The Infiniti QX80 is the luxury version of a Nissan Patrol, meaning it is a VERY large seven-seater SUV that looks like a round-cornered, brick on wheels from the outside! I was very keen to get inside and see how practical and family friendly it is as a BabyDrive!
The cabin space inside the QX80 is very generous, as you would hope with a car this large! There was plenty of legroom throughout no matter how many child seats were installed.
The ISOFix were in just the two outer second-row seats and hidden deep within slits in the leather seat base. I found them particularly difficult to locate and connect to when I was trying to install the child seats.
There are top tethers in all three second-row seats but they are right at the bottom of the seat backs and well hidden! There is also one in the right-hand seat in the third row, which is excellent, and positioned much higher on the backrest making connecting the top tether strap much easier.
I could install four large Britax child seats into the Infiniti QX80 and there was so much space in the second-row seats that I could use the ISOFix rather than the seatbelts to connect the two outer child seats! I fitted the Britax Platinum Pro forward-facing and Britax Graphene rear-facing in the two outer seats and the Britax Kid Guard Pro booster in between.
In the third row, I fitted the Britax Maxi Guard Pro using the seatbelt and top tether.
In the Infiniti QX80, the only way to access the third row was by folding forward the second-row outer seat so you would have to uninstall any child seat fitted there! Which is totally impractical! It's also disappointing in a seven-seater car!
Boot storage is impressive and when using it as a five-seater I couldn't reach anywhere near the back of the boot and had to access it through the side doors!! As a five-seater, the boot held 22 shopping bags! That is four more than the Nissan Pathfinder and Lexus RX350L! The Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fitted with 10 shopping bags and the Urban Jungle and Nano fitted with 15 and 19 respectively. The Britax Flexx single and tandem strollers fit with 14 shopping bags alongside them both or you could fit a very large dog!
When using all seven seats I could get 10 shopping bags in the boot, or the Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fitted with one wheel removed and three shopping bags. The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle fitted with four shopping bags and the Mountain Buggy Nano fitted with seven shopping bags. The Britax Flexx tandem stroller fitted with three shopping bags. Or you could fit a small dog.
There was no roller blind for the QX80 which I didn't like, but on the upside the boot floor was large enough for an emergency nappy change when used either as a five- or seven-seater.
The Infiniti QX80 was surprisingly nice to drive, the steering was soooo light for a car of this size and the engine quiet and smooth! Really not what I expected at all! Cars this size are usually more like farm machinery to drive, like the Lexus LX450D I drove immediately after this Infiniti! This made it enjoyable to drive around town and much easier to park. The only difficulty there was the size of the car! It was definitely a find two empty parking spaces next to each other kind of car!! It has a good camera with many views, which is understandable the first time you try and park it! It is enormous and visibility is very difficult especially with all the child seats on board. I did find I could not get to grips with the options on the camera screen or how to turn off the parking sensor noise.
The Infiniti QX80 felt opulent and luxurious in its styling, inside and out, compared to most other 7 seaters. I was not a fan of the quilted and perforated leather as I feel it is just a magnet for child spills and detritus and hard to clean!
I expected the media system to be bang up-to-date with the price and luxury feel but it was just a confusing world of technology! There were so many buttons and options I felt it impenetrable! It also didn't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto which I would definitely expect for the price and would have made it so much easier to use!!!
The Infiniti QX80 is yet to be tested by ANCAP and all models come with six airbags; the usual driver and front passenger airbags plus front seat-mounted side-impact airbags and roof-mounted curtain side-impact supplemental air bags with rollover sensor. They do not, however, state if they are full-length side curtain airbags or or if they extend to the third row.
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
How much can I fit in the boot of the Infiniti QX80?
When you're only using five seats in the QX80, the boot is enormous, it would hold 22 shopping bags!! That is four more than the Lexus RX350L and the Nissan Pathfinder! I could only reach in and out with the front three rows of bags and the row furthest back I had to put in through the side doors! You do have to collapse a second-row seat forward to access the boot though, so you would have to remove a child seat if you had it installed, which I didn't find very practical!
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
The Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fitted with 10 shopping bags.
The Britax Flexx tandem and single stroller fitted with 14 shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller fitted with 15 shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Nano compact stroller fitted with 20 shopping bags. Or you could put a very large dog in there!
When you're using all seven seats the boot space is still a good size. From empty it would hold 10 shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fitted with 3 shopping bags (I had to remove one wheel, which is easy on the Duet).
The Britax Flexx single and tandem strollers fitted with three shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller fitted with four shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Nano compact stroller fitted with 7 shopping bags.
The boot floor of the QX80 is carpeted and soft for an emergency nappy change. There are electric buttons on the right for raising and lowering the third-row seats and four anchors for a cargo net but there is no roller blind to cover the boot, or any apparent way of attaching one, so anything you store in it would be on display.
