2019 Infiniti QX60

2019 is a carry-over powertrain year in the L50 generation — the changes were a revised grade walk and standardized driver aids, not mechanicals — so the direct-injected 3.5-liter V6 introduced with the 2016.5/2017 refresh continues unchanged at 295 hp.

270 lb-ft arriving at 4,800 rpm is characteristic of a large naturally aspirated V6 — adequate with three rows loaded, but without the low-rpm shove that turbocharged rivals in this class deliver from just off idle.

7.3 seconds is mid-pack for a roughly 4,400–4,500-lb three-row luxury crossover — enough to merge and pass without strain — but the CVT's rev-first delivery makes it feel less brisk than the stopwatch reports.

With no turbo to spool and no hybrid handoffs to manage, the VQ35DD is smooth and quiet in ordinary driving; the deduction is that both peaks sit high in the rev range, so the engine gets vocal and coarse under load — exactly where a serenity-marketed luxury SUV should stay hushed.

The Xtronic CVT is one of the better examples of the type and simulates stepped ratios well enough that most drivers never object, but it remains a CVT in a class where 8- and 9-speed automatics are the norm, and hard throttle brings elastic response and sustained drone.

5,000 lbs is the top of what a unibody, transverse-engine three-row offers and covers a small boat or a pair of jet skis — a real advantage over the 3,500-lb ratings common among crossover rivals, and level with the Acura MDX.

The 2019 grade walk makes AWD an explicit model on both trim levels (PURE AWD and LUXE AWD), so any buyer can order it, but it is still a paid step up rather than standard equipment and the hardware is a basic on-demand front-biased system — a 50:50 lock and a Snow drive mode, with 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, with a 15.5-degree breakover angle that would ground it on anything more than a rutted trailhead; there is no off-road trim, no skid plating, no locking differential and no low range anywhere in the 2019 range, and Snow mode is a traction-management setting rather than hardware.

There is exactly one powertrain — 3.5L V6 and CVT — with only the driven axles left to choose; the supercharged 2.5-liter QX60 Hybrid was dropped after 2017 and 2019 brought nothing turbocharged or electrified in its place, so the year's 'significant enhancements' are all trim and safety content.

22 MPG combined is ordinary for a 4,400-lb three-row on a naturally aspirated V6, and with the hybrid gone from the lineup after 2017 there is nothing above it in the 2019 range to reach for.

19 MPG in traffic is the weakest part of the QX60's economy picture — a heavy three-row with a large-displacement V6, no cylinder deactivation and no electric assist to cover stop-and-go work.

The CVT's ability to hold low cruising revs makes the highway the QX60's best case, but 26 MPG still trails the turbo-four and hybrid three-rows leading this class.

A generous 19.5-gallon tank rescues what mediocre economy would otherwise cost, putting roughly 429 miles between fills — respectable for family road-trip duty, even though every one of those gallons is meant to be premium.

The EPA's annual estimate is penalized twice over — 22 MPG combined priced against premium gasoline — leaving the QX60 near the expensive end of the gas SUV field to keep fueled.

Premium 91 AKI is recommended rather than required — the EPA classifies the car as 'premium recommended' and prices its running costs accordingly — but the 2019 owner's manual permits 87 AKI regular only as a temporary substitute, with instructions to fill partially and top up with premium as soon as possible, so the escape valve is narrower than a plain 'regular acceptable' rating.

NHTSA awards the 2019 QX60 the full five stars overall in both drive configurations; the 4-star frontal result (driver 4, passenger 5) and the 4-star rollover rating are the components that hold it back from a clean sweep.

Five of six crashworthiness tests come back Good with the passenger-side small overlap at Acceptable, and the Top Safety Pick that IIHS eventually granted applies only to cars built after May 2019 with the revised LED headlights — so most of the model year's production was never award-eligible, on a structure that dates to the 2013 L50 launch.

2019 is the year Infiniti made Forward Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Predictive Forward Collision Warning and Blind Spot Warning standard on every grade — a real step up — but adaptive cruise, any lane-departure system and rear cross-traffic protection remain package-only, and every option package is LUXE-exclusive, so a PURE buyer cannot add them at any price.

