Thanks Sam,
I appreciate all the input and tips and opinions from everyone, thank you all.

When I said wax I was simplifying in the spirit of not boring everyone.

I plan to wash it by hand, inspect the clear coat and then either use a clay bar type product to clean it up, or just to my fav, Zymol I think it is spelled.

I love the stuff, goes on old school, by hand, fills in any clear coat swirls nicely, leaves a feel like glass, and a very deep shine that protects.

I just dont want to do anything to add swirls, and I havent had a car I cared about polishing in a while.
but I def always do it all by hand, I am not even sure about using a buffer, I think by hand is the best way to really get to know the car.

I just started on my wife's car a few months ago when I picked it up used, its a very deep blue, almost black, so a real pain to keep clean, looks awesome when it is done, but doesn't stay that way long, that's one reason I wanted either the silver or Solar orange for my Z.

I love the look of the black on black but I would hate to have to maintain one.

Anyway I am not going to do anything cheesy or cheap to my Z, after looking at the plasti dip and hearing from people I am def not going to go that route, I will just wait until I have the money for a set of wheels I like and I will most likely keep them stock sizes.

A little about me,
I am 45, semi retired, I buy and sell stuff for my money now and for fun, been married 26 years, have 3 adult kids and a couple grand kids.

I have always had a few toys, started very young in life so when I could I had bikes, or a project, etc..

My wife works a few days a week as a PCA in the local hospital so we are normally together and like to have fun together, she appreciates a nice toy as well.

Her work makes it great we can go anywhere and she can always find good paying work and great schedules too so we are now thinking of a cross country move to milder weather and leaving New England for Cali, north of San Francisco.

I hurt my back working as a mason in 2006 when I owned a masonry restoration company, being I worked for myself there was no disability or anything, I dont collect any ssi or anything at all, I just do my own thing now as I cant work with my back anymore or I would have nothing.

It sucks to be in pain, but I am as healed up as it will ever be and its not terribly bad all the time, the nice part is I have all my time to do whatever I want, and often that means playing with my toys, lol

So the Z is a stress reliever and fun way to get around, we are saving for some land, but I do have a budget for playing with my Z just as I had one for the mods I was doing to my Harley, so although it wont be overnight I will get to some cool mods that make the car mine as soon as I figure out exactly what I want to do.

Wheels will be soon, a touchscreen system that can deliver everything I want in it, and the tint are really the only things for this summer I can really think of I plan on doing.

I bought my wife a play car a few months ago and I want to take care of a few things on that before I do any performance mods on my Z.

So you know a little about me and where I am coming from.

I pay cash for everything, so I either wait til I can afford it, make a deal like a layaway, or I dont get it, pretty simple and it has always worked for me.

I love not having any debt, I sometimes wish I could but then I snap out of it.
Matter of fact I did that with this car, looked at it when I had 3k$ made a deal for it, sold my bike, etc.. going in two weeks to pick it up, just got the bike cash today.

This Z is actually the product of several flips of mine, I started with $2500.00 and put that down on a bike, and yada yada yada, I just sold the second bike from that flip for most of what I paid for this car, lol my out for pocket it still under 3k$ all told.
I will sell this one in two years and add a few bucks and get either a newer one or a 370, and then from there either a gtr or I might cash out and get a ca,per for my land and move, just depends on timing.

Anyway that's it, thanks again for all the tips from everyone.

Cant wait to learn more about the car and just enjoy this year from the seat of my Z.

Lump

 

WOW what a great deal!! haha clean car! congrats!!

 

Along with others, congrats! What a buy! Enjoy your new Z!

 

Thanks guys, yeah it is an amazing deal, I looked at several, the next best deal was a silver car for 2k$ more with a few extras this one lacks and similar mileage, but I love the Orange.

a few other pics and my wife's car.

 

Last few pics I have for now.

