Long-term update: 2011 Infiniti QX56 in Hatta

Our long-term 2011 Infiniti QX56 is getting easier to manage every day. It takes a while to get comfortable with a vehicle this size. It is, of course, made easier by a myriad of cameras and sensors making sure you don’t hit anything. We took the truck to Hatta this weekend, not for off-roading, but to use it as it was intended — as an all-terrain luxury picnic bus.

We were a family of five, with an afternoon’s worth of lunch stuffed in the back. The QX can carry six, or even seven in a pinch. The second row holds two only, but our passengers were happy to spread out onto all the three rows. Even the third row can hold adults with ease.

So we set the navigation to point towards the Hatta Fort Hotel, even if we already knew the route, and set off. The a/c was good, although it wasn’t that hot outside anyway. We never made use of the two rear DVD screens as some of our passengers soon fell asleep.

The big Infiniti rides rather firmly, as we consistently noticed in city streets, but it was much smoother on the highway at speeds approaching 130 kph. Wind noise starts creeping in at 100 kph, reaches moderate levels by 120 kph, but doesn’t get any noisier than that. And there is virtually no road noise from the tyres.

Driving along with the adaptive cruise control system turned on, there wasn’t much brain power to be used on the fairly straight highway. The car generally applied the throttle by itself each time it went up slight inclines, and gently hit the brakes every time there was a slower car in the way. Infiniti’s system is slightly more abrupt in its responses than Volvo’s smoother second-generation systems, but it gets the job done. Of course, if you want maximum fuel economy, you’ll have to take control of the right pedal yourself to play with “hypermiling” techniques.

We crawled through many annoying police roadblocks as we crossed Omani territory on the way to Dubai’s own Hatta, but we were waved through because of what we were driving.

The QX56 doesn’t have all the off-road toys of a top-spec Nissan Patrol, but it does have selectable 4-high and 4-low modes. Those low-profile rubbers on 22-inch alloys don’t do it any favours, so we just hung out around some rocky terrain in the mountains of Hatta, laid thick with pointy gravel stones. The pebbles seemed sharp enough to puncture the tyres of lesser cars, but they were crushed easily by the wide 275-width Bridgestone Duelers.

After the picnic below some random mountain in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t know where we were, so we simply set the navigation to go home, and made it back easily.

It looks like the 2011 Infiniti QX is intentionally not set up to be all-out dune-bashing toy, but it is definitely a good road-trip vehicle if you want to explore the great outdoors in the comfort of your living room.

Original Mileage When Borrowed: 10,415 km
Latest Mileage To Date: 11,440 km
Latest Average Fuel Economy: 16.7 litres/100 km
Cost of Latest Problems: Dhs 0
Cost of Latest Maintenance: Dhs 0

Total Non-Fuel Running Cost Since Borrowed: Dhs 0

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