2025 Infiniti QX60 Review: Style And Smooth Ride, Just Don't Put Your Foot Down

Is the 2025 Infiniti QX60 a risk-taker or playing it safe? Somehow, the luxury three-row SUV manages a foot on both sides of the line. There may be no futuristic electrification here, but Infiniti gambles on some homegrown engine tech to skip what — for many shoppers in the segment — is expected under the hood.

While you'd need eagle eyes to spot the year-on-year changes from the outside, under the sheet metal there's one big difference for this 2025 QX60. Gone is the old 3.5-liter V6 with its 295 horsepower; in its place, Infiniti drops in a smaller, four-cylinder engine. The argument is that, thanks to some cunning variable compression tech, a smaller gas engine can deliver on both power and economy.

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2025 QX60 ownership kicks off at $50,200 (plus $1,350 plus destination) for the Pure FWD trim; adding all-wheel drive is $2,000 more. The Luxe — like the example shown here — starts at $56,800, while Sensory is from $59,100 (both plus destination). The top Autograph trim is $66,150 before destination, and comes with AWD as standard.

It's a good-looking SUV. The new grille is bolder and more sculpted, flanked with complex LED lamps. Infiniti calls it "Digital Piano Key" lighting, and then adds a "kimono fold pattern" to the inside of the clusters. Will anybody get close enough to actually spot them? Probably not, but with the automaker's judicious application of chrome, the whole thing looks premium.

At the side and rear, there are definite hints of Lincoln to my eyes. Infiniti's extra hillock of chrome at the rearmost pillar is a neat touch, working with its counterpart at the floating roofline to visually pinch the tail of the SUV. The result is a three-row vehicle that doesn't look quite as hefty as some of its competitors do; up to 20-inch machine-finished alloy wheels help with those proportions, too.

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Infiniti's Black Edition package — a $1,900 option — gives things a moody makeover. It blacks out the front grill, the roof rails, and the rear emblems, plus gives the wheels a gloss black finish. It also includes an illuminated "Radiant" Infiniti badge on the front, and on the kickplates, plus a projected logo on the ground when you unlock the SUV.

Inside, Infiniti's latest-gen QX60 addresses some of the annoyances of its predecessor. It may not have the quilted leather of the Autograph trim, but this Luxe spec version still had plenty of genuine hide: across the first and second rows, and the steering wheel. Soft-touch materials match visually across the dashboard and down in the center console and the door panels. Though the black upholstery was dark, the power panoramic roof helped lighten things up.

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Luxe trim gets heated and ventilated front seats, plus heated outboard second row seats; Sensory trim and up adds front seat massage. Seven seats are standard — with a split folding second row bench — with a six seat configuration with second row captain's chairs available in the flagship Autograph trim. Unsurprisingly, the third row is snug: with a mere 28 inches of legroom, it's definitely more suited to children than adults. Folding them down to expand the 14.5 cu-ft of trunk space seems like a wise use of resources.

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Rather than vast, dashboard-spanning displays, Infiniti restrains the QX60's infotainment to a 12.3-inch touchscreen perched up high, above a glossy, fingerprint-gathering touch panel for the tri-zone climate control. That does, at least, have physical knobs for volume and temperature. All but the base Pure trim get a 12.3-inch digital driver's display, too.

Infiniti does have a custom theme for its UI, but if you've been in a recent Nissan, then the infotainment will be a familiar thing. There's wireless Apple CarPlay and wired Android Auto; Infiniti puts USB-C and USB-A ports in the center console, with a total of either five or six spread around the cabin, and there's a wireless charging pad. All but the base trim get a 17-speaker Bose audio system; the Sensory and Autograph trims get a handy 120V AC outlet.

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If you needed another reason to skip the base trim, Luxe and up get ProPilot Assist with Navi-link. It's Infiniti's adaptive cruise control with lane-keeping assistance, capable of slowing the QX60 according to upcoming turns. However, ProPilot 2.0 — which supports hands-free driving assistance — sadly isn't available.

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Active safety tech includes forward collision brake-assistance with front pedestrian detection and rear auto-braking with cross-traffic alerts. Pure trim gets blind spot warnings; Luxe and add blind spot intervention, plus lane-departure intervention. Front and rear parking sensors, plus a 360-degree camera, are also limited to Luxe and up.

