I'm actually not all that worried about her beating it up; regardless of what type of car I give her. Granted, she's only 12 now, but she's a ridiculously responsible, good kid. I fully believe that trend will continue throughout her life, but we'll see once the teen hormones kick in.

Interestingly enough, I did find out last night that my wife will be pissed if I get the Z and give it to my daughter, but she doesn't care that my plan was to give the Mustang to her (new wife; daughter is from my first wife).

Get your daughter a $4000 2001-2005 Honda Civic. Beware of potential auto trans issues. The manuals are fine. 35-40MPG all day long, cheap, not fast enough to get into serious trouble, and reliable.

Funny you should mention...I just bought my step-son a Civic Del Sol. Hondas are good cars. BUT I really wanna give my daugher a "nice" car...something fun. This is a kid who is respectful, helps others, is always cheery, the worst grade she's ever brought home is a B, does her own chores and helps out with her brothers/sister...basically, she's the kinda kid that makes you feel like you did something right as a parent. And for that, I kinda wanna spoil her with her first car.

Search around a bit and look for info on the 350Zs and oil consumption. I'm not sure what all years were effected but Nissan had a problem with these. There is at least one TSB out. 1qt oil in less than 1k miles was common and 1qt in 500 miles was not unheard of. Nissan replaced engines if the consumption could be documented. This also affected manual transmission G35s as well.

-J

Yeah, I was looking at an '06 that Nissan had replaced the engine in for this reason.

Why don't you go with a newer civic si? I don't know anything about them, but they seem like a fun version of a civic. The problem with more affordable fun Jap cars is (like what was already said by others) that they were probably beat on. I think the Z is a cool car, but I would be extra careful with your PPI of it.