Last week, we promised that this interview was on it’s way, and 417 Infiniti delivers on this promise.  This here is the best, most targeted and comprehensive information about the new 2013 Infiniti JX35 from our very own Paul Giacomin, Dealer Principal at 417 Infiniti Nissan.  He was kind enough to take copious notes on his test drive and visit, and made the time to sit down for an interview to let you, our valued Infiniti customers, in on some very exclusive information about the new Infiniti JX, launching very soon.

We’ll get right to it.  Paul’s demeanour is visibly enthusiastic as he discusses these features – he clearly had a great time on the JX test drive.

James Bearzatto: Good morning Paul, how was the trip?

Paul Giacomin:  It was excellent, thanks for asking.

James: Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Paul:  Absolutely.  It was an exclusive trip for the the 29 Infiniti Dealers in Canada where we got to not only SEE the JX; of course others have seen the JX at it’s reveal and at Auto shows previously, but as dealers we actually got the opportunity to test drive the 2013 Infiniti JX and received specific information and demonstration about how it’ll operate.  So what I’ll be talking about today is a sort of comparison, because that’s what they took us though – a comparison of our new JX against the Acura 7-seat offering, and the Audi.

James: Oh, neat.  So they had those vehicles there for contrast?

Paul:  Yes, correct.  You have to figure that a customer interested in this segment, is interested specifically because of the seven passenger functionality.  That being the case, we first noticed that with some of our competitors, accessing the rear seat WAS inevitably a problem, getting into and out of it in a variety of circumstance.  The next issue, then, of course, is once you ARE back there – could you sit there comfortably?

James: Yeah, makes sense.  Okay, so how do we differ?

Paul:  It was incredible.  Getting into the JX naturally was a breeze, and it was absolutely incredible to see how much space you had back there once you were in.  The innovation here was amazing.  Like, to get into the 3rd row, you didn’t even need to take out the child seat installed in the second row bench – the seat is designed to fold in such a way that it folds with the seat, you can slide right in behind, no problem.

James: How did some of the competition do with a child seat?

Paul:  Well, not so well.  Typically, one installs the child seat on the passenger side of the vehicle, in the 2nd row.  In one of the competitor’s vehicles, and if the seat was in that position, you couldn’t get in that same side at all – that was the side that was intended to flip down for easy access to the 3rd row.  You would have to actually go all the way around the vehicle, pull the other seat as forward and down as it’ll go, and THEN crawl over the seat in an unnatural way.  It was crazy how they had it set up.

James:  Okay, so you’re back there, and you got in easily – how comfy is it?

Paul:  James, I’m over 6′, 215lbs.  For one of the test drives, I sat in the back there.  And I had ample legroom, ample headroom – it was spacious.

James: You could sit in the back there for, say, two hours?  Still would be comfy?

Paul:  Oh for sure.  For sure!  The headrest wasn’t one of those chinsy little things, it was a proper supportive headrest – it was all super comfortable, lots of legroom.  And another thing, that middle bench actually moves-

James: Yeah, it’s got that track it can slide around on, eh?

Paul:  Yeah, and the thing about that track, is as you were accessing or getting out of the vehicle, the track it slides on is actually recessed into the floor, so you don’t catch your feet on it or anything like that, it’s seamless.  One of the competitors had that track sticking right up and easily caught shoes on it as we were getting in and out of the vehicles.

James:  That’s actually cool, it’s a slick innovation.  Little things make the difference.

Paul:  So, for the back seat – access to the rear was simply, it was from both sides.  Lifting and operating the levers to get in there was so easy, and adults can sit back there comfortably.  Now, I will tell ya – I sat in one that DIDN’T have the extra sunroof – tons of headroom, just tons.  The one that HAD the second sunroof though-

James:  Because of the extra tracks and such, it felt a little close?

Paul:  Yes, limited my headspace, no question about it.  The customer should know that.

James:  Definitely, good to know.

Paul:  So if you’re buying a vehicle with a rear seat, the Infiniti JX makes it functional, and you don’t have to put just kids back there – adults can sit in back and still be very okay.  The DVD player was built into the passenger and driver headrests, that was a really nice thing.

James:  That typically used to be an aftermarket option, was it not?  You’d have to order specific extra headrests just to get the monitor installed.

Paul:   Correct.

James:  Now they’re doing it at the manufacturer, that’s nice to see.