 

I only asked if your name was Sam because I nicknamed a guy I worked with Lumpy and it stuck! haha, no offense meant.

sounds like you're a pretty level headed guy, way to come around on the Plastidip. I'm not against it, but I wouldn't do the black on my Solar Orange. Plasti dip is pretty awesome. I had it on the bottom of my front lip to protect from rock chips after I got my bumper painted. I have a Zeetoyz shifter finisher in my Mazda that was silver but I went black with it to match the interior. It's good stuff for car show guys that want a new look every other show!

/plastidip rant

I used to love to flip stuff when I was in So Cal-I miss that a lot(along with the weather, scene, friends.....endless other things) but Iowa is home-- for now....

What kind of wheels are you looking at? 18s or 19s and style?

Can't believe you are already "thinking" of selling the Z in the future. I am kicking the idea around just to jump start getting out of Iowa, but every time I drive it I fall back in love.....

 

Thats funny about the name lumpy, years ago there was a guy in masonry who got hit in the head with a brick from my younger brother and when he complained about it he was yelled at for not wearing a hard hat, and then everyone called him lumpy too.

I am a songwriter and I play guitar in my own band, Pyramis, I have used the nickname lumper since around 2003 for both online and my band, it just kinda stuck.

I think I want to stay stock with wheel sizes unless I find a really good reason to change.
I dont want to go any larger I know that, I think the larger the tires the slower it seems to go as opposed to smaller wheels, I wouldnt go any smaller because I like the look, so for now anyway stock sizes for simplicity until I learn and more and find a reason to change.

I only mention flipping the car in the future as a step towards a newer one or a 370, when I flip I always go to something even cooler than I had, so even though I havent even started driving this one yet, history shows me in time I will be ready for the next thing.
I made a pretty cool folder of things in a perfect world I would do to the car but again, no rush, I need wheels anyway so I am thinking keep the stock wheels for winter and get some snow tires on them even though it is unlikely I will take the Z out in the snow, and get a new set with all seasons on them for the rest of the year.

However I need two tires now and I am going to go and match what he put on in Jan, so next time around I will decide on tires and wheels.

Rims are hard to pick for me without seeing them on the car so it will be a while for me to find anything that really jumps out, I love fat spokes, but I also like simple and flat black, part of me wonders what a black with solar orange highlights would look like and how well it would tie into the car.

I was also looking at replacing the exterior badges with black badges, door handles, and rims so it is black and orange, but thats my initial instinct, and why I will wait a few months and drive the car a while before I decide anything, give it some time to grow on me.
I cant wait to go pick her up, two weeks and two days, I have that day and the three days following tentatively planned out, it is going to be a blast!!

3 months ago I never heard of a 350z, I saw one in traffic about the time I was shopping for a used car for my wife, I looked it up and thought, nah, its to expensive, I wasnt in the market for it then, I had a 4k$ budget for her car, lol.
Hey it wasnt a too she needed a daily driver but a fun one, we live a block from her work so a car is really not necessary and figured why not get her one she will enjoy to drive.

Anyway we pulled up to a lot, and I ended up buying her car at that lot, but before we did they had a car that I now know was a convertible Z but when I saw it I had no idea, it looked so crazy to me, with the nismo front and rear and the way the convertible has that long back end, it just looked insane, from a distance as we pulled up, I told er, if that car is in our budget, thats your new car, just to get a reaction and see where her tastes were at, anyway I attached the pic, at the time I had no idea what it was.
They wanted 9995.00 for it, and the front bumper had a few major cracks in it, otherwise it looked really nice.

It was only after driving her car around for a few weeks I realized I really enjoyed a car more than my Harley for the first time, and so here we are 3 months later I own a solar orange hard top Z, strange how things happen.















Lump

 

That's a GTR front, not Nismo. Glad you got the one you got instead of that junky one.

 

Thanks No Question,
I knew it didnt look right and I couldnt place why.

