Hi everyone. I just purchased my 1st Z! I'm thrilled about it and glad to have found this site. I'm a previous BMW (E46) owner, however I have had my eye on purchasing a used 350z for some time now. I'm a bit compulsive when it comes to purchasing things, so I may have purchased this Z on a whim. I ended up picking up a 2003 base model, 6MT with 50K and some slight mods (leather seats, 06 wheels, sub woofer/amp, aftermarket CD player, Nismo shifter, CAI and grill-I think they're both aftermarket but maybe one of the pros on this site could tell from the pics). The car is flawless, with absolutely no chips dents or dings and the interior is imacculate. I purchased the car for $17K OTD, however added another $1,800 on to that for the 100K mile bumper to bumper certified executive warranty, tire and wheel insurance, GAP insurance and paintless dent repair. While I probably paid a bit too much for it being an 03 I'm happy that I have certified coverage that will replace just about anything on the car should it need replaced. I wanted to keep my payments below $275, and was able to accomplish this after putting $4,500 down on the car. I have included some pics and I look forward to learning more through this great site! Any feedback is always appreciated.

 

Welcome and congrats. I like those seat covers. They're like the '05 Anniversary seats.

 

Yeah, the seats kinda helped sell me on the car. I'm not sure if they were custom or if they were out of another Z. At first I wasn't sure about the hood and roof stripes, but they're kinda growing on me. I really like the feel of this car and feel very fortunate to have it. Hopefully I didn't pay too much for it though

 

You're lucky to find one with no nicks and dings after 50k. Well done.

 

I'm happy about my purchase, but certainly didn't get a steal on it. I was wondering if I paid a too much in hindsight or if it was a fair price? Hard to find these up here in north Texas

 

I had an e46 too! Man its a big difference huh? I love my 350z

 

I love this 350z, but I also loved my E46 too. It just had over 90K miles on it and was getting too expensive to maintain. I enjoyed having nearly every option on it, and now it feels weird that my Z doesn't even have cruise control
Regardless I still love this Nissan and feel very lucky

 

congrats, it looks good

 

Beautifully well kept for 50,000 miles.

 

yeah i'm obsessed with my 03 base, but it does suck to not have cruise control

 

that is very clean! welcome aboard

 

I assumed every car these days would have cruise control as a standard option. I didnt even notice it was missing that option until I was driving it home from the dealership. My fault for assuming.

 

Well one should say far north texas

Plenty of those buggers (don’t know about if they are in good shape or not) in the Frisco/McKinney area. But just being south of ya, I know what you mean. I am surprised that there are 5 350z's in Anna as it is

Well if come down south back off in Melissa. I swear the entire income for that city is all tickets on 75

So if you see a 2005 330ci ZHP waving at ya, its just me Congrats.

 

Welcome to the club.

Looks like you got a plenum spacer as well. (I didn't see it on the mod list, but it clearly looks like you've got the washer spacers under the strut bar and the plenum looks really close to the strut bar.

Also, that's not really a CAI, it's a pop charger. The CAI's will route down into the front bumper. I think the pop chargers sound way better anyway.

 

Cool. Thanks for the clarification! I'll have to do some searching about what purpose the spacers serve, however u mentioned the plenum looks really close to the strut bar. Is this a bad thing?

 

Not really. I just noticed that it was closer than normal, then I noticed the raised strut bar, so I assumed it was a plenum spacer. I've got one as well, and if you drove that thing w/o the spacer at first, you'd be able to see a big difference at higher RPMs. Specifcally, if you take it up to 5k or so w/o the spacer it seems like the power just levels out there and going further does nothing. Pop the spacer on there and it feels like you have pull all the way to the redline.

The spacer gives you a few HP and TQ by letting the engine breathe a bit better. You can check this site out for more info.

 

Thanks for the info I'll check it out

 

Congrats and welcome. I couldn't make out any hood or roof stripes from the pics. Did I miss something?

 

The pics I have don't really show them all that well. There are 2 small stripes on the hood and then a wider stripe on the roof with 1 very small stripe on each side. At first when I got the car I loved them...then I hated them...now I kinda like them a bit cause they're unique.

 

Cruise control only makes you less alert, you know set and forget, sort of. Keeps you more alert, to keep an eye on your speed.