2017 Infiniti QX60

2017 is a change year, not a carry-over: the L50 swapped its port-injected VQ35DE for the direct-injected VQ35DD, lifting output roughly 10 percent to 295 hp — competitive on paper for a three-row crossover, though it comes from displacement rather than boost.

270 lb-ft that does not arrive until 4,800 rpm is the signature of a naturally aspirated V6 — sufficient for a loaded family run, but with none of the low-rpm shove the turbocharged rivals entering this class deliver off the line.

The direct-injection engine cut roughly a second off the 2016 car's run to 60, landing the QX60 mid-pack for a ~4,500-lb three-row luxury crossover — quick enough to merge and pass without drama, though the CVT's revs-first delivery makes it feel slower than the stopwatch says.

With no turbo to spool, the VQ35DD is smooth and quiet in normal use and the 2017 direct-injection change improved wide-open-throttle response over the engine it replaced; the deduction is that both peaks live high in the rev range, so the engine gets vocal and coarse exactly when a serenity-marketed luxury SUV should stay hushed.

The Xtronic CVT with D-Step Logic is among the better CVTs — it fakes stepped ratios well enough that most drivers never object — but it is still a CVT in a class moving to 8- and 9-speed automatics, and hard throttle brings the elastic response and sustained drone those transmissions avoid.

5,000 lbs is the top of what a unibody, front-drive-based three-row offers and covers a small boat or a pair of jet skis — but it takes the factory tow package to get there, and sources disagree, with the base rating quoted at 3,500 lbs.

Intelligent AWD is available on every 2017 QX60, gas or hybrid, so any buyer can order it, but it is a paid option rather than standard equipment and the hardware is a basic on-demand front-biased system — it can lock toward a 50:50 split and has a Snow drive mode, but there is no low range and no torque vectoring.

The QX60 is an elongated Nissan Murano unibody riding 6.5 inches off the ground on all-season tires — there is no off-road trim, no skid plating, no locking differential and no low range anywhere in the 2017 range, and Snow mode is a traction-management setting rather than off-road hardware.

2017 is the last year a QX60 buyer had a real powertrain choice: the 295-hp V6 or the supercharged 2.5-liter QX60 Hybrid making 250 net horsepower, each in FWD or AWD. The credit is limited because the hybrid was a special-order, effectively unstocked model that Infiniti dropped for 2018, and there is nothing turbocharged or plug-in offered alongside them.

22 MPG combined is unremarkable for a ~4,500-lb three-row on a naturally aspirated V6, and the 2017 switch to direct injection bought efficiency parity rather than a gain — the EPA combined figure is unchanged from the lower-output engine it replaced.

City driving is where the QX60 loses most ground — a heavy three-row hauling 3.5 liters of displacement through stop-and-go traffic with no stop-start and no electric assist to cover the launches.

The CVT holds low cruising revs and the body is slippery for its size, so a steady highway run is the QX60's best case — but 26 MPG still trails the turbo-four and hybrid three-rows leading this class, and notably its own hybrid sibling only matches it here.

A large 19.5-gallon tank rescues what mediocre economy would otherwise cost, putting roughly 429 miles between stops — genuinely useful for family road-trip duty, even though every gallon is priced as premium.

The EPA estimate is penalized twice — 22 MPG combined, then priced against premium gasoline — which puts the QX60 near the expensive end of the gas SUV field to keep fueled, roughly $1,100/yr more than the hybrid version sold alongside it.

Premium 91 AKI is what INFINITI recommends and what the EPA prices the running costs against; regular 87 is permitted, but the manual frames it as a stopgap — fill only partially, top up with premium as soon as possible, and avoid full-throttle driving — so it is not a licence to run the car on regular indefinitely.

A full five-star overall result, but the component breakdown shows it is carried by a flawless side-impact performance rather than an all-round one — the driver-side frontal test and the rollover resistance figure both return four stars.

The QX60 leaves 2017 with a Top Safety Pick — Good in five of six crashworthiness tests, with only the newly introduced passenger-side small overlap dropping to Acceptable — but the award is conditional in two ways: it applies only to cars ordered with the optional front crash prevention system, and it stops short of TSP+ because the headlights are Poor. The same car with the same crash results loses the award outright in 2018 once Acceptable headlights become a TSP requirement.