IIHS rates the standard front crash prevention system Superior — the top result — for avoiding collisions in both the 12 and 25 mph track tests, and pedestrian detection is built into the standard system, but IIHS published no vehicle-to-pedestrian rating for this generation, so the day and night pedestrian performance that would justify an 80+ score is unverified.

Blind Spot Warning being standard on every 2019 grade is ahead of several rivals, but the active half — Blind Spot Intervention's corrective braking — and Backup Collision Intervention, which is what covers rear cross traffic and can brake for it, are both package-only and therefore unavailable on PURE entirely; there is no safe-exit alert for rear passengers.

There is no lane centering of any kind on the 2019 QX60; the ceiling is Lane Departure Warning with Lane Departure Prevention, which nudges the car back using selective braking rather than steering, and for 2019 that pairing lives only in the new ProASSIST Package — ProACTIVE does not include it, and neither package is offered on PURE.

Intelligent Cruise Control is the genuinely capable full-speed-range type with stop-and-go, and Distance Control Assist adds accelerator-pedal feedback in traffic, but reaching it costs $4,850 of stacked packages on a LUXE and is impossible on a PURE — and with no lane centering to pair it with there is no highway assist mode of the kind rivals already offered in 2019.

No hands-free highway system is offered at any price — the 2019 QX60 does not even have hands-on lane centering, which is the prerequisite technology.

This is the worst part of the 2019 car: the earliest builds carry HID projectors IIHS rates Poor for excessive glare, the bulk of the model year gets LED units rated Marginal, and only a LUXE built after May 2019 with the ProASSIST Package's High Beam Assist reaches Acceptable — no 2019 QX60 configuration is ever rated Good.

The tall, deep greenhouse and low beltline give a genuinely good forward and side view for a three-row, but the signature crescent-cut D-pillar thickens the over-the-shoulder view, and the Around View Monitor that would compensate is buried in the LUXE-only Essential Package — so most of the range relies on a plain reversing camera with no front or rear sonar.

Real family engineering — the sliding second row moves forward for third-row access with a child seat still installed, the third row takes a forward-facing convertible cleanly, and Rear Door Alert is standard — but the second-row lower anchors are buried high in the cushion and take effort, the inboard one needs extra work, and the third row has no lower anchors at all.

Seven seats across three rows is the only configuration offered on any 2019 QX60; the revised grade walk that year added PURE and LUXE trims and an AWD model of each, but no seating choice.

40.7 inches is generous for a mid-size crossover — the L50's tall, upright greenhouse pays off up front — and INFINITI publishes only one figure because the sliding moonroof is standard on every 2019 grade.

42.2 inches is mid-pack for the segment — adequate for tall drivers 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.

38.2 inches in row two is comfortable for adults, and this is the volume figure because the second/third-row panoramic moonroof that costs 0.9 inch lives inside the $3,500 Sensory Package on LUXE only.

41.7 inches is near the top of what any three-row crossover offers and is the L50 QX60's single best measurement — the multi-mode bench slides right back when the third row is empty, and the second-generation car gives up nearly four inches of it.

Access is the class benchmark — the multi-mode bench slides and tilts forward with a child seat still strapped in — and row three reclines, but 30.8 inches of legroom on a low, flat cushion puts adults knees-up, and reviewers are unanimous that it is a children's space.

40.5 cubic feet is the QX60's weakest dimension — the elongated Murano platform buys passenger room at the cost of a shallow, short load bay — and with all seven seats up the 16 cubic feet behind row three barely swallows a stroller and a few soft bags.

76.2 cubic feet fully folded is average for the class — usable, but the 60/40 and 50/50 backrests drop onto a high floor that is not quite flat, and rivals on dedicated three-row platforms clear 80-plus.

The everyday count is better than the class norm of the day — eight cup holders, six bottle holders, a deep console bin with 12-volt outlet, dual seatback map pockets and six USB charging points spread two per row — but nothing here is inventive: no wireless charging pad, no underfloor bin, and the household 120-volt outlet is an option.

Wide, well-padded heated front chairs and the theater-style raised second row are what reviewers single out about this car, but 2019's new PURE grade drops to leatherette seating surfaces, the driver gets only eight-way power with manual lumbar on PURE, and ventilated fronts sit inside the $3,500 Sensory Package on LUXE.

