does, but then the independents can sometimes have better overall experience, as they're dealing with lots of different brands and models. It's surprising that City Nissan knew little about the carbon buildup problems with their direct injection motors though. A small independent mechanic I do work for was well aware of the problem, and the more serious problems affecting Mitsubishi GDI motors. I've used City Nissan for over 20 years, but only for the more involved work, and I've always felt they were competent, fair and efficient. When I had a transmission problem with my old Bluebird wagon, they were happy for me to source a replacement, and they modified it to suit without drama and excuses. They seem to be very "import friendly". Having Nissan "Fast" for parts and "Consult" for diagnostics gives them an advantage, although independents could get their hands on these too if they're serious.

[win4ever]

Completely agree on this. I do agree that for major servicing or issues (touch wood everyone's car won't have any of these), the official dealer should be the first option. However, for minor issues, I guess a more reputable independant workshop should do the job as well.

For a more popular model cars esp Japanese ones, I think most decent workshops usually will have good experience working on them. With a M35 or V35, i guess it's slightly more rare and hence, I'll be tempted to go back to official dealers if there is any major things to be done.

That being said, I never did have too good experience with Toyota and Mazda previously when I did have to approach them for some parts for my previous cars. Called them up to inquire about parts required (quarter mirror for Toyota and brake pads for Mazda) and just find them to be rather unhelpful. Toyota took like 3 days to come back with a quote and never offer any alternatives. I tried arranging with Mazda for servicing and replacement of brake pads. They quoted a high price and I sort of asked on alternatives for the pads n they were not very friendly on the response.

Well, City Nissan, based on comments here does seems much better.

Anyone can call themselves "Experts" but really this is just a subjective opinion. Having been self employed in the electronics and computer service field for over 30 years, I tend to believe that you're probably safest in the hands of an official Nissan dealer when it comes to the more involved work. They have access to more factory backup, factory service bulletins and diagnostic tools than the average independent garage does, but then the independents can sometimes have better overall experience, as they're dealing with lots of different brands and models. It's surprising that City Nissan knew little about the carbon buildup problems with their direct injection motors though. A small independent mechanic I do work for was well aware of the problem, and the more serious problems affecting Mitsubishi GDI motors. I've used City Nissan for over 20 years, but only for the more involved work, and I've always felt they were competent, fair and efficient. When I had a transmission problem with my old Bluebird wagon, they were happy for me to source a replacement, and they modified it to suit without drama and excuses. They seem to be very "import friendly". Having Nissan "Fast" for parts and "Consult" for diagnostics gives them an advantage, although independents could get their hands on these too if they're serious.

[win4ever]

Dave, just thought I'll update! My car has finally landed in Auckland! Thanks for your info on checking for ship arrivals in the Port of Auckland website. I got the shipping details fr my dealer and checked it against the website. Seems like it was there on Tuesday! Always thought it's coming tomorrow so I only checked yesterday and found out the ship is already at port.

I recheck it again later yesterday night and noticed the ship was no longer in the "at port" list. Does that means it's already departed? Well, the car should be at the wharf now and my dealer is saying it should get to him later this week or early next week. I am of coz hoping it's gonna be this week!

I haven't decided for sure yet whether I'll get mine done. I'm getting quite use to the Japanese menus now, and it's hard for me to justify the cost at this stage, but that may change. I don't know what the S2 conversion will cost, hopefully less than the S1. Do you have a link to Andy's recent post re: the S2 M35/v35 progress? As far as I know, there are at least 2x S2 versions to deal with, an earlier one, possibly without Carwings and/or bluetooth and a later version with Carwings/Bluetooth. What year is the V35 you have coming? I have the later version Nav unit and managed to pair my mobile to the inbuilt handsfree bluetooth. Initially it would drop all incoming calls after 1x second, but someone here pointed me in the right direction to disable this. Apart from that, there's the service schedule, fuel economy and trip meter figures, and compass, and of course the bluetooth, and TV. Once you remove the navigation DVD, it disables pretty much all the stuff we can't use anyway. I see you still have your Atenza, and a few idiots have been offering silly money. You tend to get that on Trademe Any decent offers yet?

[Spong]

Dave, just thought I'll update! My car has finally landed in Auckland! Thanks for your info on checking for ship arrivals in the Port of Auckland website. I got the shipping details fr my dealer and checked it against the website. Seems like it was there on Tuesday! Always thought it's coming tomorrow so I only checked yesterday and found out the ship is already at port.

I recheck it again later yesterday night and noticed the ship was no longer in the "at port" list. Does that means it's already departed? Well, the car should be at the wharf now and my dealer is saying it should get to him later this week or early next week. I am of coz hoping it's gonna be this week!

Yes, the ship will likely have unloaded and be on it's way to the next port. The most accurate info is on The Ports of Auckland site, and the ships sometimes arrive a day earlier or later than usual. Your car will probably be on the wharf that it was unloaded from, or may have already been collected by a transporter to be taken to the centre your dealer uses for overseeing compliance, depending on how busy they are down there. If you have a look around the wharf in areas you're allowed, there's a reasonable chance you'll see it, but then there could be several 350GT's in your colour so that may not help. I think you'd be very lucky to get it by this weekend, but you never know. How's that Atenza getting on?