2025 Infiniti QX55

Mercedes and BMW were the first to come up with what they called the four-door coupe – or words to that effect. The idea was to take something boxy and practical and make it look more like a coupe while still being practical. The Mercedes GLA, for instance, is a Mercedes GLB SUV – with a lower/swept-back roofline, to give it a “coupe-like” silhouette.

Of course, Good looks tend to cost more and be less practical and Infiniti’s QX55 is no different in both respects.

What It Is

The QX55 is a more stylish, more expensive and less practical version of the Infiniti QX50, which is a compact-sized crossover with two rows and seating for five. Both are offered by Nissan’s luxury division, Infiniti.

Both come standard with the same drivetrain and many of the same features and amenities, but the base price of the more stylish QX55 – $50,150 for the Lux trim – is about $7,100 higher than the base price of the basically-the-same-thing QX50, which lists for $43,000 to start.

The base Lux trim comes standard – in both cases – with 20 inch wheels, LED headlights, leather sets and a sunroof. AWD is also standard.

Moving up to the Essential trim – $55,100 – adds seat heaters and a heated steering wheel, adaptive headlights the track with the steering wheel as it is turned and a 16 speaker Bose premium audio system.

A top-of-the-line Sensory trim – $58,650 – adds upgraded leather upholstery, a Heads Up Display for the driver, three-zone climate control and heaters for the rear outboard seats.

What’s New For 2025

The QX55 carries over unchanged. Even the price remains the same, which means Infiniti has lowered the price (effectively) given the ongoing devaluation of the dollar; i.e., “inflation.”

What’s Good

More stylish looking than the QX50.

Still practical in that it’s still a crossover with four doors and much more space for cargo due to the crossover layout.

Larger than a Mercedes GLA – and vastly less expensive than a Mercedes GLE “coupe.”

What’s Not So Good

Costs about $7k more to start than a Mercedes GLA.

No available engine upgrade.

CVT automatic.

Under The Hood

Every QX55 (and every QX50) comes standard with the same drivetrain. It consists of a turbocharged 2.0 liter four cylinder engine that touts 268 horsepower and 280 ft.-lbs. of torque that’s paired up with a continuously variable (CVT) automatic and standard all-wheel-drive.

You may have noticed that 2.0 liter turbo fours are powering almost everything – or so it seems. The reason why has to do with that engine size being just large enough to be capable of making power enough – to meet buyer expectations regarding performance – and comply with government regulations pertaining to “emissions,” the slander word used to get people to equate carbon dioxide with pollution. The latter – actual pollutants that cause or worsen air quality – have been almost entirely eliminated from the exhaust stream of new vehicles, but it is not possible to eliminate C02 “emissions” from the exhaust stream or even to “clean” them – chiefly because they are not dirty but also because when gasoline is burned, C02 (and water vapor) are inevitably produced. It is not a question of making the engine burn more “cleanly.”

The only way to get an engine to produce less C02 is to (a) make the engine smaller – which is why there are so many small engines now, even in large vehicles – and (b) to shut off the engine as often as possible, which is why so many of these small engines are paired up with hybrid systems.

The QX55’s 2.0 liter four is however a different kind of 2.0 liter four. It uses a variable compression system to increase or decrease the compression ratio to improve power and efficiency. This is achieved via connecting rods that that can pivot in relation to the engine’s crankshaft. Nissan/Infiniti is the only vehicle manufacturer currently selling variable compression engines. The engineering is clever but whether it’s durable remains to be seen.

Another difference that is also unusual in the luxury crossover segment is that the QX55’s 2.0 liter four is not paired up with a hybrid system. Infiniti has been a late-comer to hybridizing its drivetrains. But it was one of the first to deploy the CVT automatic as a compliance measure.

CVTs originally appeared in economy-minded cars (Honda was among the first to offer them) because the gearless/shiftless CVT transmission offers a fuel economy benefit vs. a conventional automatic that has gears and shifts. The CVT works by continuously varying the mechanical relationship between the engine and the drive wheels to optimize economy. The idea is to basically keep the engine operating at just exactly the right RPM for every given road speed and load, so as to maximize the engine’s efficiency. A conventional automatic’s forward gears are for obvious reasons not as fluid. You’re in second or third or fourth – not somewhere in between, which is what a CVT can do and why a given vehicle equipped with a CVT will typically score about 3 MPG higher on government fuel economy tests than the same vehicle with an automatic.

The problem with the CVT automatic -in a luxury-brand vehicle – is that its shift-free operating characteristics are often not in sync with the way most luxury car buyers expect a luxury vehicle to feel (and sound). More about this below.