Dual-Flow Path twin-tube dampers and a long-travel tune absorb broken pavement well on the standard 18-inch all-seasons, and Consumer Guide rates the ride a strength, but the calibration is genuinely under-damped — body roll and float are the recurring complaint — and Consumer Guide flags that the optional 20s take a real toll.

Acoustic laminated windshield and front side glass, three liquid-filled engine mounts and a 0.33 drag coefficient make this a hushed highway cruiser at a cruise, but the intrusion is the powertrain itself: with peak torque at 4,800 rpm the CVT holds high revs on a merge, and Autoblog judged the engine flatly too coarse for a luxury vehicle.

Tri-zone automatic climate control, heated front seats, rear floor vents and a power moonroof are standard on every 2019 QX60, and the LUXE grade adds a heated steering wheel and remote engine start as standard equipment — rich provisioning for the model year; only ventilated fronts, heated outboard second-row seats and the Plasmacluster purifier are pushed into an option package.

2019 is the year INFINITI split the single-grade QX60 into PURE and LUXE, and the entry PURE front-drive model lists at $44,250 plus the $995 destination and handling charge — one of the cheapest ways into a genuine seven-seat luxury crossover that year, level with the Acura MDX and roughly $10,000 under a comparably sized Audi Q7 or Volvo XC90.

LUXE was the volume grade in the QX60's first two-grade year, and almost nobody took one without the $2,900 Essential Package — that is the only box that adds real leather, INFINITI InTouch navigation and the Around View Monitor, none of which is available otherwise at any price. Scored with Intelligent AWD to match the drivetrain used throughout this scorecard: $47,850 + $995 destination + $2,900.

Under the badge this is a Nissan Pathfinder — VQ35DD V6, JATCO Xtronic CVT, Nissan parts and Nissan labor rates — so it services far more cheaply than the German or Volvo three-rows, which is exactly the arithmetic that won the 2019 QX60 Kelley Blue Book's 5-Year Cost to Own award for the segment. The figure sits above the published nameplate averages for two reasons specific to a 2019 car: INFINITI included no scheduled maintenance whatsoever that year, so the owner pays from the first oil change on premium fuel, and at typical mileage the 4-year/60,000-mile basic warranty expires inside the five-year window with the CVT — the weakest link on this platform — then out of cover.

This is what sinks the category, and for a 2019 car it is measured rather than projected — the five-year mark fell in 2024, when a 2019 QX60 was worth roughly $18,500 against a ~$51,700 sticker. INFINITI's weak brand equity is the driver: the same money in an Acura MDX or Lexus RX held ten to fifteen points more of its value over the same span, and the luxury midsize class average is about 45% retained. It lands between the 2018 car and the 2020 car for a straightforward reason — 2019 was still a normal selling year, without the run-out discounting that reset what a 2020 was worth on day one.

INFINITI's new-vehicle limited warranty ran four years or 60,000 miles in 2019 — 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 3.5-liter 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 2019 shopper could get from Hyundai, Kia or Genesis, and short of what the CVT's reliability record arguably warranted.

A 2019 QX60 came with no included scheduled maintenance at all — INFINITI Premium Care, which covers three years of oil changes, rotations and inspections, did not arrive until the 2023 model year — so this owner pays for the first service and every one after it, on premium fuel at 7,500-mile intervals. What is included is roadside-and-trials: 24-hour roadside assistance and trip-interruption benefits for 48 months with no mileage cap, one complimentary year of INFINITI Connection and Connection Plus telematics, and, on Essential-equipped cars, six months of InTouch Services plus a four-year SiriusXM Traffic and Travel Link trial. A genuinely long roadside term attached to nothing else is the definition of the middle band rather than the top of it.

$51,745 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (36% retained, or about $18,628) leaves about $33,117 in depreciation. Add the projected $4,550 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $37,667 in total.

Both major predictors put the 2019 QX60 slightly on the good side of average — J.D. Power's 3.5/5 predicted-reliability rating and Consumer Reports' verdict that it beats its model-year peers — which is what a seventh-year build of a design frozen in 2013 should deliver. It is held out of the 80+ band because neither prediction rests on much: CR reports 'No Detailed Data Available' by trouble spot for insufficient sample size, and the owner-side data that does exist (RepairPal's 0.7 shop visits per year, a timing-chain-noise pattern) describes a car visited often but rarely stranded.

