Test Drive Q50: My thoughts vs Volvo V60; BMW 3 series

Dearest all, I apologize to use English as it is easier and faster than my Chinese. Your feedback and comments in either Chinese or English is much welcome

I want to share my personal thoughts after test drove the Infiniti Q50 yesterday at Taoyuan Infiniti. It capture some of my observation and feeling. Again, very personal. Subjective.

Q50 delivers a smooth, well dampened city driving experience. Acceleration was good in city driving with pud holes well absorbed and dampened. My Volvo V60 bounced too much. Interesting is when the car first get ignited, how much of a vibration during ignition was observed. But that is quite minor.

As we pulled the car into Highway 2 towards Hightway 3 heading east, I step on the accelerator to test the acceleration. The car screamed. But the pick up was fast though not that swift. Q50 is equipped with a high aspect ratio 225/55/R17 in basic trim. It is quite ironic that Infinite wants you to believe that this is a sports car and yet the tire is not. These Bridgestone punctual resistance/proof (not sure how to say that) tires is one of the biggest problem of the dynamic response of the car.

As I pulled up the highway, pulling the speed up to 140kph, I have the make a lane change, the car responded, but as I corrected myself after overtaking, I can feel the tire, acting on the reverse pull. It is annoying. As I slowed myself down to 110/100 kph, I can feel the rotation of the tires, at times, causing dynamic shift to the stability of forward velocity of the car. In simple terms, not very straightline stable. It is a shame, because FR is supposed to provide this silky smooth push force during cruising. Even my V60, perform brilliantly well in this respect. As I contine the journey, testing yet again on the acceleration and overall performance. I can help but feel "What a damned heavy car this is!"

The beauty of the German Engineering, although very much blow out of proportion, is how they can make their car, so swift, stable and yet light and nimble. This is an area where vehicle dynamic is what the Japanese premium maker lack. The Q50 has beautiful numbers on its specification, with Mercedes transferred engine and tranmission but it simply could not demonstrate that in the car you drive. Comparing with similiar engine equipped Mercedes C or E200/250, the German provide you a much more balanced acceleration with very smooth and yet increasing acceleratio that make you feel that you are in control. Infiniti Q50 feels really heavy and slow. I want to say maybe it is the tires as well as the body weigth of 1.68 ton. I am not too sure but just wanting to share my PERSONAL thoughts on it.

Overall, this is an attactive car with very nice muscle line on its side. The front looks nice and ok and the tail, speaks of the same language as KODO of Mazda, with more refined taste.
The BOSE system is great but the basic model hifi is so so. Actually a lot worse than my base Volvo model (not the premium one)
Back seat is superb with nice seating surface lengthened Legroom is ok. But the front seat design is not to my liking. It has a very shadow back, making the seat very small and the non-adjustable headrest (aside from height), push your head and neck out in the straight position which I don't like it very much.

Personally, I think the BMW316i at around the same price, deliver a much better driving experience than the Q50. More so, I simply do not feel that the Q50 is a FR car. It is strange how that best attributes could be missed from a driver's point of view. On the other hand, every BMW or Mercedes, if they are FR, shows that very well and apparent to the driver.

I wished Infiniti could consider some weight reduction. BTW, the window noise was not that spectacular as well. I don't quite know where the weight was added. The weigth plus that stupid tires really makes a bad impression of this car to me. I mean, if you have TMPS equipped why bothered with such tires in Taiwan?

Comments and constructive feedbacks are always welcome! Thank you for reading