2022 Infiniti QX60 Review
2022 Infiniti QX60
3.5 Liter V6
295 HP / 270 TQ
Base Price: $46,850
MPG: 19.8 as observed
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Guy who did stuff: Yousef Alvi
Some images provided by the manufacturer
The bread and butter…well crap. No that’s not the right phrase. Uhhhh…let’s try this:
The sole reason Infiniti exists today is because of the QX60. Not because it was the epitome of automotive engineering…no it was because it filled a niche that is just NOW being filled with competitors.
The QX60 had the pseudo luxury 3 row (3 actual rows…looking at you MDX) crossover market all to itself for nearly a decade. In those years, the QX60 was Infiniti’s number 1 seller by a huge margin. How huge you say? Well…
It was regularly selling upwards of 20,000 more units per year of the QX60 than anything else in their lineup. Granted this is all before everything went to poop in the past year 18 months but still!
So, if it were not for the QX60, the Infiniti brand would have vanished into the pages of history long ago. Now, looking at their current line up that is still up for grabs, but this brand new 2022 QX60 is giving me slight up in Infiniti’s future.
Let’s go ahead and break it down
The Great
A REAL Automatic Transmission!
See above
I don’t think you understand
A real-deal Automatic!
Why am I so excited? Well because for well over a two decades, Nissan and Infiniti had a torrid love affair with the CVT. I say torrid because, in general, CVTs are soul sucking, happiness draining, whiney pieces of fecal matter.
Pairing all of that rubberbandiness with the venerable VQ series of engines, made a combination of what can be best described as automotive related heartburn.
Finally Nissan/Infiniti learned their lesson and this 9 speed unit from Aisin is a lovely unit. It’s quick when it needs to be, smooth nearly all the time and most importantly gives a feeling of attachment (versus detachment on a CVT) between the driver and this new QX60.
“Pairing all of that rubberbandiness with the venerable VQ series of engines, made a combination of what can be best described as automotive related heartburn.”
See Above
Seriously…the CVT is gone!!!! And the hilarious name that Nissan/Infiniti decided to called it
‘Xtronic’
More like ‘X-wrongit’
Ha! I’m hilarious
I don’t think you understand
You don’t seem to understand how much this excites me! Ditching the damn X-Moronic units for a traditional automatic means that future Nissan/Infiniti models will actually drive….well/good/acceptable…or maybe
Great???
The Good
Engine
Space
Styling
Engine
Moving on from the transmission, the engine that graces the QX60 is the venerable 3.5 liter VQ series V6. The engine that finds itself in everything in the Nissan Corporate portfolio and in this guise produces 295 HP and 270 TQ.
Which is on par with the rest of the competition. There isn’t any ‘OMG it feels like Z’ when you apply throttle but it will genuinely scoot along in any and all conditions.
Space
This new generation QX60 ups the interior volume to 140.6 cubic feet from 130.4. Bringing with it more second row legroom and more third row legroom. Add that with actual storage capacity with all rows up…gives the QX60 all the room a family needs.
Styling
Keeping with the ‘my grill is bigger than your grill’ facination that is plaguing automakers…the QX60 is styled conservative but yet modern. It’s not overly styled like a Lexus nor is it trying a bit too hard like the MDX, nor it is as graceful as the Aviator or as contemporary as the GV80. So think of the styling of this new QX60…as the goldilocks of the segment.
The Bad
Interior
Interior
It’s not ‘bad’ per se but it’s not in the same league as the GV80, MDX and the Aviator. Everything that needs to be squishy is squishy and it is rattle free.
Unfortunately it’s interior is missing the ‘wow’ or the ‘0o0o0o’ factor that really differentiates a special vehicle from a pedestrian one. Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely a step up from the Pathfinder but it feels like a notch up rather than a segment up.
The Ugly
Effing Infotainment
Infotainment
The worst car I have ever owned was (ironically) an Infiniti. It was a 2014 Q50S and one of my major gripes with it was the awful infotainment system. It was laggy, buggy, clumsy and made me question my life decisions each and every time I got in that car.
I had hopes since this new infotainment is well…new? But no…it’s still hopelessly hard to navigate, graphics are subpar and if anything feels actually slower than the InTouch system I had in my old car!
See below video
“It was laggy, buggy, clumsy and made me question my life decisions each and every time I got in that car. ”
Overall:
So what do I think of the 2022 Infiniti QX60? It’s a large step in the right direction for the brand and it’s finally itching closer to their closest competitors…but is it as good as it’s competitors?
Almost.
That in and of itself is momentus for the Infiniti brand as a whole…because ‘almost’ is a far step up from ‘what in the actual eff?’
