When the first day of the test drive arrived, disappointment awaited in the parking lot – the car was issued in gray. As Henry Ford said, “A car can be any color as long as it’s black.” To rephrase the legendary businessman, we can say that the QX55 can also be any color, but only if it is red. The Japanese car turned out really beautiful, but it loses the “wow effect” in gray.
Teeth
The QX55 is part of the D-class crossover family, as are its rivals the Audi Q5 and Q5 Sportback, the BMW X3 and X4, the Mercedes GLC and the GLC Coupe. The innovation is built on the popular QX50 platform, from which it borrows many characteristic design details.
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The front of the crossover is decorated with a massive grille with a massive Infiniti emblem with a built-in adaptive control system radar. The car stands out with a swift silhouette of the body, a sloping roofline, unusual LED headlights (especially at the rear) and huge 20-inch wheels.
It is often seen that a car is beautiful at the front, but rather boring at the rear, or looks interesting from the side, but with a dull front. When it comes to the new product of the Japanese company, whichever way you look at it, the transition is good.
What’s inside?
The interior of the crossover is also slightly different from the QX50. All the visual difference between the two models is just the differences in color and finishing materials.
The first thing that surprises you are analog devices with ordinary arrows, but given that competitors and even some cars of the lower class acquired them a long time ago, you would expect virtual indicators from a premium. The two screens of the multimedia system (8 and 7 inches) with outdated graphics do not look very modern either.
Especially given the widespread trend to replace multiple screens with one big, high-resolution one.
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The driver’s seat is very comfortable, all the controls are in their intuitively expected places, and the precise adjustments of the seat allow you to sit as comfortably as possible. The rear is pretty wide, there’s enough room over your head and you won’t have to lean your knees on the front seats. True, even the maximum configuration is not equipped with a panoramic roof, instead there is only a hatch, and even that is only above the front row.
we start the engine
Under the hood of the QX55 is a 249 hp petrol 2-liter turbo engine. with a variable compression ratio paired with a variator. The engine dynamics is sufficient for driving in any mode, both in the city and on the highway, the suspension is quite energy-intensive, at the same time collected and comfortable.
The crossover is excellent, confidently screwed into turns – it goes like on rails, regardless of the road surface. Despite all-wheel drive and 218mm of ground clearance, the Infiniti is not the car of choice for off-road driving. He is very clever, his element is the city.
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According to passport data
in mixed mode, the crossover should consume 8.7 liters per “hundred”, but in fact, even on the highway, the consumption exceeds 10 liters, and in the city the figure approaches 13.
Interestingly, in the high-end Essential Proactive configuration, the crossover is equipped with a unique Direct Adaptive Steering steering mechanism – there is no familiar steering rack with a mechanical link between the steering wheel and the wheels, but instead there are electronics equipped with servos. drivers. That is, all control is carried out only by cable. In addition to Infiniti, only Nissan could have such an option.
assistants
Electronic driver assistants are responsible for the active safety of the crossover, which control not only the “dead” zones on the sides or the distance to the vehicle in front, but also the movement along the lane.
The adaptive cruise control is expected to correct the course on its own when it hits a lane marking, but in reality only a lane departure warning is issued instead. In other words, the QX55 does not keep lane in auto mode. It’s a bit odd, considering that even some budget models that cost almost half that of competing brands can handle lane keeping.
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However, when driving in a smooth flow, the QX55 keeps its distance (its parameters can be adjusted in the settings), smoothly slows down and accelerates. The joy ends at the first traffic light. At first, nothing indicates danger: the car begins to come to a complete stop, then a warning appears on the instrument panel that the cruise control is disabled, but after a few seconds, for some reason, spontaneous forward movement begins.
I repeated this process several times, deciding that I pressed something wrong or selected the wrong mode, but nothing changed –
after a soft stop, the crossover itself begins to roll towards the bumper of the car in front.
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This is a very strange operation of the system, because even the “half-brother” of the Nissan brand – the Qashqai crossover, which is a lower class – “cruise” works much smarter – does not try to keep up with someone harsh. However, perhaps the whole point is that this mod of the QX55 was originally sharpened only for the highway, not the city.
In the parking lot, a small screen on which the image from the multi-directional cameras is displayed, in addition, the very low resolution of the screen makes itself felt.
Summing up
The car turned out to be stylish from the outside (especially in red), and inside there are some nuances. The engine and suspension deserve all the praise, but modest interior equipment, unclear operation of some systems, low-quality multimedia screens – all this does not add pluses to the car’s mix.
Source: Gazeta