The initial-quality study that surveys this exact model year puts Infiniti 19th of 32 brands and below the industry average, behind not only Lexus and Cadillac but mainstream Nissan itself — a poor showing for a brand charging a luxury premium. The three-year dependability study covering 2019 cars names five premium leaders and Infiniti is not among them, and Consumer Reports carries too few Infinitis to rank the brand at all, so there is no third opinion to break the tie. Mid-pack, not bottom-third: RepairPal's owner-cost data still grades the brand 'above average'.

Two recalls is unremarkable in count but not in character: the ABS actuator campaign is a fire risk AND a second attempt, re-recalling cars that a prior campaign had either left unrepaired or inspected and cleared, which means the first remedy did not hold. Alongside it sits the unrecalled half of the record — the CVT driveability pattern that Nissan addressed through service bulletins rather than a campaign, including TSBs for metal debris contaminating the transmission cooling circuit, leaving the cost with owners.

The 3.5-liter VQ V6 has a strong high-mileage reputation, but everything specific to 2019 cuts the other way and this item measures the whole driveline. The JATCO Xtronic CVT behind it is the most litigated transmission in the US market, and 2019 falls on the wrong side of both boundaries: too new for the $277.7M settlement that bought 2015–18 owners a warranty extension and repair reimbursement, and named in the follow-on class action alleging the identical defect in 2019–2021 cars, on which Nissan issued no recall and paid nothing. Nissan's own verdict is the most telling evidence — it abandoned the CVT for a nine-speed torque-converter automatic in the 2022 redesign.

Reviewers split on this cabin, and the split is itself the finding: the leather and wood on LUXE trims genuinely read as luxury and clearly out-dress the Pathfinder, but the architecture underneath dates to 2013 and the dashboard — the panel a luxury buyer looks at most — is hard plastic. That is where the shared-platform economics show, and it costs the car the upper band its price implies.

Assembly is sound — a mature design in its seventh year on the Smyrna line, praised for a quiet cabin and with no pattern of rattle or misalignment complaints in the owner record. It sits at the middle of the band rather than above it because the initial-quality study covering this exact model year puts Infiniti below the industry average and behind mainstream Nissan, which is precisely the 90-day build-quality signal this item measures.

Roughly 200 US stores is a thin footprint for a luxury brand — far behind Lexus, Acura, BMW and Mercedes-Benz — and it has been contracting through this car's entire service life rather than growing, so an owner outside a metro area faces a real drive to the nearest franchise. Service reputation itself is adequate rather than poor, and for a 2019 car now well out of warranty the practical mitigation is significant: the mechanical hardware is Nissan, so any competent independent shop can work on it.

This is the car's strongest reliability-adjacent trait and it follows directly from the Pathfinder underneath it: platform, V6 and CVT are all high-volume Nissan hardware off the same assembly 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. It stops short of the top band because a CVT replacement, if it comes, is a four-figure job on an out-of-warranty 2019, and Infiniti-specific trim and electronics remain dealer-sourced.

Eight inches was already small for a luxury three-row in 2019 and INFINITI offered no upgrade at any price — the second-generation QX60 jumped to 12.3 inches three model years later.

The hardware layout ages better than the software — a rotary INFINITI Controller, real climate knobs and illuminated wheel switches mean nothing is buried, and Consumer Guide rates the controls a strength — but the InTouch system itself is 2013-vintage, still built around an AM/FM/CD head unit with auxiliary A/V jacks, and navigation is not even orderable on a PURE.

Neither Apple CarPlay nor Android Auto is offered in any form on the 2019 QX60 — not wireless, not wired, not in any of the seven option packages — which in a luxury three-row that year is a hole the mainstream competition had already filled.

The InTouch navigation is a competent command-word system with lane guidance, 3D building graphics and one-shot voice destination entry, but it is not natural-language, and it is unavailable at any price on a PURE — reaching it costs the $2,900 Essential Package on a LUXE, and with no phone projection as a fallback the base car has no maps at all.

