Life Changes

A new lady in my life, who became my wife,  also gave us the opportunity to combine our assets & decide to move to BC. As we planned to drive across the continent with enough possessions to last us a couple of months in the apartment we had rented in lovely Victoria, I told myself (& my most agreeable wife) that we ought to have a new car. The Subaru had its faults. I found the foot well rather cramped for my size 10 feet, & there was something odd about the algorithms upon which the automatic transmission was based - even going up the smallest hill the car changed down & then up again. The change was fairly smooth, but once noticed, became something of which I was always aware. The "symmetrical" all-wheel-drive was very effective in snow, however it did have a slight "drag" upon fuel consumption, being always on. As well, there was considerable anxiety when we had to replace a torn tire in S. Carolina, because that symmetry required all wheels to be of the same diameter, meaning that if a tire wore down, all 4 had to be replaced because you couldn't have mismatched tire circumferences, or else risk excessive wear to the drive train.

A new search was begun, & we were in no hurry. As it had been over six years & as we had a rental property to maintain we thought that leasing would be a tax advantage, but that was not a factor in the search. But it did mean that perhaps we could aspire to move up a bit in the automotive world.
I wrote comparative lists. Planned to drive as many as I could. Made phone calls to arrange those tests & realised we'd have to drive a bit out of town. This time we included  Mercedes GLK,  BMW X3, Volvo XC 60 & Lexus RX350 as well as the Audi Q5. Infiniti, which is the "luxury" brand of Nissan.
As usual I was leaning towards rear-wheel-drive, which brought a previously unconsidered make into the game - I'd seen the racy-looking FX35 around, & had even, out of curiosity some 5 years earlier, asked a driver of one for his opinion of his car. He was very enthusiastic & that opinion must have stuck. But the price was out of the question at that time. Acura had already been ruled out - MDX was too big, the smaller one -RDX was just a tarted up CRV I thought, as seemed to be all Lexus's too. But Infiniti was of a different calibre I thought, being based on their own platform, shared just by the sports cars  - the exotic GT-R & the slightly more mundane 350Z. Soon, though, we had a short list, the Audi Q5 & the Infiniti EX. As you'll see, it did have a much richer & more pleasing interior than the Audi.

Here's the interior of the 2013 Q5 above. And, despite Audi's vaunted Quattro drive, I didn't like it. Didn't like the club-like gear lever nor the switch on the dash for turning on the headlights. We thought the materials in the lower priced (below $60K) models were a bit VW like. But this was such fun. We were treated very well at these posh dealerships - given good quality coffee & not hurried. Sat in well upholstered furniture to discuss the merits of each car. And began to lean towards the Infiniti EX. It really did have a lovely interior with rich, tan leather surrounded by maple wood highlights. But there was a problem. I thought the EX rather odd on the outside, & it was a little smaller inside than the Q5 despite having the same wheelbase & overall length. I didn't think the EX would have as much resale value as the always-well-spoken-of Q5. And eventually came to the very sexist conclusion that the EX was...a girl's car!  Unlike the one shown above right.
We drove the BMW X3, in base form, & were not very impressed, sad to say. Vinyl seats were likely to be very hot, the gear lever looked like the end of a walking stick, & the stop-start effect at traffic lights was irritating (although it could be turned off). But when we added up the costs of reasonable extras, we concluded there were better deals out there!

We went back to the Infiniti dealership - some distance away - for a second look. And while mulling it over, just happened to look over at another model in the showroom, that very expensive FX 37. See above. Just to pass the time, I went over & sat in it...and...was in love, again!