2009 Infiniti M35 Review
Cars.com auto review
Hi, I'm Kelsey Mays for Cars.com. The 2009 Infiniti M might seem old hot for some. It’s
been on the market for a few years now and there are flash here in New York competitors
from both Europe and Asia. Still the M is a perennial Cars.com favorite. Why is that?
Well, let’s check it out.
Some call the rear end a little bit too blocky but we still think it looks okay. There's kind
of a nice short deck lid. If you think it’s too conservative think about what a real
extraverted design like BMW 5 Series looks like a few years after it comes on the market.
Maybe conservative is a good thing.
Cabin quality is pretty much what you should expect for a $50,000.00 car. Dash board
materials are soft to touch. They have a nice low glass finish to them. This is real wood
and metal trim up and down the dash. Our car does have the optional 14 speaker Bose
stereo system. It puts little speakers up here next to your head rest in fact. It sounds pretty
good. Unfortunately they also put a giant DVD audio player that takes up half the center
console. There's an iPod connector. Frankly, that’s the only thing I use. This just takes up
a lot of space.
Central controls, great example of the cars practicality. The screen here doesn’t look
terrific the graphics are few years behind the times but the functionality is hard to argue
with. You can program the same six stations here in your preset list to have AM, FM and
Satellite Radio stations. You don’t have to dance around three different menus to get your
six favorites. If you get the navigation system you go to the map here, there are plenty of
short cookies. It has got a touch screen if you want to use that. There's convenient back
buttons here. There is physical zoom in and zoom out buttons so that you can go in and
out as you see fit without having to access another map menu.
The M35 this year gets a horsepower increase to 303 horsepower top of it over last year’s
135 which had about 275 horsepower. It should be playing power for most people. There
is plenty of acceleration, highway passing power is excellent. The five speed automatic
transmission in our test car has really good response. It never kind of leaves you coming
out of a corner wondering whether you need a down shift. There's sport mode this year
which is even more responsive. I don’t really think it’s necessary but see what you like
with it. There is a seven speed automatic now in the real road drive M35. All the others
got the five speed unit.
If you want more power you can always get the M45. I've driven it before. It has got
significantly more torque which is what you really feel when you're going from the
stoplight gas mileage in that car of course and not very good. So interior quality and
driving dynamics are certainly solid, then there’s also a very practical choice safety
reliability ratings have been exemplary. That’s not something we can say for every car in
this league.
In fact the M might just be the luxury car for these difficult economic times because even
when you're shopping at $50,000.00 Sedan you still need to be very careful about where
you spend your money. The M might just be the best choice out there today.
For more car related news go to Cars.com or our blog KickingTires.net
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