2019 is a strong audio year for the car: the Bose 13-speaker Premium system is standard equipment on both LUXE grades rather than an option, and a 15-speaker Bose Cabin Surround with 5.1 decoding sits above it — the deduction is the plain six-speaker AM/FM/CD unit the PURE ships with.

There is no digital cluster on any 2019 QX60 — the gauges are analog Fine Vision electroluminescent dials with a small INFINITI Intelligent-View trip display between them, and no configurable full-digital display is offered at any trim or price.

There is no over-the-air update capability of any kind on the 2019 QX60 — no vehicle software updates, no infotainment firmware pushes; map updates are dealer- or disc-based, and INFINITI's own connected platform for this car is a telematics service rather than an update channel.

InTouch Services covers the core remote set — lock/unlock, vehicle locate, alerts and remote start — but the whole connected layer is optional, riding inside the $2,900 Essential Package on LUXE only, comes with just six months of access, and the platform's reliability drew consistent owner complaints before INFINITI wound it down after 2019.

Port count is genuinely good for 2019 and is the one connectivity area where the QX60 beats its own reputation — six USB charging points spread two per row plus a data USB and three 12-volt outlets — but every port is USB-A at charging-only rates, there is no wireless charging pad at any price, and the 120-volt household outlet is an option.

The everyday keyless set is standard on both grades — Intelligent Key with illuminated push-button ignition, remote keyless entry that also operates the windows, liftgate and fuel door, and a power rear liftgate — and LUXE adds remote engine start as standard; what is missing is any phone-as-key, with the hands-free Motion-Activated Liftgate confined to the LUXE-only Sensory Package.

A RearView Monitor is standard on every 2019 QX60, but everything beyond it is package-gated on the LUXE: the Around View Monitor with Moving Object Detection and the front and rear sonar system both live in the $2,900 Essential Package, there is no automated parking at any price, and a PURE buyer cannot order a surround view or even parking sensors.

No head-up display is offered on the 2019 QX60 at any grade or in any of the seven option packages — the L50 generation never had one.

Family logistics are what this car was engineered around: the multi-mode second-row bench slides and tilts forward for third-row access with a child seat still strapped in, the door openings are wide and the step-in is low, and Rear Door Alert is standard on every grade — the deduction is second-row lower anchors that are buried in the seat bight and 16 cubic feet behind row three for the stroller.

2019 is the year the family safety case finally holds up on the cheap trim — Forward Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Predictive Forward Collision Warning and Blind Spot Warning became standard on every grade, on top of a five-star NHTSA overall — but the headlights IIHS rated Poor or Marginal for most of the model year, and lane-departure and rear cross-traffic protection still cost packages a family buyer would not reach.

Three-row climate coverage is a genuine strength — tri-zone automatic control with rear floor vents under both front rows as standard — and a dual-screen rear entertainment system with HDMI and wireless headphones is available, but the entertainment costs $2,150 on top of a required package, and 16 cubic feet behind row three means a full seven-up trip needs a roof box.

In ordinary traffic this is an easy car — the naturally aspirated V6 and Xtronic CVT have no turbo lag or shift shock to manage, the steering is light at parking speeds, the seating position is high and the controls are conventional knobs and a rotary dial — but the same soft tune floats over expansion joints and the steering that reviewers call darty on the highway adds fatigue rather than removing it.

This is the QX60's worst commuting number and it is penalized twice — 22 MPG combined from a 4,400-lb three-row with no cylinder deactivation or electric assist, priced against premium fuel, giving an EPA annual estimate around $3,450 at 15,000 miles.

A 200.6-inch, 77.2-inch-wide body turning in 38.8 feet is average for a three-row rather than nimble, and the camera help that would compensate is the wrong way round for the volume buyer: only a RearView Monitor is standard, while the Around View Monitor and parking sonar require a $2,900 package on the LUXE and cannot be had on a PURE at all.

A 5,000-lb tow rating is the top of what a transverse-engine unibody crossover offers and beats the 3,500 lbs common in the class, but there is no bed, the 500-lb tongue-weight limit and roughly 1,400 lbs of payload against a 5,986-lb GVWR cap what it can carry, and a CVT is the least reassuring transmission in the segment for sustained load.

