So, my 2003 Subaru Baja is on its way out. Like every Subaru it's got rust holes the size of my fist down through the rocker panels, chews through brake parts pretty frequently and leaks every fluid known to man. Also the clutch has no friction material left and I just don't like the car/truck very much. It's got no power yet only gets 20mpg, the back seat is pretty small and only seats two and the bed is worthless. But it went really well in the CNY winters and was kind of fun to hoon about in the white stuff.
While trying to decide on a replacement for it before this next winter, I remembered that Infiniti built an AWD variant of the G35 Sedan and I see that they have dipped down into the $6k price range. It's auto-only, but that means I won't go too far down the modding hole and it's less likely to be thrashed to death compared to the RWD/manual variants. And with almost 100hp more than my Baja, it should still be faster, even with a torque converter in the mix. They only get ~16mpg city/20mpg highway, but that's about what my Baja got and my ZJ Grand Cherokee before the Baja was even worse. Aluminum subframes and suspension parts in theory, might be less likely to rot out than the steel subframes in a lot of other cars. I read that the transfer case has a Snow mode that locks it to a 50/50 torque split (normally I guess it's 30/70 and pulls power from the front as speed increases to make it less pushy/understeery) which seems nifty. And when it's not winter, I could toss some different wheels and more performance tires and maybe BC coilovers (yes, they make G35X-specific coilovers) on it and make it relatively fun or a backup bad weather autocross car.
I seem to see some for sale with fairly high miles, so it doesn't seem like they have some made-of-glass transfer case that is unobtanium and sidelines them like some stuff out there (I recall that being an issue with some Volvo I once asked about on here). The VQ35 may not be a great sounding engine, but I know that they are pretty long-lived. I did have a friend mention something about head gaskets? Never heard of them being a huge issue with VQs, and I'm driving a high-mileage EJ251, so I bet its less likely than that. How are the auto transmissions in these on a scale of Subaru 4EAT (tough) to Honda Odyssey (time bomb)? Am I missing any other pitfalls with these cars? Are there any other cars I should be considering in the price range (no European stuff or anymore Subarus, please)?