Nothing beyond the RearView Monitor, stability control and pre-crash seat belts is standard: Infiniti's own equipment table marks blind-spot warning, lane departure warning/prevention, Predictive Forward Collision Warning and Forward Emergency Braking every one of them 'O' for optional. Worse, the packaging is a ladder — adaptive cruise and blind-spot warning need Premium beneath them, and automatic emergency braking lives only in a Deluxe Technology Package that requires Premium Plus and cannot be combined with the cheaper Driver Assistance Package at all. On a $44,095 three-row luxury crossover that is a thin content sheet.

When fitted, Forward Emergency Braking earns IIHS's top Superior rating for vehicle-to-vehicle avoidance, and Infiniti's Predictive Forward Collision Warning reads two cars ahead using the same radar — genuinely ahead of the class on capability. It is undermined by access: the system exists only in the most expensive package, and IIHS had no pedestrian front-crash-prevention program in 2017, so Infiniti's claimed pedestrian detection and any nighttime performance are unverified.

The hardware outruns the class norm of the day — Backup Collision Intervention actually brakes for crossing traffic instead of only chiming, and Blind Spot Intervention applies selective braking to pull the car back into its lane — but none of it is standard, the alert-only half needs the Premium ladder plus $1,850, and the intervening half needs the top package.

There is no lane centering of any kind — Lane Departure Prevention corrects with individual brake applications rather than steering, which registers as a stumble rather than a guide — and even that crude system is buried in the Deluxe Technology Package. ProPILOT Assist did not reach this nameplate until the 2022 redesign.

Intelligent Cruise Control is a full-speed-range system that will brake to a standstill and resume, which was competitive for 2017, but there is no steering function to pair it with so it never becomes a highway assist — and the overlapping ICC and Distance Control Assist modes leave reviewers unsure which one is doing the braking.

No hands-free highway system was offered on the 2017 QX60, and none could have been — the car has no lane-centering steering function to build one on.

IIHS rated the bi-xenon headlights Poor on all four configurations it tested, with excessive low-beam glare and visibility that fell from good to inadequate depending on build — there is no way to option your way out of it. High Beam Assist arrived for 2017, but it is locked in the Deluxe Technology Package and does nothing about the low beams that earned the Poor.

A low dashboard and beltline with a deep greenhouse give the QX60 the kind of natural forward and side sightlines later, higher-shouldered three-rows gave away — it is the reason the car feels smaller from the driver's seat than it is, and owners single visibility out as a strength. The camera coverage that would fill in the rest is a climb: Around View Monitor requires Premium Plus, so the volume car relies on glass and a plain reversing camera.

The QX60's signature trick is genuinely a child-seat feature — the second row tilts and slides forward with a forward-facing seat still installed, so reaching the third row does not mean uninstalling anything — and the second row is wide enough for two seats with easy-to-find hardware. The anchors themselves are the weak part: IIHS rates LATCH ease of use only Marginal, faulting lower anchors that are hard to locate and take too much force to clip.

Seven seats across three rows is the only configuration offered in 2017 — the QX60 was sold as two models, QX60 3.5 and QX60 3.5 AWD, so the only choice a buyer makes below the option packages is drive layout.

40.7 inches is generous for a mid-size crossover — INFINITI's own copy makes the point that the low roofline 'doesn't compromise interior headroom' — and one figure covers every car because the sliding moonroof is standard equipment.

42.3 inches is mid-pack for the segment — enough for a tall driver, but short of the 44-plus inches the roomiest three-rows offer and short of the 44.4 in the second-generation QX60 later delivered.

38.3 inches in row two is comfortable for adults, and this is the volume figure because the panoramic moonroof that eats into it lives inside the $7,300 Deluxe Technology Package rather than on the base car.

41.7 inches is near the top of what any three-row crossover offers and is this generation's single best measurement — the multi-mode bench slides right back when row three is empty, and the car gives up nearly four inches of it in the 2022 redesign.

Access is the class benchmark — the multi-mode bench slides and tilts forward with a forward-facing child seat still strapped in — and row three reclines, but 30.8 inches of legroom on a low cushion only works for adults once the second row gives up its own space, which reviewers note the sloping roofline then complicates.

40.8 cubic feet is the QX60's weakest dimension — the elongated Murano platform buys passenger room at the cost of a shallow load bay — and with all seven seats up the 15.8 cubic feet behind row three barely swallows a stroller and a few soft bags.

76.5 cubic feet fully folded is average-to-good for the class — usable, and helped by a flat platform floor — but the 60/40 and 50/50 backrests still drop onto a high load deck, and rivals built on dedicated three-row platforms clear 80-plus.

