For traction, Infiniti upgrades the rear-drive QX56 to full-time four-wheel drive with a real low drive ratio. Torque is biased to the rear, but can be split between the front and rear axles when wheels start slipping.
The QX's independent suspension does a fine job of controlling its ride quality, even up to the inch wheels that are available on the most expensive versions. It's slightly different in feel, but to our wallets, not distinctly more comfortable, and not worth the thousands of extra dollars. The QX's steering feel is light--maybe too much so for our tastes--but its brakes are big and powerful. Maybe it's a narrow demographic, but the Infiniti QX56 has it nailed.
It's for buyers who need seats for eight and can tell high-spec off-road hardware at a glance--but can also appreciate the fine turn of a Nakashima table. Today's Infiniti QX56 is more appealing, we think, to luxury-car buyers than the one that preceded it. With some interesting callbacks to sport-ute history, and a richly detailed interior, it has a few passages where its good taste lapses.
We detect some vintage charm in the QX's silhouette, especially from the side, where its height and glass areas bring back the days of the Troopers and Monteros of the s. The QX is a version of today's Nissan Patrol, another member of that trio the only surviving one, in fact , and the faintly retro looks owes plenty to those roots. Most of the proportions hit the right notes: the ride height gives the QX the perfect SUV stance, and the D-pillar angles in such a way as to link it to the rest of the company's vehicles, as do the raised panels on the tailgate and the subtly swelled fenders.
It's the front end and fenders where the details go off the reservation. Massive headlights and a huge grille pull eyeballs right to the QX's nose instantly, and the ute offers up a lot of sheetmetal before it drops down into the chrome grille, giving it a tall forehead and a surprised look. The vents look inexpensive, though one of them actually functions to bring cool air under the hood.
These flaws get muted by darker paint colors--maybe they'd body-color the vents if you asked nicely? This look and feel fits in perfectly with the grace and finesse of the M56 sedan. Finely finished wood burls and swirls around the analog clock, audio controls, and steering wheel on some versions; the hazelnut leather in our test vehicle matched it perfectly.
Infiniti is charged with showing off the finest technology and finishes that Nissan can muster. That extends to performance as well--and when the Infiniti QX56 switched platforms and country of origin, Nissan took the opportunity to upgrade the sport-ute's powertrain and handling, adding refinement where it sorely needed it.
The full-size SUV rumbles to life as soon as its pushbutton starter is pressed. The current powerplant shares the same 5. In its current trim, the QX56 makes a prodigious horsepower and pound-feet of torque, and makes the most of it by coupling it to a seven-speed automatic with almost imperceptible shifts. It's a strong, silent type of powertrain that pushes the QX56 to 60 mph in about seven seconds, according to Infiniti's estimates.
While the transmission has more gears and the engine less friction, fuel economy hasn't gone up all that much. Lower, a little bit shorter, and noticeably more refined than the Nissan Armada-based ute that came before it, this second-generation Infiniti QX56 has a distinctive interior that still seats seven passengers, with a slightly rearranged sense of priorities. The QX56 used to be built in Mississippi alongside the Armada, but now it's a version of a vehicle that hails from Japan.
It's hard to tell the difference, in terms of interior space, though. The current QX is about three inches shorter overall than before, but the interior still sports luxurious front seats, plush chairs with power adjustments and plenty of space in all directions--except possibly at the knees, where bigger passengers might make contact with the QX's center console and its softly padded side. We're big fans of ventilated seats, and the QX56 offers them; they're excellent investments for drivers in the southern third of the U.
Second-row seating is almost as ample, but three adults across won't be as comfortable in the standard configuration as they will if the owner opted for the no-charge bench seat. The buckets are nicer, though, and get a center console almost as useful as the deep bin between the front seats. The second-row seats also offer heating, and a new tip-forward setup is meant to make clambering into the third-row seat a little easier.
In the end, that third-row seat just isn't useful for adults, but three children will be able to jump into it and find plenty of room for themselves and their backpacks. What with the slight weight loss, direct fuel injection, and extra gears, fuel economy is up a couple of mpg to 14 city and 20 highway.
There no longer is a setting to lock in rear-wheel drive. Maximum towing has decreased from pounds to , still plenty for towing a boat or a couple of snowmobiles. Still, this is not a slow truck. We tested the last QX to 60 in 7. The exhaust note is as glorious as before, too.
The biggest improvement is in overall refinement. The power delivery and the gearswaps are silky smooth, and the overall feel is befitting of a luxury vehicle; it suffers from none of the touchy throttle woes of its Infiniti FX stablemate.
Refinement is a key word for the interior, too, which is no longer a lowly, plasticky Nissan cabin playing dress-up. This is a true luxury barge now, quiet and stylish inside, with handsome wood stained with an attractive dark-to-light gradient trimming the dash and doors, along with stitched leather smeared across the center console, door panels, and center armrest. The gauges are highly legible, and they feature some pretty cool Spirograph-style background graphics.
Acres of glass make everything feel bright and airy, and we like that the dashboard is low. Forward visibility is quite good, although the entry-assist handle on the A-pillar is a little too close for comfort. A Theater package can be ordered to get two seven-inch screens mounted in the back of the front-seat headrests; they can handle two different inputs, and a third source can be viewed on the nav screen when the vehicle is in park. Infiniti also has included something it calls a tire-pressure inflation indicator, which piggybacks onto the tire-pressure monitoring system.
When owners go to add air to the tire, the inflation indicator flashes the hazard lights all around, including on the side mirrors, as the pressure nears the specified 35 psi, finally beeping the horn when the proper pressure is reached.
If you overinflate, you hear an extra honk, and the system then flashes the lights and so on as you let air out. Buyers first choose rear- or four-wheel drive and then climb the options ladder. The DT package includes some pretty handsome inch wheels, the hydraulic body-control system, nicer seat leather, a ventilation function for the front seats, heated outboard second-row seats, and an upgraded climate-control system with odor filtration.
At the front, the tall and wide dashboard featured a center stack for the audio and climate control system, with the navigation display moved on the upper side. The instrument cluster was rounded and hosted a four-dial setup, with the speedometer and tachometer in the middle, flanked by the coolant temperature and fuel level gauges.
Unlike other carmakers, Infiniti didn't offer different trim levels; it installed everything right from the start, so no one complained about it. The leather-clad interior and the wood veneers were standard, and so was the backup camera too. Under the hood, the carmaker installed the 5. The only option for the car was between the rear-wheel-drive or the all-wheel-drive system.
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