2022 Infiniti QX80 Review _ An $88,000... value

Believe it or not, $88,000 is now a reasonable price for a full-size luxury SUV. I'm still in sticker shock, but that's the price of this 2022 Infiniti QX80. Now, a few years ago, I thought this was overpriced. That was the last time I tested it. Now, it seems reasonable among all the other vehicles that are on sale. But since then, Infiniti hasn't changed it much. They also haven't changed it much since 2010 when it came out as the QX56. So, it's got some new technology, a new dashboard. Let's see what your new money buys. You can now sell your car with CarGurus. Type in some details, get a cash offer from thousands of dealers nationwide. If you like the offer, they'll pick it up, they'll pay you. It's kind of a good sticker shock. Today, if you want a decent truck with enough gizmos and gadgets, you're paying $100,000. That's the cost of a Lincoln Navigator without the black label, or a Mercedes-Benz GLS 450, or a BMW X7 M50i with only a few options. If you want the trucks and the TV ads, you're paying $110,000 for a Cadillac Escalade. The Jeep Grand Wagoneer starts where the Infiniti stops, and then it goes past $110,000. The new Lexus LX Crest 120. A Range Rover? Forget it. That'll be $150,000 by the time you're done. Only the Audi Q7 looks affordable at $83,000. But the Audi can't match the big brawn of the QX80. Underneath the QX80 is a truck chassis. It's a ladder frame. That's what makes it so tough and able to tow up to 8,500 pounds. A few years ago, this was the best you could get in the whole segment. Now, the Jeep Wagoneer and the Grand Wagoneer do up to $10,000. But that doesn't take away all the strength underneath here. You get 9.2 inches of ground clearance, full-time four-wheel drive, low range, and it's a whole tough truck that you can go off-road in. I wouldn't recommend too much of it, though, because it really is meant to be a posh cruiser. 22-inch wheels. They're very pretty. All the chrome on here. This is the sensory trim. It's the fully loaded trim. You don't really want to get it too dirty, especially not the front. All these pretty curves. This is what makes the QX80 more like the Q60 sports car. I think it looks really pretty. After all these years, I gotta say, they still have done a good job. You see it's sporty up front, but nice and tall and chunky everywhere else. I like the rear of the QX80. It's held its shape pretty well, except this back bumper. It protrudes a little bit too much. Kind of like an old car from the 70s when they had chrome bumpers. Except this is in plastic, so it doesn't really look right. What also doesn't look right? The turn signals at the bottom here. They should be up here in the taillight lenses. I think that's a safety issue. Hyundai, Kia, and Infiniti, a whole bunch of other manufacturers still make things like that. I don't like it. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff if you have the cargo hold open, because there's so much space in here. The third row power folds and it reclines. There's 17 cubic feet behind the third row. When it's folded, you have 50. When the second row is folded, you get 95 cubic feet of space. Make sure you don't have anything in the way. These seats tip forward like a runner on the starting blocks. The great thing is, you can tip them forward from the first row. The second row seats are just as cushy as the ones up front. They manually recline. They do not manually slide. That's because the tilting mechanism you just saw, it kind of prohibits that. But there's a ton of legroom as it is. It seats seven passengers as standard. If you get the eight passenger option, it deletes the center cubby. I think you should keep it. A lot more extra space, cup holders. You got the third row climate, heated seats, USB ports, screens here. And look at that. I can dig my hands into the cookie jar in the front row, take whatever I want. They won't even know. There's no massage function on these seats. They don't move in 30 ways. The headrests are manual, but the seating position is really good. It's very commanding. You can see about all of the windows, no problem. And this tan leather feels just as good as it looks. There's more soft leather covering the dash in the center console. This dark wood wraps around the dash and the doors. And here, the center stack is new for 2022. If it looks familiar, it's because we've reviewed it last year on the 2021 Nissan Armada. It's the same vehicle underneath. It's been cleaned up with one single 12-inch touchscreen, fewer buttons, a sleeker design, and a new wireless charger hidden behind this wooden door. The materials and the way they're fitted, overall pretty good. A few plasticky parts here and there, some blank plates that kind of feel cheap. But overall, the redesign is hiding most of this vehicle's age, but the screens can't. The infotainment is entirely shared with Nissan. Infiniti doesn't get its own re-skin. Now, that's OK, generally, because the system works. You can use a rotary dial or the touchscreen. The only thing you can show full screen are the maps, the factory maps. If I go into Apple CarPlay, for example, well, I can only see two thirds of the screen at any given time. And what's over here? Well, in other cars, you can swipe vertically up and down to change it. To do that, you have to just go over here to customize the split screen. And most of it is weather and then a clock. So it's not exactly that full featured. There's a 17-speaker Bose stereo on the top trims, plus a digital rearview mirror. And thank goodness, Infiniti replaced the Mr. Coffee display in the instrument cluster with a real screen. And while it's helpful, it's straight off the Sentra. So are the stalks and the buttons. And you can't get Nissan and Infiniti's excellent ProPILOT assist, not even a full lane keep assist. But what you do get is power. Lots of naturally aspirated V8 power. That's the pleasant sounds from the 5.6 liter V8. Nissan and Infiniti have been using this V8 for well over a decade. It always sounds good. It's melodious. It's just smooth. It's a lot of grunt. 