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Infiniti FX35
Review: In its second year after a major redesign, the FX35 model
offers you lots and lots of, well, everything. This tall wagon /
crossover piles on the luxury, safety, and high tech features, while
treating you to true comfort and upscale aesthetics.
Infiniti vehicles
celebrate enthusiastic design. The restyling of the 2009 FX series last
year retained the compact greenhouse but added some dramatic new lower
body styling. The face features a mouth that, with its twisted, black
chrome bars, looks about ready to consume the car in front of it while
its eyes stare intensely ahead at its prey.
A silvery functional
scoop behind the front wheels adds engine cooling. The taillamps, etched
into the body, extend out from it too, helping reduce the coefficient of
drag. This is no wallflower, and looks like no other crossover on the
road. Inside are swirls of leather and real maple trim on the dash,
doors and console.
My tester’s optional
quilted leather seats were especially inviting. I enjoyed the hidden USB
port for my iPod, which let me cruise through my thousands of stored
songs as easily as selecting a radio station. And the sound from the
11-speaker premium Bose system, with not one, but two, subwoofers, was
crystalline and sublime. Sometimes it was hard to leave the car when I
got home.
The dash-mounted
seven-inch display was especially easy to use and let me view my musical
information in the top half and my fuel economy on the bottom, or a map
anytime, in rich colors. That’s a pretty nice touch.
The FX comes in three
forms: The FX50 AWD (all-wheel drive) with its 390-horsepower 5.0-liter
V8, the FX35 AWD and the FX35 RWD (rear-wheel drive). The FX35s have a
303-horsepower 3.5-liter V6 under their curvaceous hoods. My Midnight
Mocha test car was a FX35 RWD, but, with nearly $11,000 worth of
options, it was fully loaded.
The FX35 gets EPA fuel
economy ratings of 16 City, 23 Highway. All-wheel-drive models get 16
and 21. I averaged 18.1 mpg. The Green Vehicle Guide numbers are 6 for
Air Pollution and 4 for Greenhouse Gas.
The FX appears to be
aimed at successful folks who are old enough to be making good money,
but young enough to appreciate high technology. The Technology Package
on my car added numerous features that made beeping sounds, warning me
of lane departures (even ones where I didn’t actually depart) and
impending crashes (closing in on the car in front in a way that the
system thought was too quickly).
There’s also
Intelligent Cruise Control, which helps you keep a safe distance from
the car in front of you automatically, and Distance Control Assist,
which does it when you’re not in cruise control mode. If your foot’s not
on the gas, it will actually brake for you, to keep you safe.
Intelligent Brake
Assist with Forward Collision Warning adds more electronic nannies.
While welcome from a safety standpoint, I begin to wonder if this car is
designed with the assumption that I will be (illegally) using my cell
phone, doing my work, or perhaps finishing my personal grooming on my
commute. It’s really halfway to autopilot.
That said, driving the
car is a real pleasure. The 303-horsepower engine sings as it pulls the
two-ton wagon along the road. Steering input through the leather-wrapped
wheel is sufficient to make you feel like you’re controlling the car.
I’d rather participate in driving than worry about the activities
mentioned in the previous paragraph. I only wish I spent more time with
the FX on country roads than on major freeways.
Besides the Technology
Package, my tester featured the Deluxe Touring Package, which
contributed 20-inch alloy wheels (the standards are 18’s), those lovely
maple trim accents, aluminum pedals and a cargo cover.
The Navigation Package
provided a full-featured system that was not only intuitive to use, but
gave clear graphics and a natural-voiced narrator. You could hear the
switch from the standard messages to the specific street names, however,
and not every location was perfectly pronounced.
Maybe someday they will
get that figured out.
One really cool feature
of the Navigation Package is the Around View Monitor (AVM). It uses four
small super wide-angle cameras mounted on the front, side and rear of
the car to provide a virtual 360° view of objects around the car.
Advanced image processing combines the images from the cameras to
provide a birds-eye view, and very helpful when you’re maneuvering the
FX in tight spaces.
The FX starts at
$43,515 for the model like mine, minus the packages. My test car came to
$54,076. The FX50, which includes the three packages’ contents as
standard equipment, starts at $59,805. All prices include shipping.
There’s little you can’t have and enjoy with this car. Load it up with
features, and your stuff, and go have some fun.
By Steve Schaefer © AutoWire.Net - San
Francisco
The Bottom Line:
The new 2010 Infinity FX35 is one of the nicest crossover vehicles on
the market today. With a base price of around $44,000 it comes with
everything you need for a nice, pleasant, upscale ride with several
option packages that can put the vehicle into the high tech arena, and
the price into the $60K range. You can order the FX35 anyway you want,
with the options you want, for the price you want, and that’s a good
thing.
Bottom Line
Review provided by: Tony Leopardo © AutoWire.Net
The 2010 Infiniti
FX35 Review provided by: Tony Leopardo © AutoWire.Net “Tony the
Car Guy” is an automotive writer, editor and publisher in the San
Francisco Bay Area. If you have a question or comment for Tony send it
to
TonyLeo@pacbell.net or visit AutoWire.Net at
www.autowire.net - And remember: “ You Are What You Drive ”
Infiniti Home Page
Column Name: You can
order the FX35 anyway you want
Topic: The 2010
Infiniti FX35
Word Count: 1 021
Photo Caption: The
2010 Infiniti FX35
Photo Credits: Infiniti
FX35 Internet Media
Series #: 2010 - 37
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