Storage inside the cabin of the QX80 is generous in some aspects and not others. In the front, the central console storage box is enormous! It is not a fridge like it is in the Lexus LX450D which is a shame as that would be rather useful for keeping snacks and lunches cold on day trips and play dates! There are two cup holders in the central console which are a good size for reusable or disposable coffee cups.
Then there are just a spattering of small holes and storage wells that are not really a good size for anything useful and there was nowhere obvious for my phone to sit and be plugged into the USB ports in front of the gear stick!
The front door bins were big enough to hold a 1.5l bottle or my large refillable water bottle, iPad and wallet all fitted in there.
The glove box wasn't enormous, I could just get an iPad to fit and my wallet with the manual.
There is a glasses case in the ceiling and there are lit vanity mirrors in both visors, which are also extendable.
The door bins in the back are smaller than those in the front, I could get my large refillable water bottle in them with the headphones that came with the car.
There are map pockets in the back of both front seats and they are deep enough to conceal an iPad.
There is a fold-down armrest in the central seat in the second row which has two cup holders in, they are a good size for a reusable or disposable coffee cup.
In the third row of seats, there is a double cup holder on both sides that would hold my large refillable water bottle or a coffee cup.
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
Will the Infiniti QX80 wake my sleeping baby?
The Infiniti QX80 has both front and rear parking sensors and when they came on they were definitely baby waking and I could not for the life of me work out a consistent way to mute them.
I did utilise all the different camera views available when parking though, as the QX80 is so large it really was quite hard to see anything without them!
Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!
That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.
If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?
It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?
A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
The lane departure warning is turned on and off as part of the button on the bottom right of your steering wheel which looks like a forcefield! There is a way of adjusting the volume for them but it is within the media screen volume settings list under sonar volume. I found I couldn't get to grips with everything in the QX80 over the week that I drove the car, as I found its system was overcomplicated and hard to navigate.
The media system in the QX80 was also difficult to navigate, it does not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and I found the mass of buttons and dial in the central dash confusing and overwhelming to use.
Road and engine noise are surprisingly quiet in the Infiniti, it doesn't have the tractor like engine noise that I am used to with large vehicles because it has a nice sounding V8 petrol engine rather than a diesel. We did have some ‘go fast mummy' moments!!!
The indicators were relatively quiet and in a car this big they are really the least of the noises that wouldn't disturb a sleeping baby! The doors and windows were quite good too for a car of this size they didn't have the heavy slam and thud to close that I was expecting! I found I could come to a stop with the engine running and get out without an alarm sounding. Sometimes when I came to a stop and turned the engine off, a very loud alarm would sound until I closed the driver's door. This would, of course, wake your sleeping baby!
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
How many child seats can I fit in the Infiniti QX80?
The Infiniti QX80 is a seven-seater with three top tether points in the second row, although they are not within plastic guides. Worse, they are well hidden black, metal bars underneath the very bottom of the seat backs. The central one is even behind a flap of fabric to make it even harder to find!! I found them really difficult to connect to because you have to bring the seat back right forward to access them and when you have a child seat or three in the seats it is very difficult! Some top tether straps aren't long enough to reach and you need extension straps too!
There are ISOFix points in the two outer, second-row seats and they are not within plastic guides either. They are hidden too, being deep within slits in the leather seat upholstery and I found them very hard to connect to.
In the third row, there is also a top tether point in the right-hand seat back. It is not within a plastic guide but is much easier to locate and easy to connect to. There are no ISOFix points in the third row.
I did manage to fit four child seats into the Infiniti QX80. I fitted three child seats across the second row using the ISOFix for the outer two seats rather than seatbelts because there was so much room available, which is very rare I find! The Britax Unity infant capsule or Graphene both fitted rear-facing with the Kid Guard Pro booster seat in the central seat and Platinum Pro in the other outer seat.
I installed a fourth seat, the Britax Maxi Guard Pro, in the third row using the seatbelt and top tether.
The third row of seats go up and down very easily using electric buttons on the right-hand side of the boot and there is another button next to the cup holders on both sides in the third row. The only problem with this is I think my daughter would be constantly playing with the button if she were in the far back!
Accessing the third-row seats is a problem, as you have to fold the outer second-row seat all the way forward to climb through and that would mean uninstalling a child seat. With how difficult those top tethers and ISO Fix are to locate and connect, I would not be willing to that on a twice-daily basis minimum!!!
The second row of seats doesn't slide to adjust legroom distribution. This is a shame because even though there is an abundance of legroom in the first and second rows (30cm in the front passenger in front of a rear-facing child seat and enough legroom for me at 162cm tall in the third row), it would have been great to have the flexibility of a sliding second row! I would have expected for a car in this price range for all these practicalities to have been considered!?