400 horsepower and 413 pound feet of torque. It doesn't need turbochargers because it's just a ton of displacement. That's all it needs. And like the V8, everything else is old school. There's no driving modes, no sport mode, no paddle shifters. It doesn't need it. It's called right foot. And even though this transmission is down a few gears from the competition, it's a seven speed automatic versus the eight, nine and 10 speed you'll find in other vehicles. It responds really well. And it also rev matches on downshift. So if you kick it into manual mode, it's surprisingly smooth, where you wouldn't expect it on a luxury vehicle like this. Listen to that again. Yeah, it's like a Nissan 370Z as an SUV with a V8. It's just easy effort. But you really should take it easy on the throttle because the fuel economy is one of the worst out there. 13 miles per gallon city, 19 highway and 15 combined. This is a true four wheel drive system. It's not a regular all wheel drive that just happens to shift into four wheel drive when it chooses to when it loses spin. This is full time, just like a big Range Rover. That means that it is varying the torque front and rear in four high, but I can switch it to 50 50 into four low if I have to switch down here. That's what gives the QX80 real off road bones because there's a low range transfer case. Not that you're going to do anything too crazy with it. There's no locking differentials like you'll find the Lexus LX. There's no special crawl control like you'll find on Toyotas. So you don't actually get the true capability unless you say go for the Nissan Patrol, which is an overseas market model. That one is really outfitted for dune crawling and all the other things. But here in America, we like our infinities. We like them luxurious. We like them smooth and soft. And yeah, it'll go through a snowstorm and a muddy trail. But let's be honest, this is a $90,000 vehicle and you're going to keep this thing sparkly clean. If you don't want four wheel drive, rear wheel drive is standard. It saves you a little bit of money, saves you a little bit of weight. But I think most people are going to want the four wheel drive system. Infinity uses a system called hydraulic body motion control. I'll just demonstrate that right now. Considering the weight of this vehicle, it's almost three tons. And the fact that I was pushing it kind of hard through that turn, the body doesn't lean that much. Let's try it when we break. There's some pitch, some dive, but not really that bad. It's actually a pretty innovative suspension system and it's not an air suspension. It doesn't use the crazy electric actuators that Mercedes-Benz is using, where the vehicle can hop all over the place. This is a simpler system, but it's actually pretty advanced. I liken it to a system that McLaren uses. Because what it is, it's a series of cross pipes that link all the dampers together. So all the hydraulic fluid is essentially flowing from one damper to another. And there are accumulators on either side of the vehicle that can hold that pressure and release it when they want to. So that basically means that you can have firm and soft really within an instant. And it's all determined by the motion of the wheels. So if you're making, say, a hard left turn, the vehicle is going to try to stabilize those outside wheels so it doesn't lean as much. Conversely, if you are just going to go over some potholes or some rougher terrain, it can smooth out that response in a similar way. So because they're all linked together, all the fluid is kind of in motion constantly. And it doesn't require an extra 48-volt system like you'll see in a lot of other luxury SUVs. It doesn't require any more gas. So it's all hydraulics and it's a pretty innovative system. They've used it for a long time now. The steering track's pretty straight. When you go around turns, yeah, you can feel the buildup of the effort a little bit. It's pretty isolated because this is a luxury vehicle. There's some play to the steering too, right? It's not totally direct. But compared to some of Infiniti's other systems where they go completely electric by wire, I prefer the QX80 steering by a long shot. If you look outside the truck, the brakes look really too small for these 22-inch wheels. Thankfully though, they feel a lot stronger. One of the best things about this vehicle is that it's so quiet and plush. It doesn't really matter what speed, if it's 30 or 70 or 80, like in the QX80's name. It does not matter because you just never have to raise your voice. There's a ton of insulation in here. And even though there's no air suspension in this vehicle, that's usually the parts that make a big truck like this feel so plush and kind of give you that magic carpet ride. The way the suspension is tuned is perfect without it. The 2022 Infiniti QX80 starts at just over $71,000 for the rear-wheel drive Luxe. There are two more trims, Premium Select and Sensory. Mine is the Sensory, fully loaded for $87,985 with destination. Like I said before, the QX80 is a good value next to every other large luxury SUV. They've all gone way too high on price. And I still think $90,000 for what amounts to an older Nissan that's barely changed in 12 years, that's also a steep price. But the car market is going crazy, and Infiniti is holding steady. For all the performance, the comfort, the space, and the style that you get, the QX80 delivers a lot in a big SUV. And yet it's also outclassed in technology, in fuel economy, and in safety. The crash test ratings aren't that good, and it lacks a lot of driver assist that come on other new Infinities. Considering this is 12 years old, the QX80 ought to be brand new. So keep those things in mind if you're shopping. It might work for you, it might not. Tell us what you think, and keep watching Car Reviews and subscribe for the next videos. We'll see you next time.