1991 Infiniti G20 2.0L from North America
Summary:
Old Faithful
Faults:
Since I've only owned the car a few months, not much has gone wrong. My brother gave it to me and the following items were broken: Window motor, missing window switches, and the transmission is a bit clunky going from 1st to 2nd. Recently I discovered the thermostat is out, but that's not too bad for such an old car.
He got is as a gift and put a good 40K on it with no problems. The window issue was due to the previous owners dog and my brothers attempt to fix it himself.
General Comments:
I drove from Southern California to Eastern Washington (1.5K miles) on a car with over 200K miles... no problems whatsoever.
The engine doesn't leak anything and it is as smooth sounding as my Honda that had only 100K. I figure the engine will last until 300K...it is that tight!
The clunky transmission will eventually have to be replaced or fixed, but I have more faith in this car getting me from point A to B than my wife's Caravan which is 10 years/100K younger than the G20.
The seats are comfortable and the paint job looks practically new... a 14 year old car shouldn't look or drive this well, but it does.
When this car eventually dies, I'll save a ton of money and look for another older model with high mileage since it will practically run forever.
One surprise is that headroom space is lacking... but I'm not that tall so it doesn't bother me. It just took awhile to adjust to it... opening up the sunroof helped.
Don't buy one new though since you are paying a lot for the quality...get one off a rich fool who thinks it will be unreliable after 100K miles.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 8th December, 2004
15th Jul 2005, 17:19
I wrote the original entry, and have tacked on a few thousand more miles with no issues.
The thermostat was easy to change out and only cost $9. I got some new window switches at eBay for about $15...
The clunky transmission is probably (my guess) due to engine or transmission mounts going bad. I haven't had the time to check it out yet, since I don't want to tear my car apart and not have the time to put it together again.
I'd recommend going to www.g20.net. They have a bunch of useful info... you can run a search to find most problems and solutions. The forum has a bunch of helpful members too.
16th Nov 2013, 18:01
I am the original poster and have an update. The car has 251,000 since the 9 or so years since I've owned it. The only thing that is broken that I can't really fix is the automatic seat belts, but everything else I could fix.
The motor will go another 50,000 easily, which is depressing since my original thought was to drive this into the ground and buy another one. But this one hasn't died (or I've revived it) and they stopped making these in 2002, so the availability of cars is getting harder to find. I figure this will be dead in another 10 years the way I am putting miles on this.
Excellent car, buy the P11 version since they look better/newer and you'll be happy. You can get a decent used one for around $5K. The engines will last forever.
19th Mar 2005, 20:35
Believe me, your G20 will last forever.
I owned a 1991 G20 before it got totaled and it only had 314,800 miles on it. It still started up everyday as it was sitting in my driveway damaged. I replaced the manual tranny at 300,000 miles because I knew the reliability of the SR20DE engines they have. My original alternator went at 280,000 miles. I drove it 1000's of miles a month with no problems while it had over 300,000 miles on it. If my car wasnt totaled, I'd still be driving it today and it would have 350,000 miles on it.
But due to the harsh winters here in Buffalo, the salt was a killer on my rocker panels and wheel-wells, and especially the under carriage of the car.