The count beats the class norm of the day — eight cup holders, six bottle holders, four 12-volt points, front and second-row armrests with storage, dual seatback map pockets and three dedicated USB charging ports split between rows two and three — but nothing here is inventive: no wireless charging pad, no underfloor bin, and the household 120-volt outlet only arrives with the Theater Package.

Leather-appointed heated power front seats are standard on every 2017 car and testers single the front chairs out for long-haul comfort, but the adjustment story keeps this below the top band: the driver gets eight-way power with two-way lumbar bundled into the Premium Package, and ventilated front seats plus heated second-row outboard seats are locked inside the $7,300 Deluxe Technology Package.

Isolation is the QX60's headline quality — Dual-Flow Path twin-tube dampers, a rebound-spring shock design and a multi-link rear with a pre-compressed damper mount absorb broken pavement well, and Edmunds found the ride soaks up most bumps. What keeps it out of the 80s is the trade the 2016 refresh made: testers report an unexpected tautness that never converts into body control, so the car still rolls through corners.

This is where the 2017 car is genuinely strong: an acoustic laminated windshield and front side glass, three liquid-filled engine mounts and a 0.33 drag coefficient produce what Edmunds describes as almost no road noise and minimal wind noise despite the deep greenhouse. The deduction is the powertrain rather than the body — peak power arrives at 6,400 rpm and the CVT holds the revs there on a hard merge.

The standard sheet is strong for 2017 — tri-zone automatic climate with microfilter, heated front seats, rear heating vents under both front rows and a power moonroof on every car — but nothing sits above that as standard equipment: heated steering wheel and remote start need the $1,800 Premium Package, and ventilated front seats, heated second-row seats and the Plasmacluster air purifier all need the $7,300 Deluxe Technology Package.

INFINITI's own 2017 pricing announcement puts the QX60 at $43,100 FWD and $44,900 AWD before a $995 destination and handling charge — a $500 increase over 2016 that also bought a 30-horsepower engine upgrade. Delivered, that is $44,095, which in 2017 was one of the two or three cheapest routes into a genuine seven-seat luxury crossover: level with an Acura MDX and roughly $6,000–$10,000 under a comparably sized Volvo XC90 or Audi Q7.

There is no trim ladder to climb — INFINITI's 2017 press kit states the car 'is offered in two models – the QX60 and QX60 AWD – and with six available equipment packages' — so the volume configuration is defined by which packages a buyer takes. The pair almost everyone took was Premium ($1,800: Bose 13-speaker audio, memory seats, heated steering wheel, remote start, roof rails) and Premium Plus ($2,900: INFINITI InTouch navigation and the Around View Monitor, neither available any other way, and Premium Plus is itself a prerequisite for the Theater and Deluxe Technology packages). On the AWD drivetrain that is $45,895 + $4,700 ≈ $50,595.

Underneath the badge this is a Nissan Pathfinder — VQ35 V6, JATCO Xtronic CVT, Nissan parts and Nissan labor rates — so it services far more cheaply than the German or Volvo three-rows, and Kelley Blue Book made exactly that arithmetic the basis of the 2017 QX60's 5-Year Cost to Own segment win. The figure is set above the published nameplate averages for reasons specific to a 2017 car: INFINITI included no scheduled maintenance whatsoever that year, so the owner pays from the first oil change on a V6 that requires premium unleaded; the CVT — the weakest link on this platform — comes out from under the 4-year/60,000-mile basic warranty inside the five-year window; and 2017 is the first year of the new direct-injection V6, which adds first-year-engine and DI-specific service exposure the port-injected 2016 did not carry.

This is what sinks the category, and it is measured rather than projected for a 2017 car — but the measurement is flattered by timing. The five-year mark fell in 2022, the peak of the post-COVID used-car bubble, which lifts retention a few points above what this nameplate normally manages; KBB's own year-by-year curve for the 2017 QX60 shows the car still worth $16,015 at six years old in 2023 before falling to $12,336 in 2024, implying roughly $20,800 at the five-year point. Even so it lands well under the luxury midsize SUV norm, because INFINITI has never had the used-market equity of Acura or Lexus.

INFINITI's new-vehicle limited warranty ran four years or 60,000 miles in 2017 — the luxury-brand convention on term, and 10,000 miles more generous on distance than the 4-year/50,000-mile coverage Acura, Cadillac, BMW, Audi, Lexus and Volvo all offered that year.

