By popular demand (by which I mean BrianGriffin’s request), a re-write of my week in a Q50, since Kinja ate my previous draft.
Fuck you, Kinja.
Anyway. I had a Q50 for 7 days, thanks to Enterprise bumping me up after I told them that I wasn’t going to drive a truck. I didn’t bother taking any pictures myself, because it was cold and rainy all week, and plenty of people have taken better pictures.
First impressions:
Man, Infiniti really wants to be the Japanese BMW. When our daughter asked my wife what kind of car it was, she said “BMW,” which doesn’t speak too highly of either BMW or Infiniti, if you ask me. As a benchmark, I’m comparing it to the E60, which was the last sedan I owned and lived with for a few years, and really liked, though it’s probably more comparable to the F10 5 Series. I’ve only driven one F10, and it was possibly the most disappointing drive of my life. So I’m sticking with the E60.
(gratuitous pics of my E60s)
SO. Back to the Q50. It is... an car.
SO ANGRY
OR SLEEPY
NOT SURE WHICH
... which kinda sums up the driving experience. Most of the time the twin-turbo 6 just hangs out under 2K RPM. Pedal travel vs engine action is completely non-linear, with a bunch of grunt up front, then a whole lotta nothing, then too much all at once. This thing really likes to break loose if you put your foot to the floor, especially since it was cold and wet all week while I had it. I used the “manual” option twice, and determined that it wasn’t worth the bother.
The interior:
Good God, I felt like I was underwater the whole time I drove this thing. I’m 6'1". The cowl is so high, I have no idea how anyone shorter than me could possibly park it.
Did it feel like my grandma’s Buick?
Yes.
The screens were completely inscrutable. There are two, and the control knob behind the shifter seems completely disconnected from screen content. The lower screen has a bunch of options, and I only used the Bluetooth pairing for my phone, which I guess worked. Move the lower screen left or right, and it’s just a bunch of blank screens. Change driver settings? No clue. On top of that, the screens are SUPER BRIGHT! and not connected to interior lighting settings, so even when you turn down the instrument lights, the screens are blindingly bright at night. Which I guess makes sense when you consider that it was designed in like 2006.
So I spent a week with a car that was pretty much unusable, in the screen department. I know people have shat upon iDrive for like 15 years now, but having owned 4 BMWs, I’ve really liked how much I’ve been able to control and do throughout the the system, and this thing was not even worth digging into. Maybe if I had bought it I’d be more diligent about figuring out how it works, but if you have to work at figuring out how something works, it’s probably not very good.
Driving it:
The steering wheel is just a vague suggestion.
Is it connected to the wheels? I’m not sure.
The throttle pedal? It’s nothing, then nothing, then nothing, then too much.
It feels uselessly huge. It really feels like Grandma’s Buick.
Clarkson Voice: “would one buy one?”
No.