Seattle driving

I arrived last night in Seattle for a short training course. My colleague drove the previous time I was here, so this would be my first time driving in Washington state. I knew it wouldn’t be a party, but my short stint from airport to hotel was worse than expected:

• It was raining.
• It was at night.
• My GPS took a while to lock into position. It also reported a right turn when it should have been a left turn.
• Carpool lanes were on the right instead of left. This made a tourist like me perform extra lane changes while looking for directions.
• Some highway entrances are on the left, and merging into traffic from left to right was more difficult.

Today evening I drove from Bellevue to Space Needle in Seattle. Along the way I had to merge from 520 West onto I-5 South, in the fore mentioned left to right fashion. Just as I busily merged into the left most lane, my GPS told me to take the next exit at right. That’s like 5 lanes in a few seconds in heavy traffic. Messy. The same mess repeated itself on the way back from Space Needle.

Land Rover Range Rover versus Cadillac Escalade

Just watched Transporter 3 on DVD. In the film set in Europe, the Russian/Ukrainian bad guys use Land Rover Range Rovers for transportation. This is in contract in US where American gangs seems to prefer blinged Cadillacs Escalades. I prefer a Range Rover over Escalade anytime.

Some Infiniti G35s photos

Sharing some pictures I took of my Infiniti G35s this morning.

Infiniti G35 first servicing

I am here at a local Infiniti dealer for the first scheduled maintenance servicing on my Infiniti G35. It’s a simple oil change, supposedly taking 60 to 90 minutes.

Infiniti G35 thoughts

I’d like to reflect on my Infiniti G35 after 2.5 months of ownership. Might as well, since today I just completed two ownership surveys from independent parties. (J.D. Powers even included a $1 bill in the survey forms!)

Aside: Why didn’t I get any such surveys when I bought my two Hondas? Do marketing firms only care about luxury car owners?

Supercar mpg

Over the weekend I watched season 11, episode 1 of Top Gear. One of the comparison tests was to see how far a bunch of exotic cars can travel on one gallon of gas. The cars were raced full throttle on a track, so no Prius-like mpg was to be expected. Still, I was amazed to find out in the end that the Ferrari 599 only achieved 1.7 miles. That’s one point seven miles per gallon!

Car magazines and the real world

As I was flipping through the latest issue (August 2008) of Road & Track, I couldn’t help but to notice all the mention of power and speed throughout the pages. While I understand car magazines naturally lean towards performance car coverages, it is in stark contrast to today’s reality. I for one restrain from even forcefully tapping (and not stepping) on my G35′s gas pedal for fear of upsetting the mileage gods.

There is an article in this issue related to car gas consumptions though. Titled “The Fast and The Frugal”, it’s a round up of fast cars with ‘good’ gas mileage. Unfortunately ‘good’ means 16 (Corvette Z51) to 26 mpg (Mini Cooper). By that standard, my G35 is pretty ‘frugal’ as well.

$4.75 a gallon

Today I filled up the gas tank in my G35 with my own money for the first time. Boy it was painful to pay for premium gas at $4.75 a gallon.

Infiniti G35 6MT, mine

我买了，或者更正确地说是，我又“败”了。

Yes, I took the plunge and traded in my Civic Si for a 2008 Infiniti G35 6MT with Premium and Navigation packages. Date of crime? June 1, 2008.

买车后的那晚我真的有一点后悔，因为这G35怎么讲都是一件奢侈品，而我再怎么把脸打胖也充不起富人，不知这次是不是“败”得太狠了点。

I really only wanted the Premium package, but all 6MTs in Northern California come with Navigation. That’s a $2k option, but included are some useful extras like a touch screen and a rear view camera.

These links chronicle my weakness towards temptation: link 1, link 2, link 3, and link 4.

Poor trade-in offers from Infiniti dealers

So I have been shopping for an Infiniti G35 6MT. The quotes for the 6MT itself were pretty decent, as in very close to invoice. The trade-in quote for my Civic Si, however, were not so favorable. One dealer gave me a value that’s $3000 less than Kelly Blue Book (KBB)‘s trade-in price for such a car in Good condition. The other gave me a number that’s $2000 less. Apparently they looked at the auction price, which makes me wonder if the KBB’s trade-in prices are ever used. Now I will either sell the Civic Si privately or postpone the G35 purchase.