Six years or 70,000 miles on the V6, the Xtronic CVT and the drive components — ahead of the German 4-year/50,000-mile norm of the era, but well short of the 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain coverage a 2017 shopper could get from Hyundai or Kia, and short of what a first-year direct-injection engine paired with this platform's CVT arguably warranted.

A 2017 QX60 came with no included scheduled maintenance at all — INFINITI Premium Care, the three-year oil-change-and-rotation program, did not arrive until the 2023 model year — so this owner pays for the first service and every one after it, on premium fuel. What is included is roadside-and-trials: 24-hour roadside assistance and trip-interruption benefits running with the four-year new-vehicle warranty, six months of INFINITI InTouch Services and a four-year complimentary SiriusXM Traffic and Travel Link trial on cars fitted with the Premium Plus Package, and a three-month 2GB Wi-Fi trial with the Theater Package. That is a slightly richer trial bundle than the 2018 car carried, but a long roadside term attached to no maintenance coverage is the definition of the middle band rather than the top of it.

$50,595 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (41% retained, or about $20,744) leaves about $29,851 in depreciation. Add the projected $4,500 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $34,351 in total.

Unlike the 2018 car, where the two major predictors disagreed, both agree on the 2017: Consumer Reports gives it 2 out of 5 for predicted reliability and calls it less reliable than other cars from the same model year, and J.D. Power rates predicted reliability 2.5 out of 5, below average. Owner data corroborates rather than softens that — CarComplaints logs 19 problems against the 2017 specifically (against 5 for the 2018) with engine, transmission and AC/heater as the worst categories, and names 2017 alongside 2014 and 2015 as the nameplate's worst transmission years. Two below-average predictions plus the heaviest complaint volume of the generation is the below-average band, not the average one.

For once the brand study lines up exactly with the model year being scored: the J.D. Power 2020 Vehicle Dependability Study surveys three-year-old 2017-model-year cars, and Infiniti posted 155 PP100 against a 134 PP100 industry average — 24th on a 32-brand table, behind Nissan (136) and every mainstream Japanese brand. That is a bottom-third reading on this exact cohort. It is held just out of the bottom band because Infiniti's record is volatile rather than consistently poor: the 2018 VDS recorded the study's largest rank improvement for the brand, from 29th to 4th, and Infiniti was among the most-improved brands in the 2018 initial-quality study. A buyer of a 2017 cannot bank on that swing, though — the study that measured their car is the 155.

Two campaigns, but they are the same defect issued twice, which is what pushes this into the low band rather than the count. The fault is a brake-fluid leak onto an ABS actuator circuit board that can short and start a fire; the 2017 QX60 is in the original 2018 campaign and again in the 2019 expansion, which exists precisely because the first pass left vehicles unrepaired or wrongly cleared. On the bulletin side the CVT judder-and-hesitation pattern on this generation was severe enough to produce a $277.7 million class settlement that names the 2015–2018 QX60 by model year. A fire remedy that had to be run twice, plus a litigated driveline pattern covering this exact year, is a systemic record, not routine recall activity.

2017 is the worst year of this generation to buy on powertrain grounds, for two independent reasons. It is the introduction year of the direct-injected 3.5-liter VQ35DD — INFINITI's own press material says the engine uses more than 50 percent new or new-to-QX60 parts, so the 295-hp unit is a change, not the proven carry-over the 2018 inherited, and direct injection brings intake-valve deposits the port-injected VQ35DE did not have. Behind it sits the JATCO Xtronic CVT, and the 2017 is not merely adjacent to that history: it is a named class vehicle in the settled case AND the year CarComplaints ranks among the nameplate's worst for transmission failure, with owners reporting failure under 60,000 miles. The settlement's remedy — a powertrain warranty stretched to 96 months/96,000 miles — expired on a 2017 car by 2025 at the latest, so a buyer today owns an out-of-warranty CVT with a documented failure mode and a four-figure replacement. Nissan's own verdict on the design is the strongest evidence available: it abandoned the CVT entirely for the 2022 redesign in favor of a nine-speed torque-converter automatic.

This is the 2016-refresh cabin, unchanged for 2017 apart from newly available Motion-Activated Liftgate, Wi-Fi and INFINITI InTouch navigation, and reviewers split on it the same way they do on the later cars. Standard leather with contrast stitching and the optional maple wood genuinely read as luxury and finish the car well above the Pathfinder it shares a platform with. But the dashboard top is hard plastic and switchgear comes out of the Nissan parts bin, and those are the surfaces a $45,000-plus buyer touches, so it cannot claim the class-leading band its price implies.

