Been looking quite while for a 350Z and have looked at quite a few, not really finding one for a good price that is in decent condition. Found a 2004 listed by an individual for $12,750. Description is as follows:

77,xxx miles
6spd
HID headlights
Cloth interior
Cold air intake
Lowered 2 inches
Rota wheels
Borla exhaust
South bend clutch
New throw out bearing and crank positioning sensor
IPS tune
Sub and new head unit
Nismo ground effects

Just wanted some opinions before I bother taking a look at it.

 

The thing on the list that is a red flag to me is,"lowered 2 inches".
I don't know the area in which you live,but I could not use that car as a DD in my area.
Also,it mentions Nismo ground effects...scrape.
Watch out.

 

Any pics? Carfax?

 

Lowered 2 inches - Possibly a lot of negative camber - tires may need replacing? Like JCITY said, major scraping.

Unless on some coils, then you can adjust the height.

If you are truly interested, I would ask the seller to drive to a mechanic with you, you pay $40-60 for the mechanic to check it out and tell you whats up. It is worth it if you are a serious buyer.

 

Pics?

& of course I mean of the undercarriage, because it's "Lowered 2 inches".

 

I appreciate all the replies. The 2 inch lowering was a red flag for me also. It won't be a daily driver but obviously I don't want to be bottoming out on every little bump when I do take it out for a drive. Of course if it has a height adjustable setup this might not be a problem.

 

So does it have a height-adjustable setup or not?

Honestly if he didn't mention it in the ad and he mentioned "New throw out bearing and crank positioning sensor"... it doesn't have coilovers.

Where are the pictures? Throw us a bone, man. We can't help much with such an abridged description.

 

No. I wouldn't ever buy a modded car. Odds are it was abused.

 

I am supposed to setup a time this week to take a look at it. I will post more info after I've seen it and asked some questions. BTW the price was just lowered to 11,500

 

Latest update on the 2004. Met with the seller yesterday who was a very nice guy that just happens to be an Ohio state trooper. He was very up front about what he did and did not know about the car. It was purchased by him about 2 years ago from a guy that had already installed most of the mods. He confirmed the car does have adjustable coil overs that he believed could be adjusted to lessen the drop, he had not done so because he had never had any problems with bottoming out during almost 30K miles of mostly highway driving.

I took it on fairly long test drive, with him in the car. Before we started out he jokingly stated that I needed to take it easy because if we got pulled over, flashing his trooper ID was not going to avoid me getting a ticket.

First thing I noticed was a very loud tire noise that got louder when increasing speed. He advised the noise had been getting worse and worse over the last 6 months. The tires were Protenza's that had a decent amount of tread but showed a lot of small cracks appearing on the sidewalls. Not being a tire expert I'm not sure what's going on here, hopefully one of you can advise. Outside of this noise the car drove fantastically with no other problems noticed.

We discussed price and he advised he was flexible. The only other lookers he had were teens that wanted to do swaps for modded Civic's and the like, which was of no interest to him. His main interest was to sell the car before Ohio winter hit's so he can buy an SUV.

Right now he is at $11,500 but considering the tires will most likely need replaced he seemed willing to drop another $500 to help with that cost. In the end I advised I would need to take a few days to think about it and let him know by the end of the week. Any and all opinions are welcomed as to how I should proceed.

 

Those tires are very noisy even when new. I wouldn't put too much thought into new tires.

How did the car idle, shift and drive? Were there any odd noises or smells? And I like those wheels so it's an added bonus. My initial thought was go for it, but what will you do in winter?

 

OP mentioned earlier this won't be a daily driver so I think he may own an SUV or other winter worthy vehicle.

Car looks nice and that is a good price. If you didn't have any problems during test drive you may as well buy it.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still kind of undecided of what to do. Looks like a tire replacement is going to be a must, if nothing else because of the sidewall cracking. Makes no sense that a a tire with that much tread remaining would have cracking sidewalls, there's no telling what might be going on inside the tire. Reading other threads the consensus seems to be the OEM Protenza's are pretty much crap even though they are one of the most expensive replacement tires for the Z.

I figure a decent set of tires mounted and balanced plus an alignment is going to cost close to a $1000 and that's not counting if some other problem is found. I am thinking very seriously of offering 10K and see what happens.

 

Yea I would offer that. Tires are expensive. Look at the manufacture date on them, my guess is they could be old or something.

If there were no real issues and he had oil change records I would go for it.

Did you check the carfax/autocheck>

 

Didn't do a car Carfax and the seller has no records of any kind. JMO but I don't think a Carfax is really worth the money, a good set of maintenance records is way better. I'm starting to think I'm going to pass on this one. Winter is coming on early here in SW Ohio, so more then likely if I buy it, it's just going to sit in the garage most of the time till at least April anyway. Seriously considering waiting till Spring and see what comes on the market then.