It's not very often that we get a full size SUV in the road show garage and yet here I am with the 2018 infinity QX80.
Look am just now getting to the end, that's how big this car is.Now for 2018 big [UNKNOWN] a little bit of refresh is lost her ugly mug but she still rock in the same [UNKNOWN] so, Let's get behind the wheel and see if this whale can swim.
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So the 2017 QX80, let's face it, not so pretty.
It was like a panoply of bad your momma jokes.
Your QX80 is so ugly she would scare blind children.
Well, this year I am proud to report it is That's so much better.
The front face has been completely redesigned.
There's a new grille, new LED headlights, and it really brings it up into the design langauge of the rest of the Infiniti lineup.
The rear has also been redesigned, and I like it.
It's good.
But they've moved the turn signals down into the bumper, which is really weird.
It's not really where I look for turn signals to be.
And from behind the wheel, I mean I pretty much turn into a grandma and I am not that old yet.
It's just that it's so big and it's so easy to just kind of laze about, tooling around town, luxuriating in the comfort and the high seating position.
Don't get me wrong, this car's got a 5.6L V8 that's putting out 400 horsepower and 413 pound feet of torque.
That's plenty of hustle to get up to cruising speed.
Although competitors like the Lincoln Navigator and the Cadillac Escalade to have more power.
ALl those horses get down to the grown through a very smooth shifting, seven speed automatic transmission.
Transmission.
While, I haven't had time to try out four low or the tow rating of 8500 pounds, all signs point to those features being pretty good as well.
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But regardless of the strong power plant, the QX80 is never really going to win any handling competitions, even with the optional hydraulic body motion control.
That does a pretty good job of keeping this guy flat-ish through the turns, but Come on, this thing weighs 6,000 pounds.
There's only so much physics you can fight.
And speaking of weight, well that's going to impact your fuel economy.
This guy is rated for 15 miles per gallon combined and during my week, we've gotten pretty close to that, 14.6.
New for this year is a super cool rear camera mirror that switches back and forth Between a digital view, and a traditional mirror view.
It gives you a great wide angle of what's behind you and it's probably my favorite feature.
You can get a second row bench seat bringing the total passenger capacity up to eight, but those captain's chairs are pretty fly.
Although I would probably just leave this entertainment package on the table.
I mean don't most kids already have iPads?
Access to the third row is pretty easy thanks to the automatically flipping up seats.
And once you're back there, I'm 5'9, I've got a fair amount of room, but I wouldn't wanna spend all day back there.
Back here.
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The thing about the QX-80 is that it does a lot of things fine, it just doesn't do any one thing really well.
If you want something that handles better, well there's the less expensive Mazda CX-9.
The Lincoln Navigator's all kinds of cool features like a panoramic sunroof.
And the Cadillac Escalade has got a pretty nifty [UNKNOWN] center console.
Can't find that in the QX eighty.
So why buy the twenty eighteen Infiniti QX eighty?
Well while it's down just a bit on features it's also down on price.
A two wheeled drive version starts at just under sixty five thousand dollars while the four wheel drive starts at just under sixty eight.
Now that's a lot of money but still it is thousands less than the Navigator or the Escalade.
But who drives a base model.
My tester behind me here starts at $84,660.
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