Assembly is broadly solid — a fifth-year build of a mature design on the Smyrna line alongside the Pathfinder, with a quiet cabin and smooth ride that road tests consistently note. It lands below mid-band on the two things this item actually measures. The dependability study that surveyed this exact cohort put Infiniti at 155 PP100 against a 134 average, and the car's recall record is a manufacturing and supplier failure rather than a design one: ABS actuator pumps built so brake fluid can reach a circuit board, on a campaign that had to be run twice because the first pass left cars unfixed. Owner complaint volume for the 2017 is also the heaviest of the generation.

Roughly 190 to 205 US stores in 43 states is a thin footprint for a luxury brand — behind Lexus, Acura, BMW and Mercedes-Benz — and it has been contracting since this car was new rather than growing, with Nissan now letting Infiniti dealers co-locate inside Nissan showrooms to survive. For an owner outside a metro area that is a real drive to the nearest franchise. The saving grace is specific to a car of this age: a nine-year-old QX60 is long out of warranty and is mechanically a Pathfinder, so any Nissan-competent independent shop can service it and franchise density stops being the binding constraint.

The strongest thing about owning this car, and it follows directly from the Pathfinder underneath it: the platform, the VQ-family 3.5-liter V6 and the JATCO CVT are all high-volume Nissan hardware built on the same Smyrna line, so parts are commodity-priced with deep aftermarket and salvage supply rather than low-volume luxury pieces, and running costs land near the all-vehicle average instead of the luxury-SUV average. Nine years of production depth make used and remanufactured supply better still — CVT rebuilders stock reman units for this exact application. It stops short of the top band because a CVT replacement, which this model year is meaningfully exposed to, is a four-figure job, and INFINITI-specific trim, wood and infotainment pieces remain dealer-sourced.

2017 is the year the 8-inch display became standard across the range rather than an upgrade, which is a real improvement — but eight inches was already small for a luxury three-row, and INFINITI offered nothing larger at any price until the 12.3-inch second-generation car five model years later.

Nothing is buried — a rotary INFINITI Controller, real climate controls and illuminated wheel switches mean the hardware layout ages better than the software — but the InTouch system itself is 2013-vintage, still built around an AM/FM/CD head unit with auxiliary A/V jacks, and reviewers found the menus confusing and vehicle settings oddly absent from the centre screen.

Neither Apple CarPlay nor Android Auto is offered on the 2017 QX60 in any form — not wireless, not wired, not in any of the six option packages — which in a luxury three-row that year is a hole rivals had already filled.

Navigation and the voice recognition that drives it are both option-package content — $2,900 for Premium Plus, which itself requires the $1,800 Premium Package beneath it — and what that buys is a rigid command-word system with one-shot destination entry rather than natural language; with no phone projection to fall back on, a QX60 without those boxes ticked has no maps at all.

The upgrades are genuinely good — a 13-speaker Bose Premium system with an Acoustic Waveguide subwoofer, and above it a 15-speaker Bose Cabin Surround setup with digital 5.1 decoding — but neither is standard, and the base car every buyer starts from has a thin six-speaker AM/FM/CD unit, so the volume configuration only gets there by paying for the Premium Package.

There is no digital cluster on the 2017 QX60 in any configuration — the gauges are analog Fine Vision electroluminescent dials with a small colour Intelligent-View trip display wedged between them, which is where the segment had been five years earlier.

The 2017 QX60 has no over-the-air update capability of any kind — the InTouch head unit takes map data through a dealer on physical media, and no vehicle software can be refreshed remotely; the closest thing to connected capability that year is a $450 port-installed Wi-Fi accessory, which serves passengers' devices and does nothing for the car's own software.

The feature list reads better than it lives: INFINITI Connection covers remote door lock/unlock, vehicle locator, stolen-vehicle reporting, Drive Zone and Speed Alert boundaries and even Google Calendar sync, with the first year complimentary — but the telematics hardware rides inside the Premium Plus Package rather than being standard, it becomes a paid subscription afterwards, remote engine start is a key-fob function from a different package, and there is no digital key.

Port coverage across the rows is better than the QX60 usually gets credit for — one front data USB plus three dedicated charging ports, one for the second row and two for the third, alongside four 12-volt points — and 2017 adds an HDMI input to the rear entertainment bundle; but every socket is USB-A, there is no wireless charging pad at any price, and the 120-volt household outlet and the rear HDMI/USB pair both sit inside the Theater Package.

