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A Very Geeky Infiniti

Infiniti is sort of a quiet warrior in the luxury/sports category, and I think in some ways that adds to the marque’s appeal. The rather fun M35x is a bit of sleeper but is really quick (I honestly think the M45, which has a V8 instead of the 35’s V6, is overkill), and loaded out the wazoo with high-tech juju. Some of it, like Infiniti’s Intelligent All Wheel Drive System, is great. But some of the other goodies and I didn’t get on that well. The Lane Departure Warning System I found to be a bit of a pain on country roads. This system “watches” the road and beeps to tell you if you wander out of your lane, and the incorporated Lane Department Prevention software supposedly uses selective braking to help keep you on the straight and narrow.
The problem I have with this is too many false alarms (when I’m moving around in my lane to pick the best line on curvaceous blacktop) and while cancelable the switch is less than convenient to get to and the default “on” position apparently resets every time you restart the car (although I’ll wager it’s possible to cancel it altogether, but I didn’t encounter this option). Another bit of e-wizardry I was not simpatico with was the Intelligent Cruise Control, which also watches the road (using freakin’ laser beams attached to the car) and regulates the following distance behind the vehicle in front of you. In this case, the system has trouble seeing from time to time and brakes rather abruptly, often when you’ve already moved into another lane to pass a slower vehicle in front of you. When it does see open road ahead of you and accelerates to your preselected speed, many times the transition (including downshifting the 5-speed automatic transmission) is a bit rough.
Other than these criticisms, I really enjoyed the car. Wonderfully quiet, comfortable, responsive and refined, it’s a very pleasant ride especially if you have to spend a lot of time on the road as I did. Very solid construction and a feeling of quality, which you should expect in the $50K plus price class. The All Wheel Drive was totally superb in the winter weather, too.

M35x