2017 Infiniti QX30S––Is Beauty More Than Skin Deep?
On this episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack
Transcript
00:00 Hi there! This is a Mercedes-Benz 250 GLA and it's the smallest SUV Mercedes
00:08 makes. I say SUV because look at it! It's actually a hatchback. In fact, it's the
00:13 beautiful A-Class they sell everywhere else except here because you people
00:18 won't buy hatches. However, you are addicted to small sporty premium SUVs so
00:24 they jack it up two inches, put a skid plate on it, call it an SUV and sell them
00:29 like hotcakes. Should you buy one? No, I'd buy a Subaru Crosstrek instead and
00:36 pocket the 10 grand difference. This is also a Mercedes 250 GLA, however, they've
00:42 dressed it up to look like an Infiniti QX30. Should you buy this? Watch and find
00:49 out.
00:51 [Music]
01:07 To reiterate, you can't sell hatchbacks in America. Or can you? I mean, look at
01:15 this thing. Infiniti's not even pretending it's an SUV. It's clearly a car and while
01:21 the GLA is pretty obviously not Gordon Wagner and his team's best efforts, I
01:26 think the QX30 is Shiro Nakamoto's best design to date. It's lovely and what
01:33 blows me away about it is that these cars are the same. They have the same
01:36 hard points that the designers have to work around. Come closer, let me show you
01:41 what I mean. By peeking under the skin, you can really tell how same-same these
01:46 two are. I mean, check out the distinctive circular patterns underneath the hood.
01:50 Okay, yeah, the sides are a little bit different but that's because they're cut
01:53 different and they need different structural bracing. But I mean, the engine
01:57 covers are the same. This yellow plastic bit that's the receiver for the hood
02:01 prop, that's the same. Hood props the same. Engines, identical. Both are 2-liter
02:07 direct-injected turbocharged inline four cylinders that make 208 horsepower and
02:12 256 pound-feet of torque. Both cars use the same 7-speed dual-clutch automatic
02:17 transmission. I mean, even the keys are the same. What's different? Step inside my
02:24 office. To the untrained eye, there's nothing different going on inside.
02:29 Mercedes, Mercedes, but look there's some Alcantara right here, that's nice. The
02:34 biggest difference though between the two interiors are the seats. These seats
02:38 are so much better than what's in the GLA. First of all, they actually work as
02:42 sport seats and after driving them both, these are about five times more
02:46 comfortable. The other big difference is they've replaced Mercedes command system,
02:50 which is like infotainment and navigation, with the Infiniti version. Now
02:54 command is pretty great. The Infiniti version is, what's the opposite of pretty
02:58 good? It's that. But forget about the interior because there's one more big
03:03 difference between these two. The way they drive.
03:09 [Music]
03:12 How does it drive? Before we can talk about how the QX30 drives, we need to
03:24 talk about how the GLA 250 drives. GLA 250, it's a car really, you know, it's got a
03:30 Mercedes badge on it, but it never, it's just very forgettable. Now, the GLA 45, the
03:36 AMG, that drives great, but of course that starts at $60,000, whereas the GLA
03:41 starts at $33,000 and the car I'm sitting in is actually $36,000.
03:47 Notably, the car I'm driving is a QX30S. The S is what sets this car apart from
03:55 the GLA. The wheels are larger and the tires are stickier. Though the power
04:00 remains the same, the suspension has been retuned, including a drop in ride height
04:04 of 0.6 inches. While that might not sound like a lot, the results prove that
04:11 Infiniti knows a thing or two about handling. Anytime you can lower a vehicle's
04:16 center of gravity, performance goes up. Think about the Tesla Model X, a machine
04:21 that has no business being sporty, but because all the heavy batteries are down
04:26 low, it is. So, the QX30S, it drives much better than a regular QX30. It's
04:33 front-wheel drive. They do make an all-wheel drive QX30, but inexplicably
04:38 they do not make an all-wheel drive QX30S, which to me seems crazy. But
04:46 anyways, I'm not in product planning, I'm in product evaluation, and I'm here to
04:50 tell you, man, this thing is fun to drive. Front-wheel drive only, but you don't get
04:55 a ton of understeer, especially when you're not at the limit. It's good
04:58 steering, handles bumps well. I'm at 8,000 feet, I've got plenty of power from this
05:06 2-liter turbo. The nice thing too is I have this great 7-speed dual-clutch
05:11 transmission, so if I'm running a little bit low on power, bam, I can quickly go
05:14 down a gear. Fastest shifting dual-clutch on the planet? Oh, God, no. But pretty dang
05:20 good, especially for the money. But that's the thing, man, modern cars are so good. I
05:25 mean, look, I'm driving a SUV, which is based off of another SUV, which is really
05:30 just a jacked-up hatchback, yet I would bet you that it's quicker around a
05:34 racetrack than like a supercar from 30 years ago. Wait a second, I can make that
05:39 happen.