The basics are all standard — proximity entry with illuminated push-button ignition, a remote fob that also works the windows, liftgate and fuel door, and a power rear liftgate on every car — and 2017 is the year a hands-free Motion Activated Liftgate first appeared; the catch is that it appeared inside the $7,300 Deluxe Technology Package, while remote start and the memory-storing Enhanced Intelligent Key need the Premium Package, and there is no phone-as-key.

The base car leaves with a plain reversing camera and no sonar at all — the four-lens Around View Monitor with Moving Object Detection lives in the Premium Plus Package, which itself requires Premium underneath it, so the surround view costs $4,700 to reach — and no automated parking function is offered on the QX60 in any configuration.

No head-up display is offered on the 2017 QX60 at any price or in any package — one never appeared on the L50 generation in the US market.

This is what the QX60 was built to do: the multi-mode second row slides and tilts far forward with a forward-facing child seat installed on the 40 percent side, so reaching the third row never means uninstalling anything, and Cars.com found every seat type installed easily. Two things cap it — IIHS rates the anchors themselves only Marginal, and 15.8 cubic feet behind a raised third row is a stroller and little else. Rear Door Alert, which becomes standard on the 2018 car, does not exist on this one.

2017 is the best safety year of this generation on paper — five NHTSA stars overall, IIHS Good in five of six crash tests and an outright Top Safety Pick, an award the same car loses for 2018 once headlights enter the criteria. What holds it to the middle band is that the award only applies to cars with the optional front crash prevention, and the driver aids a family would want are walled off: blind-spot warning and adaptive cruise need the $1,850 Driver Assistance Package, and automatic emergency braking exists only inside the $7,300 Deluxe Technology Package that stacks on two others.

A strong multi-hour family device: a cabin reviewers call almost free of road noise, tri-zone automatic climate and rear heating vents standard, a second row that reclines and slides 5.5 inches, three USB charging ports aimed at rows two and three, a Theater Package upgraded for 2017 to dual 8-inch screens with an HDMI input, and roughly 429 miles between fills. The limit is the same trade in reverse — use the third row and 15.8 cubic feet of luggage space is what remains.

Low-effort in exactly the way commuting rewards: a naturally aspirated V6 with no turbo lag and, new for 2017, 30 more horsepower for merging and re-acceleration, paired to a CVT tuned for seamlessness; light steering, a soft ride, a commanding seat height with a low 18.2-inch step-in, and a low dash and beltline that make the car feel smaller than it is. The demerits are fatigue-adjacent rather than dynamic — adaptive cruise is optional and there is no lane centering at any price.

The per-mile arithmetic is poor and premium fuel is why: 22 MPG combined priced against 91 AKI gives an EPA annual fuel bill of $3,450, near the expensive end of the gas SUV field, and the 2017 direct-injection change bought power rather than economy. What keeps it off the floor is the other half of the cost — Nissan Pathfinder hardware built on the same Smyrna line means Nissan-level consumables and labor.

A 200-inch, 77-inch-wide crossover turning a 38.7-foot circle is a real presence in a city, and the crescent-cut D-pillar thickens the over-shoulder view; the low dash and beltline give unusually good forward and side sightlines, but the camera help that would cover the rest — Around View with Moving Object Detection plus front and rear sonar — is a $4,700 climb through two nested packages, so the volume car parks on glass and a single reversing camera.

5,000 pounds properly equipped is a genuinely good tow rating for a unibody, front-drive-based crossover and covers a small boat or a pair of jet skis, but that is where the work case ends: there is no bed, roughly 1,470 pounds of payload before passengers, an enclosed 76.5-cubic-foot load bay lined in carpet and leather, and a CVT that is the least suited transmission in the class to sustained load.

The bones are high-volume Nissan — the Murano/Pathfinder platform is proven and cheap to keep running — but hard use is exactly where this drivetrain's weak links show, and 2017 has two: it is the introduction year of the direct-injected VQ35DD, and the JATCO Xtronic CVT carries the worst durability reputation on the platform. A leather-lined luxury interior with no wear-friendly trim option and no fleet presence is not built to be abused.

Provisions for work are thin and mostly optional: four 12-volt points are standard but the 120-volt household outlet is Theater Package content, roof side rails come only with the Premium Package and crossbars only with the Deluxe Technology Package, and there is no upfit ecosystem, no washable surface, no bed access and nothing beyond a $230 port-installed cargo package behind a carpeted load floor.