In this instance, the CVT doesn’t confer much of an obvious mileage benefit, either.

The QX55’s 22 city, 28 highway, is below par for the class and unimpressive regardless. A V6 – without the turbo – would (and did) return about the same mileage and a V6 is arguably what you ought to get in a vehicle with a starting price of $50,000. It used to be what you did get – until compliance pressures forced even luxury-car brands such as Infiniti (and Mercedes and BMW and Lexus) to withdraw six cylinder engines and replace them with . . . 2.0 liter turbo fours.

On The Road

The QX55 takes about 6.4 seconds to get to 60. This isn’t quite as quick as rival small crossovers from Mercedes and BMW but it’s not slow. The difference of 2-3 tenths is one that is generally noticeably only by the stopwatch.

What is noticeable is the way the CVT automatic feels – and sounds. CVTs feel and sound like economy car transmissions because that’s what they were designed to be. The feel is rubber-bandy, almost like the thing is slipping when you’re accelerating. In fact what it’s doing is easing from one range to the next, continuously. But this feels vague and sounds worse. The engine’s RPM rises and holds then kind of slips lower or higher depending on how much downward pressure the driver is applying to the accelerator pedal. It sounds and feels ok once you’ve reached cruising speed; it’s the in-betweens that aren’t optimal. A CVT in a Honda is one thing.

A CVT in an Infiniti is something else.

The other driving detraction here is a function of the very thing that Infiniti hopes will sell people on the QX55 – its “coupe-like” styling. The lower/more swept-back roofline ends in a rear glass section that’s pretty radically canted and isn’t very large on top of that. The look is good but the rearward visibility isn’t. This problem is further compounded by the government-mandated anti-whiplash second row head restraints that all new vehicles are required to have. These may indeed help prevent whiplash if you are hit from behind. But they also occlude your view, which may lead to an accident.

On the upside, the QX55 does not come with a driver-distracting massive LCD display and it is one of the few new luxury-brand crossovers that does not have a “digital” dashboard, either. Instead, there’s a pod of analog-style gauges, which have become a kind of luxury now that pretty much everything comes standard with cheap-looking smartphone-style displays.

Otherwise, there’s nothing much different here. That is not to say the QX55 isn’t pleasant or comfortable to be in. The problem is that they all are; more finely, that even non-luxury brand vehicles are as pleasant and comfortable to be in as the luxury-brand ones.

The big difference nowadays is what they each cost.

At The Curb

The QX55 is 186.3 inches long, which is just shy of two inches less-long than the QX50 it’s based on. But the main difference is the roofline of the QX55. And the height of the QX55 vs. that of the QX50.

The QX55 stands 63.8 inches at the roofline; the QX50 stands more than two inches higher (66 inches). That’s the difference that makes the QX55 look less like a crossover and more like something sportier. Of course, sportier usually entails functional compromises and that’s the case here, too.

Headroom in both of the QX55’s two rows is noticeably less than it is in the QX50, which has 41 inches of headroom up front and almost as much headroom (39.1 inches) for those in the second row. The QX55 has 39.9 inches up front and only 36.9 inches in the rear. Backseat passengers six feet tall or more may find they have to duck in order to avoid their heads rubbing up against the headliner in the back of the QX55.

There is also, predictably, a loss of cargo volume. The QX50 has 31.4 cubic feet of space for stuff behind its second row and 65.1 cubic feet of available cargo capacity with the second row seatbacks folded. In the QX55, this drops to 26.9 cubic feet of cargo capacity behind the second row and 54.1 cubic feet of total capacity.

Still, that’s a lot of space for stuff given the size of the QX55 (and the QX50). Both have about the same overall footprint as a compact-sized sedan such as a Honda Civic, which hasn’t got even half as much room for stuff in its trunk – and that’s all the room it’s got.

There are only a few meaningful differences – in terms of luxury amenities – between the base Luxe trim and the more expensive Essential and Sensory trims, the chief one being that the Essential and Sensory both comes standard with the excellent 16 speaker Bose stereo; unfortunately, this unit is not offered as an al la carte option with the base Luxe trim. Which means if you want the good stereo, you have to move up at least one trim to get it.

The Rest

The word is that this will be the final year for the QX55, so if you’re interested in one it is probably a great time to shop for one as dealers are more likely to be willing to deal on a model that’s on the way out.

The Bottom Line

Stylishness almost always comes with a price, functionally as well as financially. How much is looking different worth to you?

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