This forum is lacking life recently, so I wanted to ask. Those of you who have Infiniti I30s or I35s what do like over the 4th Gen and 5th Gen Maxima?
I personally like that leather was standard. I also like the tail light bar much better than the separated lights on the Maxima. It reminds me of the tail lights on the 3rd Gen Maxima

 

The I30 has features like LSD, rear-seat headrests, cornering lights, and an auto-dimming rear mirror that were not available on the 4th gen Maxima. And the I30's hood includes the grille. The prestigious nameplate also helps impress your friends lol

And for the JDM folk out there, the I30 is the international Maxima. The US Maxima is a slightly cheapened version of it. They actually have different headlights and a different hood. One upgrade I would recommend would be to get the European Maxima headlights. They are available on ebay.es by searching "Maxima faro derecho/izquierdo" (Spanish words for right/left) or ebay.de by searching "Maxima scheinwerfer rechts/links" (German words for right/left)


BTW, leather actually wasn't standard on the I30, even though almost every I30 has it!

 

I just found out that the leather wasn't standard, oops. I have never seen a cloth i30, anyways

 

In terms of a '96 i30t compared to a '98 fully loaded SE maxima.
The overall look of the vehicle, especially the rear. The little additions around the cabin, like the pop out holders near the radio. Rear carpet that went fully across was nice. Really liked the leather,same as the 4th gen's, which is not a bad thing. Not much else to say as they really are the same cars.

Although If we're comparing a base model 4th gen to an i30 then all those little things would really add up to quite a different experience.

 

My 96 I30 doesn't have the pop-out cupholders! I just have a tray compartment

 

Me neither, I meant the holder/tray under the radio, and the ash tray.

 

I have an I35 which feature wise aren't much different than a 5.5 Gen GLE. But I do have one particular feature that comes to mind. Just this winter my daughter reached the age & height requirement to no longer need a booster seat & she's really enjoying the rear heated seats. Whenever she has a friend in the car she immediately shows them how to turn on their heated seat. In fact just a week ago she made me promise that if I get a new car that it has rear heated seats. I told her I can't make any promises. I mean really, rear heated seats were almost unheard of back in 2002-2004 and they aren't even very popular in new vehicles available today.