A strong tourer: about 429 miles between fills from a 19.5-gallon tank, acoustic windshield and front side glass behind which Edmunds found hardly any road noise, a soft long-travel ride, front seats singled out for long-trip comfort, and a full-speed-range adaptive cruise that will brake to a standstill and resume. Two things keep it out of the top band — every gallon is priced as premium, and the adaptive cruise has no steering component to pair with, so there is no highway assist to take the edge off a long day.

Fine for gravel roads and a bike rack, not for anything past that: Intelligent AWD with a Snow drive mode is available on any 2017 QX60 and the 5,000-lb rating tows real toys, but ground clearance is 6.5 inches on all-season tires with a 14.7-degree approach and a 14.2-degree breakover angle, there is no skid plating, no low range and no locking differential anywhere in the range, and even the roof rails a camper would want arrive only with the Premium Package.

Flexible in the ways that matter for a road trip — 60/40 and 50/50 split folds over a flat platform floor, a second row that slides 5.5 inches to trade legroom for cargo on demand, a wide power liftgate opening, and a hitch available with the tow package. It stops short of exceptional because 76.5 cubic feet fully folded is only good rather than class-leading, the folded floor is high, and roof rails and crossbars each cost a separate package.

Secure and predictable but not much more. INFINITI's 2016 refresh firmed the chassis and testers do feel the tautness, yet it never converts into body control — Edmunds reports the QX rolling through corners anyway, and a 4,519-lb crossover with a 56/44 nose bias on all-season tires is working against itself. Active Trace Control, the brake-based cornering aid that would sharpen it, is option-package content.

The speed-sensitive assist is calibrated for parking-lot effort rather than information, and testers went further than numb for 2017 — Automotive Addicts describes an unnatural off-center feel that can unsettle the driver — though a 16.8:1 ratio and 2.9 turns lock-to-lock make it accurate enough to place the car precisely.

Hardware is adequate rather than generous — 12.6-inch vented front and 12.13-inch vented rear discs hauling down as much as 4,519 lbs, with four-channel ABS, EBD and Brake Assist standard — and the pedal is tuned soft to match the rest of the car; no instrumented stop was published for the 2017 model year.

2017 is the year this got better: the direct-injected VQ35DD adds 30 hp and 22 lb-ft with no turbo lag to manage, cutting roughly a second off the run to 60, and three liquid-filled mounts keep vibration out of the cabin while the D-Step CVT is among the better applications of the type. The deduction is that a hard request still brings rising revs before rising speed, since peak torque waits until 4,800 rpm and peak power until 6,400.

At a cruise the V6 is near-inaudible behind acoustic glass and Edmunds calls the cabin pleasantly quiet at speed, but the engine is the one thing that intrudes when worked — with peak torque at 4,800 rpm and peak power at 6,400, a hard merge or a long grade is exactly where a stepped 8- or 9-speed rival would stay quieter, and the VQ has never been a sweet-sounding engine at the top of its range.

A 38.7-foot circle on a 114.2-inch wheelbase is unremarkable — it takes real space to turn around, and the second-generation car later tightened it — though 2.9 turns lock-to-lock means the driver is not sawing at the wheel to use it.

A commanding seat height with a low 18.2-inch step-in, standard power tilt and telescopic column, an eight-way power seat, and controls still on real illuminated buttons and knobs rather than buried in a screen, all behind an unusually low dash and beltline. Two deductions: the memory system and entry/exit assist that later grades made standard are Premium Package content here, and the crescent-cut D-pillar thickens the over-shoulder view.

Nobody was pretending otherwise, INFINITI included: steering testers call numb and oddly weighted off-center, a chassis that rolls, a CVT and a 7.4-second 0-60 add up to a competent family appliance. The extra 30 horsepower for 2017 makes it quicker without making it engaging, and the Sport drive mode alters throttle and shift mapping and little else.

The comfort list on a $44,095 single-grade QX60 is genuinely long for the money, and INFINITI's own press kit spells it out: leather-appointed seating for the first and second rows, heated 8-way power driver and 6-way passenger seats, tri-zone automatic climate with microfilter, a power moonroof, a standard power lift-function hatch, bi-xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights, standard LED fog lights, push-button start, and — new for 2017 — INFINITI InTouch with an 8.0-inch color display fitted to every model rather than only the navigation cars. Where it falls down is driver assistance: forward emergency braking, blind-spot warning, lane departure warning and adaptive cruise are all package content, navigation and the Around View Monitor require the $2,900 Premium Plus Package, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are unavailable at any price on this head unit.