From inside, posting bub into their seat in the second row is fine when you only have outer child seats installed. From outside the car, the doors have a nice open space to post bub in through too. I found I had to climb up to do up Tulsi's restraints rather than doing them up from standing on the floor.
Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
How comfortable is the Infiniti QX80?
The front seats in the Infiniti QX80 are super comfortable! They have quilted leather upholstery which does feel like extra padding when you sit on it! They have electric adjustments on the sides and are heated and cooled, so they are perforated too which obviously will make cleaning harder with that and the quilting.
In the second row, the seat bases are divided 60:40 and fold forward in order to access the third row of seats. For mum travelling in the second row, it is not too bad at all. The footwell is flat so there is no hump to straddle, the central seat is comfortable and there is plenty of room for personal space, which is LOVELY! The second-row seats are also heated and cooled which is nice!
In the third row, the seats have less padding and no quilting, so they feel more basic but are still comfortable, they recline and the base lowers which is a nice feature.
You have to fold the second row seats forward to access the third row seats so you would have to uninstall any child seat in the outer seats in the second row!
The steering wheel is fully adjustable using the joystick on the side of it.
The cruise controls are on the right on the steering wheel. They are quite easy to use but there is no digital speedo, just the old-fashioned style speedometer which is not as accurate, so you don't really know the exact speed you are doing. I found the cruise control good on motorways but at 60km on undulating roads, the Infiniti QX80 just got carried away at speed.
There are four air conditioning vents across the front dashboard. Two in the centre and one at either end, they are all nice and large.
In the second and third rows, there are vents in the ceiling on both sides. I have found this positioning for vents in the past got major complaints from my rear facing infant because they blow down on their heads.
The controls for these are in the back of the central console storage box. They can be reached, by the driver, while driving, but there are also climate controls in the media screen system that are easier to reach and control!
The controls for the aircon are on the central dash too and are relatively simple to use.
There is a master button in the front controls to override the rear ones and turn them on and off! This is also handy when you are only using five seats and have food shopping in the boot you can keep it cool using the air conditioning! The controls are quite simple to use and reach while driving.
Visibility is very difficult I found, although it is nice to sit up high with big windows and a good view it was still very difficult to park and to see all around the car to ensure there are no kids or obstacles! So you do need to rely quite heavily on your side mirrors and reversing camera when parking and maneuvering.
There are not any built-in window shades in the side windows which is surprising for a car of this price and size.
The front interior lights can be turned on manually. The rear lights are on the sides with air vents in the ceilings. I found I could just reach the ones behind my driver's seat.
I have found Tulsi does not like travelling in the dark in the car so if it gets dark whilst travelling then I reach back and turn the interior light on for her. So it’s really important for me that I can reach the rear ceiling light.
Also if I am traveling home and it is getting near to bed time and I DEFINITELY DON’T want her to fall asleep in the car as even a 5minute nap in the car means bed time is all over!!!! I lean back and pop the light on so it’s not dark and try to keep her awake!! Along with screaming/singing at the top of my voice!!!
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.
There are handles above both rear doors and in the third row too which is great for hanging a child's toy from.
There are two 12V sockets in the central console.
The decor and upholstery in this car are a bit over the top for my taste. I am not a fan f the quilted leather but I do like the extra padding it provides! I do like the padded panels on the top of the back of the front seats as they provide a bit of protection for where my toddler kicks the back of the chairs!!
The outside of the QX80 looks quite striking, not just because of the sheer size of it!!!
There are media screens in the back of both front seats and headphones in the two rear door pockets.
There is keyless entry and a powered tailgate.
BabyDrive Indepth - Safety
The Infiniti QX80 is yet to be tested by ANCAP.
There are six airbags in the QX80 are; driver and front passenger front and seat-mounted side-impact airbags and roof-mounted curtain side-impact airbags. They do not tell you much about them! Whether they extend to the second and third rows of seats and if they are the full length of the sides or just the head?
The Infiniti QX80 comes with heaps of safety features: 4-wheel anti-lock braking systems (ABS), zone body construction with a reinforced passenger compartment and front and rear crumple zones, backup collision intervention (BCI), blind spot warning (BSW), intelligent parking system with blind spot intervention (BSI), traction control brake assist (BA), distance control assist (DCA) with forward emergency braking (FEB) and predictive forward collision warning (PFCW), electronic brake-force distribution (EBD)
Intelligent brake assist (IBA) with forward emergency braking and predictive forward collision warning (PFCW), front-seat active head restraints (AHR), lane departure warning (LDW) and lane departure prevention (LDP). Tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) with individual tyre pressure display and tyre inflation indicator, vehicle dynamic control (VDC) with traction control system (TCS), and an intelligent rear view mirror (I-RVM).
Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and the parking sensor beeping sound. I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!
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