The VQ-family V6 has a long service record and the Murano/Pathfinder platform underneath is high-volume, but nothing else here reads as work-tough: the Xtronic CVT is the component with the segment's weakest reputation under sustained load and heat, the interior is leatherette and wood rather than wipe-down surfaces, and there is no fleet or commercial version of this vehicle.

Work provisions amount to the basics and a short accessory list — a $360 cargo package, splash guards, and roof rails with optional crossbars — while the household 120-volt outlet that would run a tool is an option on the LUXE, the load floor is carpeted rather than washable, and there is no tie-down or upfit ecosystem behind this vehicle.

A 19.5-gallon tank against 22 MPG combined puts roughly 429 miles between fills, the seats and soft suspension suit a long day, and acoustic front glass keeps the cabin hushed at a cruise — but the full-speed-range Intelligent Cruise Control that would cut highway fatigue is buried behind $4,850 of stacked LUXE packages, there is no lane centering at any price, and the engine gets coarse on a long grade.

Intelligent AWD is orderable on both grades and there is a snow mode, the 5,000-lb rating tows a pair of jet skis and roof rails with crossbars carry the bikes — but 6.5 inches of ground clearance, a 15.5-degree breakover angle, all-season tires and no skid plating or locking differential mean the pavement ends where the gravel road gets rutted.

Both rear rows split-fold (60/40 and 50/50) to a genuinely useful 76.2 cubic feet and the second row also slides to trade legroom for load length, with roof rails and a hitch available — but the folded floor is high and not quite flat, and the 16 cubic feet behind a raised third row is the constraint that actually bites on a seven-up trip.

The QX60 is secure and predictable but makes no attempt at agility: the soft long-travel tune that earns it comfort points produces pronounced body roll and early understeer, and only the option-package Active Trace Control adds any cornering intervention.

Steering is the most consistently criticized part of driving this car — speed-sensitive assist that reviewers describe as unnaturally light and devoid of feedback in corners, yet oddly heavy at parking speeds and darty enough at highway pace to need constant correction.

Vented discs at all four corners with ABS, Brake Assist and EBD stop a 4,400–4,565-lb crossover adequately and no reviewer flags fade or long distances, but the pedal is tuned soft to match the ride and there is no instrumented 2019 result to point to.

With no turbo to spool, no hybrid handoff and no stepped upshifts, the VQ35DD and Xtronic CVT are genuinely seamless in ordinary driving and among the better CVT calibrations on sale; the deduction is the rev-first response under hard throttle, where the engine note runs ahead of the actual acceleration.

At a steady cruise the V6 is distant and the acoustic front glass does its job, but this is the year reviewers lost patience with it under load: with peak torque at 4,800 rpm the CVT parks the engine high on the tachometer on every merge, and the VQ's noise there is coarse rather than luxurious.

38.8 feet is mid-pack for a mid-size three-row — a 114.2-inch wheelbase and 2.9 turns lock-to-lock make U-turns a two-attempt affair in a tight lot, though it is no worse than the class norm.

The command driving position, low 18.2-inch step-in, standard power tilt-and-telescoping column and eight-way power seat suit a wide range of drivers, and the control layout is conventional in the best sense — real climate knobs, a rotary controller, illuminated wheel switches — with the deductions being manual lumbar on PURE and the thick crescent D-pillar over the shoulder.

Nothing about the 2019 QX60 invites the long way home — a CVT that swells rather than shifts, numb steering, heavy body roll and a seventh-year-old chassis add up to a competent appliance, and the harshest 2019 review headline for it was simply 'Past its prime'.

2019 is the year the driver-assistance story finally got respectable: Forward Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Blind Spot Warning and Predictive Forward Collision Warning all became standard on every grade, where in 2018 they had been $1,850 of optional package content. On top of that a $45,245 PURE carries tri-zone automatic climate, a power moonroof, power liftgate, heated 8-way power front seats, Rear Door Alert, three rows with a sliding second row and seven USB ports. The technology side still lags badly: PURE seating is leatherette rather than the leather the 2018 single-grade car had standard, leather, navigation and the Around View Monitor all sit behind the $2,900 Essential Package, adaptive cruise and lane-departure aids need ProASSIST on top of that, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are unavailable at any price on the old InTouch head unit.