On the fundamentals the 2017 car delivers well and got more for the same money than the 2016 did: seven seats, a new direct-injection V6 making 295 hp and 270 lb-ft (up 30 hp and 22 lb-ft), a 5,000-lb tow rating and a standard 8.0-inch InTouch display, for a $500 price increase. That put it around $44,100 delivered against roughly $46,000 for an Acura MDX and $48,000–$50,000 for a Volvo XC90 or Audi Q7, and Kelley Blue Book's 5-Year Cost to Own segment award says the running costs backed the sticker up rather than undercutting it. The ceiling is that the money buys space, power and comfort rather than content: one engine, one CVT, and $4,700 of packages before a buyer sees navigation or Bose, $7,300 for the Deluxe Technology Package that carries the active-safety hardware.

2017 is the last year the QX60 offered a real powertrain choice, and that is what separates it from the 2018 car: four models — QX60 FWD, QX60 AWD, and two QX60 Hybrid models with the supercharged 2.5-liter four — plus six equipment packages that stretch the range from about $44,100 to past $58,800. There is still no à-la-carte ordering and no cheaper entry point, and the package prerequisites are rigid (Premium Plus requires Premium; Theater and Deluxe Technology both require Premium Plus; Deluxe Technology cannot be combined with Driver Assistance), which keeps this mid-band rather than high. The hybrid was dropped after this model year, narrowing the 2018 lineup to a single powertrain.

40,444 US sales in 2017 made the QX60 one of INFINITI's two volume models — within 300 units of the Q50 — and a steady mid-pack presence in a class the Acura MDX led at roughly 54,000. But 2017 is a dip rather than a climb: the nameplate slipped about 4% from 2016's 42,120 in a year the brand overall rose 11% to a record, meaning the QX60 was losing share inside its own showroom to the Q60, QX30 and QX50. It recovered to a 47,370-unit peak in 2018 before falling away ahead of the redesign.

2017 is INFINITI's high-water mark in the United States — an all-time record 153,415 deliveries, up 11% — so a buyer that year was choosing a brand on the way up rather than the one that would fall to a two-decade low by 2020. What holds the score at neutral is that the badge has never had the pull of Lexus or Acura in this class and the used market prices that in directly: the nameplate keeps under 40% of its sticker over five years against roughly 55% for the luxury midsize SUV category, and the 2017 car's own KBB curve had it down to $16,015 by age six.

Scored on buyer benefit, this is the strongest item in the category. INFINITI discounted the QX60 hard throughout 2017 and supported it with subvented leases — documented transactions closed at 14–16% off sticker with national money factors around .0015 and residuals of 62–63%, which is a combination that produces genuinely cheap payments. It sits a little below the run-out discounting of the model's final years because in 2017 the double-digit discounts were routine rather than desperate, which is arguably the better outcome for a buyer who also has to live with the resale value.

2017 is the fifth model year of the L50 generation that launched as the JX35 for 2013 on an elongated Nissan Murano platform, but unlike the carry-over years around it this is a genuine change year: a new direct-injection 3.5-liter V6 worth 30 more horsepower, a retuned suspension and steering, INFINITI InTouch with an 8.0-inch display standard across the range, larger 8.0-inch rear-entertainment screens with an HDMI port, and newly available Motion Activated Liftgate and High Beam Assist — all arriving only a year after the 2016 facelift. It still scores mid-band because the architecture underneath is of the previous decade, the ground-up 2022 redesign was five years out, and the infotainment offered no CarPlay or Android Auto at any price.

The professional verdict is split in a way that lands this above the rest of its generation. Reviewers ranked it near the bottom of the class on the driving and reliability side — U.S. News scored it 7.5 out of 10 and placed it 15th among 2017 luxury midsize SUVs, blaming bland steering and below-average predicted reliability, and J.D. Power gave it 2.5 out of 5 — and it won no comparison tests, no 10Best and no NACTOY nod. But 2017 is the year the awards actually came: U.S. News named it Best Luxury 3-Row SUV for Families and a finalist for Best Luxury 3-Row SUV for the Money, Kelley Blue Book made it a first-time 5-Year Cost to Own segment winner, and the IIHS made it a Top Safety Pick — recognition the 2018 car, which lost the IIHS award on a Poor headlight rating, did not carry.