05:41 Boom! Just like that, here we are on a racetrack with an old supercar, and let
05:49 me tell you how we got this car. I called up my first friend who I knew had one of
05:52 these and said, "Hey, can we borrow it?" He said, "Sure," and then that car never made
05:56 it out of the shop. So he gave us his other one, a 1987 Porsche 928 S4. And
06:03 before you start going, "Oh, it's not a supercar," when this thing came out in
06:08 1977, it could go 170 miles an hour, making it the fastest production car in
06:15 the world. This 30-year-old car has a 316 horsepower, 5-liter, 32-valve V8,
06:22 back when 32 valves meant something. The question is, can the 16 valves and the
06:28 little turbo on the inline-four of the front-wheel-drive Infiniti keep up with
06:33 the big, bad, bug-eyed Porsche? That's what Randy's about to find out.
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07:49 I'm not sure if my plan is working or not. Originally, the idea was I wanted the
07:53 supercar to win by just a little bit, like, "Ah, the old girl still got it," you
07:57 know? But we're supposed to have the manual 928, and it wasn't ready, so now we got the
08:01 automatic, even though it's an S4, and I was looking like the Infiniti's gonna beat
08:05 it. I don't know.
08:09 [Music]
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08:26 Randy, you were racing 30 years ago. Yeah. And you remember the 928. Fabulous. And if
08:41 I would have come to you and said, "Within 30 years, there's gonna be a miniature
08:45 front-wheel drive SUV with a 2-liter engine that will be a second, more than a
08:51 second, quicker around Big Willow than a Porsche 928," you would have said, "I'll bet
08:57 you every penny I have that'll never happen." And that was back when pennies
09:01 were worthsome. And I don't know exactly what we've proved. It's the march of
09:06 technology, Johnny. Your average mom-mobile can now run with a supercar
09:11 from the 80s. Should Infiniti be proud of this? Absolutely. Okay, well, I'm gonna
09:17 get back to driving it.
09:20 Well, there we have it. Winner, the purple car. Was I surprised by the results? A
09:29 little, because at some point in its life, that 928 made 316 horsepower and used to
09:36 be on magazine covers going against stuff like Countachs and Testarossas.
09:41 Doesn't matter, man. This little guy, this Infiniti QX30S, smacked it. It spanked it.
09:48 It beat it by over a second, which is frankly pretty shocking. So getting
09:56 towards wrapping this whole thing up, I mean, this is a great little fun hatchback,
10:00 wagon, SUV, whatever you want to call it. My only thing is, I just feel bad for the
10:06 Infiniti engineers. I mean, imagine, you know, you go and you get an engineering
10:10 degree and you go to work and they're like, "Okay, we're gonna compete in this
10:13 segment," but instead of you doing anything, here's a Mercedes, like, make it
10:18 pretty. And, boy, I think it just kind of points to deeper problems at not just
10:23 Infiniti but Nissan. Why do you have to turn to Mercedes-Benz for any
10:27 engineering? Aren't you a car maker? Aren't you a car company?
10:33 [Music]
10:37 Compared to the Mercedes-Benz GLA, the Infiniti looks better and it drives
10:43 better. True, the infotainment system isn't as good, but that's the QX30's only
10:48 substantial shortcoming. To get back to the initial question that kicked off
10:53 this episode, should you buy this charming German-Japanese matchup, this
10:58 fun little hatchback being pedaled as an SUV? In a word, yes. In three words, I just
11:06 might.
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