On the fundamentals the 2019 car delivers: real seven-passenger three-row space with a sliding second row, 295 horsepower, a 5,000-lb tow rating and a full standard AEB/blind-spot suite for $45,245 delivered — level with an Acura MDX and roughly $10,000 under a comparable Volvo XC90 or Audi Q7 — and KBB's segment win for 5-Year Cost to Own says the running costs backed the sticker up. The ceiling is that the money buys comfort rather than capability or content: one naturally aspirated V6 and a CVT with no hybrid or turbo alternative after the hybrid was dropped for 2018, no CarPlay, and $4,850 of packages before a LUXE has navigation and adaptive cruise. The yardstick also got harder during the model year, as the 2020 Telluride and Palisade arrived in mid-2019 with more equipment for roughly $10,000 less.

2019 is the broadest the first-generation QX60 lineup ever got. INFINITI split the previous single-grade car into PURE and LUXE, each front-drive or with Intelligent AWD, and hung seven equipment packages off them — one more than any other year of the generation, including the new range-topping LIMITED at $5,000 — which stretches the ladder from $45,245 to nearly $60,000 with real granularity in between. What limits it is depth and chaining: one engine, one transmission, and packages that lock together, with ProASSIST, ProACTIVE, Theater and the 20-inch wheels all requiring Essential, Sensory requiring Essential and having to be ordered with ProACTIVE, and LIMITED requiring four other packages first — so a buyer cannot simply pick the one feature they want.

43,162 US deliveries in 2019 is the QX60's second-best year ever and only 8.9% off the 2018 peak — genuinely strong market acceptance for the seventh model year of a generation, and enough to make it comfortably INFINITI's best-selling model and a real competitor to the Acura MDX. The trajectory is what keeps it out of the top band: it is a decline rather than a rise, and it was achieved while the brand around it fell 21%, with the collapse to 22,879 in 2020 and 5,830 in 2021 immediately ahead.

2019 is the year INFINITI's US slide became undeniable — 117,708 deliveries against 149,280 in 2018, more than a fifth gone, with the QX50's relaunch failing to hold and the Q70 and QX30 heading for the axe — and the used market prices that reputation straight into the QX60, which keeps roughly 36% of its sticker over five years against about 45% for the luxury midsize SUV class and sits in KBB's worst quartile of 2019 SUVs for depreciation. The offsetting evidence is that the badge still carried genuine luxury credibility with the buyers it had, and the QX60 in particular was liked by its owners rather than merely tolerated.

Scored on buyer benefit, this is the QX60's strongest card in the category. A brand losing a fifth of its volume discounted its bestseller hard all year: documented 2019 transactions closed 18–21% below sticker with stackable factory cash, loyalty money and VPP pricing on top of manufacturer lease support, and the QX60 was a permanent fixture on lease-deal roundups. It sits just below the 2020 car only because that year's discounting was distress-level run-out pricing; in 2019 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.

2019 is the seventh model year of the L50 generation that launched as the JX35 for 2013 on an elongated Nissan Murano platform, with its only significant facelift back in 2016 — an old car by any measure, and one whose ground-up L51 replacement was three years out. It scores above the near-terminal 2020 car because 2019 is a genuine content-change year rather than a carry-over: new PURE and LUXE grades, the ADAS suite made standard, the new ProASSIST and LIMITED packages, revised headlights during the run and three new colors. But none of that touches the architecture, and the clearest measure of how far behind it had fallen is that the platform could not take the next-generation InTouch system, leaving CarPlay and Android Auto unavailable at any price in a $45,000–$52,000 vehicle.

2019 is the best-received year of the first generation, and the reason is the safety file: the revised headlights fitted from May 2019 production finally earned the QX60 an IIHS Top Safety Pick, the award it had missed for 2018 on Poor-rated headlights, alongside a five-star NHTSA overall rating. Aggregate scoring jumped with it — U.S. News moved the car from 7.4 and 14th in class for 2018 to 7.9 and 7th for 2019 — and Kelley Blue Book named it the 5-Year Cost to Own winner for luxury mid-size SUVs. Driving-focused reviewers were unmoved: vague steering, body roll and understeer, a dated infotainment system with no CarPlay, and no comparison-test wins, 10Best or NACTOY recognition anywhere in the year.