Past its expiration date: Infiniti QX80 review

Enlarge / The Infiniti QX80 on a cold winter day. (credit: Eric Bangeman)

As the old saying goes: you never get a second chance to make a first impression. When I climbed into the Infiniti QX80 for the first time, one of the first things I saw was a monochromatic LCD display smack-dab in the middle of the instrument panel. I looked at the Monroney sticker sitting on the passenger seat and saw a price tag north of $90,000. The juxtaposition of a display that would look at home in the decade-old cars in my garage with the luxurious interior trim left me with the impression that Infiniti made some odd choices with the QX80—an impression that I never managed to shake in my week with the vehicle.

The QX80 is the flagship of Infiniti’s SUV lineup. It’s a true full-size, three-row SUV, competing with the Mercedes GLS, Lexus LX, and Lincoln Navigator for the hearts and wallets of large families and folks who want a massive, spacious vehicle to tool around in. The QX80 underwent an overhaul for the 2018 model year, getting an exterior redesign that elongated the body and made it appear longer. For 2019, Infiniti added a Limited model with dark, machine-finished 22-inch wheels.

Pricing for the QX80 starts at $65,100 for a front-wheel-drive model; if you want all-wheel drive, you’ll need to fork out another $3,000. Our review model was the QX80 Limited, which comes with all the fixin’s—theater package, driver-assist, the aforementioned 22-inch wheels, and more—and a price tag of $91,450. This expensive beast is powered by a 5.6-liter V8 capable of 400hp (298kW) at 5,800rpm and 413lb-ft (560Nm) of torque at 4,000rpm. That’s paired with a seven-speed automatic transmission, which I prefer to the continuously variable transmission in the QX50 and QX60. If you need to drive your QX80 over some nasty terrain, it has a crawl ration of 1.0 in 4WD high and 2.7 in 4WD low.