Yeah the front and rear body its are cracked up, the wheels are way inset, the back looked gangly and strange to me, it looked to me like a total hybrid or kit car, I asked the guy thinking maybe it was some kind of crazy Honda, and he said nope its a Nissan.
But, yes, the car I bought is 150% better in every way.

Its funny how I saw that car, after seeing a silver one in town in passing, I didnt know what it was but loved the look, and in the end 3 months later I own an orange one.
Today my bike buyer showed up and put 10k$ cash in my hands, so I am almost ready to go get my car, I need 1k$ more and I can go pick her up.

Well really I need 1k$ more to buy it, then I need another 1500$ for reg, taxes, 2 tires, tint, oil, etc.. so I have to still wait two weeks from Thursday to get her, DOH!!, so close and yet so far away!

 

The seller must not be in a rush! I would think even with a deposit they would be fishing for more money somewhere. Are they waiting for you to get the money or do they need the time for their own reasons?

And no matter what the other orange one looked like, you're getting the newer higher revving (HR) engine which takes away some of the headaches when it comes to modding. I've had mine for 4 years and it's still fast enough for me.

 

wow what an awesome deal on the 07!!!!!!!!!

I just picked up my enthutiast 08 with 25k miles and I paid 4k more then u!

really depends on where u live i guess, in florida this is the cheapest i could get

 

IF you look hard you can find 2007;s under 40k miles for 15k , they are all over, Texas seems to have the most, I am thinking young oil money? lol lots of them in Miami too I almost flew down to get one, but I found this one n30 miles from my house, my back up was out of state in NY, it was an 07 35k miles 15k flat.

The guy I bought from does want the cash as soon as possible but we made a deal and a deal is a deal, lol, the deal was I had until the 17th to pay it, which is the day I get paid again, so although I have 12 of the 13k$ I am waiting until I have the final 1k$ to go see him and pay for it.
Unless he gets desperate enough, he knows I have the cash now, so if he wants to make a deal for 12k$ I will bring it to him right now, lol.
I told him when I made the deal I have another to go see, it has a few things this one doesnt have and some things like rims and tint that will save me money so he wanted to make a deal that day and know it was done, it was his offer, he would take a fixed price of 13k and let me put 2lk down and pay the balance within 30 days, so i jumped at it and said hell yeah.

The other deal I had made was with a lot, they were going to let me put 12k$ down and take the car, and give me a 30 day temp too, then I would pay the difference in 60 days and get the title.

So I was going there that day to put 2k$ down and i would have gone back this past Monday and picked the car up.

That car was 15k$ but had tint, a nismo lip, rims, power heated seats, etc.. so I was going to go make the deal the day I went and looked at the orange one first, and as I said when I saw it and the guy had told me on the phone he had another guy coming the next day with cash.

I told him after looking at it, I like it but I dont want to hold you up if you have a buyer, I cant pay you for 30 days anyway and I have another I can go see today so I wont even test drive it.

He got all excited and lowered his price so I said screw it lets test drive it anyway and I will think about it, and the rest is history.

So it was a god deal not only on price but terms, he was willing to work with me and wait 30 days for most of the cash just to be done showing it to young kids with no money and people who cant really raise the money, he was burnt out from craigslisters, I showed him 2k$ in cash and he just wanted to be done with it so...

Lump

 

Well, I picked her up last Thursday, got new front tires Friday morning, and did an amsoil oil change Saturday afternoon.
Then I washed her a little but really I need to do a full detail so thats coming up.

I had never driven a Z before this one, and I really didnt know what to expect other than what I had heard, read, etc..
After 5 days of having the car I can say, WOW it is so much fun to drive.

I still have to "learn" how to drive this car, but wow is about all I can say.
IT is amazing.
Seat kinda sucks, the huge rear view mirror gets in the way, the cup holder situation sucks, lol but the car is a lot of fun to drive and looks great.

I love my Z.

Lump