Under the hood is Infiniti's fiendishly-clever variable compression turbocharged four-cylinder gas engine, replacing the old V6. Dubbed VC-Turbo, the 2.0-liter can dynamically adjust what compression ratio is used, depending on whether power or frugality is the goal. Adjusted on-the-fly — and with no need for the driver to choose — it delivers up to 268 horsepower and 286 lb-ft of torque to either the front or to all the wheels in the SUV's AWD form.

The same sort of numbers in the smaller, two-row Infiniti QX55 were competitive in the segment. Compared to other three-row SUVs, though, the VC-Turbo isn't so compelling when it comes to performance. A Lincoln Aviator, for instance, now packs a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6, good for 400 horses and 415 lb-ft. Even the old, V6 QX60 had more punch than this 2025 version.

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No great surprise, then, that the QX60 feels a little pedestrian from behind the wheel. Driven sedately, it's smooth and perfectly adequate, but push harder — or switch into Sport mode — and things are less convincing. Infiniti does, at least, give it a proper nine-speed automatic transmission, but try to drive fast, and you could mistake it for an easily-confused CVT (I double-checked the spec sheet, just to make sure): loud and never quite feeling eager.

It'd be easier to stomach that, if Infiniti's economy claims bore out in the real world like they do on paper. Officially, the AWD version of the 2025 QX60 is rated for 22 mpg in the city, 27 mpg on the highway, and 24 mpg combined. That's comfortably ahead of the Aviator AWD's 17 mpg city, 25 mpg highway, and 20 mpg combined numbers.

In practice, leaning more toward city driving, I saw 19 mpg on the QX60's display. Better, certainly, than my real-world experience of the 2025 Aviator AWD — which landed at just slightly north of 17 mpg — but not the slam-dunk Infiniti's pitch for the VC-Turbo might leave you expecting. At least you get a decent 6,000 pounds of towing from the QX60.

Tough not to conclude that some electrification might be a more satisfying addition than the variable compression tech, then, and Infiniti parent company Nissan doesn't seem to disagree. It's looking ahead to plug-in hybrids and, though there's nothing specific for Infiniti's product portfolio announced, it's undeniable that adding an electric motor would probably leave this SUV much perkier.

Where the 2024 QX60 Autograph trim struggled to convince us with its dapper-per-dollar balance, the 2025 QX60 Luxe feels like a more compelling prospect. Though not the cheapest trim, the uptick in equipment and general niceties from the base Pure makes the $6,600 delta seem acceptable. The $58,800 (plus destination) of a Luxe AWD feels acceptable versus the $66,150 (plus destination) of the Autograph AWD.

At that point, not only are you in well-equipped Lincoln Aviator territory, but a Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 4MATIC kicks off at $64,350 (plus destination). Your nearest BMW dealership would gladly show you an X5, too, which is also in the same ballpark. Both have more badge cachet and a more rewarding drive experience than the QX60 can muster.

Indeed, the biggest blot on the Infiniti's scorecard is its frustrating powertrain. Though adequate for cruising, where the 2025 QX60's plush ride feels compelling, push any harder and things start to fall apart.

Not everyone demands sporting pretensions from their three-row family transport, of course. And, in well-balanced Luxe form, the QX60's comfortable cabin and solid equipment levels make it a refined place to spend time. A lighter right foot should help avoid the roughness when the inline-four is pushed hard, not to mention stand a better chance of getting you closer to Infiniti's mileage estimates.

At some point, though, you have to ask yourself whether the QX60 is sufficiently distinctive from the 2025 Nissan Pathfinder it shares its platform with. After all, that tops out at $51,810 (plus destination) in flagship Platinum AWD form — where you're getting much the same core tech as the Infiniti — plus it comes in off-road-friendly variants. Cross-shoppers may not find there's as much distance between the two cousins as Infiniti would have you believe.

It doesn't have to be that way. The 2025 Infiniti QX80 is a fine example of how the automaker can distinguish itself from more affordable Nissan models. Infiniti got there by doubling-down on luxury, refinement, and power. If the 2025 QX60 isn't quite so compelling, that's perhaps because not all three of those boxes have been checked off here.