Paul:  Remote starter as well, the JX can come with the factory installed remote start, also used to be a dealer install.

James:  That’s right, that’s right…

Paul:  The AC controls in the rear, they have a standard electrical outlet there too, you can plug right in.

James:  I got pictures of that from the Toronto car show.  It’s got the LCD display and the climate controls by the second row too, really nicely done.

Paul:  Definitely, correct.  I will also tell you that as I was in the vehicle, all the features involved were very hi-tech.  There was a system where when I was test driving the JX, when I got too close to the car in front of me – and this has nothing to do with cruise control, don’t confuse the two, this is a separate system than the Infiniti Intelligent Cruise-

James:  Yeah, my G37 has that, the laser distance sensor there only works when you’re actually cruising.  This is the Collision Prevention system you’re talking about now, right?

Paul:  Yes, when I got too close, the pedal actually pushed back on my foot, the feedback from the JX told me through the gas pedal that I needed to let up and that I had a problem.  And if I kept pressing on the gas pedal anyways, it got firmer and then finally hit the brakes FOR me because, I guess, it was tired of me not listening to it.  This vehicle, under 20 km/h, in stop and go traffic – it was effectively doing it for you.

James:  Oh, wow.

Paul:  It was cool.  It was really cool to see.  But that wasn’t good enough.  Then I get in the car and I went to back up the JX-

James:  Yeah, the new Backup Collision Prevention, eh?

Paul:  James, it STOPPED the car.  It’s not like, beep-beep-beep-beep sensor business – it actually just stopped THE car.  Then when we’re driving, and someone’s in my blind spot, and I go to change lanes with someone in my blind spot, and not only were the lights flashing to tell you that you’re doing something wrong, but it prevented you from driving into the other car and corrected for you.  You are NOT changing lanes when there’s a car there.  This is not Lane Departure stuff – this is prevention.

James:  Really cool technology there.

Paul:  Onboard, there’s stuff you’ll really love in here too, being our tech guy.

James:  (laughs) Oh yeah?

Paul:  Our screen?  8″ touch screen vs. 6.5″ non-touch screen of the competitors.  Theirs is down low, ours is up high and easy to see.  But some of the stuff you can set it for.  Like for instance, here in Ottawa, ON – maybe you don’t want your teenage kid going out and partying all night with your JX, maybe you’re worried they’re going over there drinking or whatever?  You can set set the system to have a virtual fence on gps, with virtual boundary lines and everything.

James:  (shocked look)  Pfft, really?  That I’d NEVER heard about.

Paul:  If the kid goes over the fence, you get an email immediately about it.  So, really, think about how you’d want this to apply to your car.  Maybe you don’t want them going certain places, visiting certain neighbourhoods-

James:  Or not using your car at all, just fence your garage so when it leaves, you know?

Paul:  Or maybe you want to fence it so they can use it to go from school to home and that’s that.

James:  Did you get a chance to really play with the controls, see how intuitive it was to set the fence, etc?

Paul:  That, I didn’t get too much time to mess with, but they demoed the feature and it definitely can do all this.  And not only that – you can set it so that if the Infiniti JX is driven over a certain speed, you get a text message right away.  You can set it to a valet mode – if they drove your vehicle more than, say, 2/10th of a km, you’d get an email immediately that they were driving the JX more than necessary.  This was stuff that was really, really great – and stuff that nobody has had a chance to experience until our group of 29 did.

James:  I really had never heard of the fence thing, that blows me away.  It seems like an obvious development, with the smartphone integration into our lives, but really, really nice to see Infiniti on the technological edge here.

Paul:  Okay – the Infiniti Personal Assistant.  This is where it gets really cool.  You press a button, you call your assistant up with the handsfree, you say “Look, I’m in downtown Ottawa, I wanna eat italian, what do you got for me?” She tells ya, she says – “Hey, James – would you like me to make a reservation for you right now?”  And you say, “Well yeah, that’d be great.”  And THEN, she pings your nav system in your Infiniti JX, reprograms it as the active route, all for you.

James:  … that’s really something there.  Talk about luxury.

Paul:  You keep your agenda?  Calendar?  It’s probably sync’d with your computer…

James:  Yeah, I use Google Calendar, so it syncs with my phone, my tablet, my various PCs, etc.

Paul:  Now it’ll be on your touch screen in your car.  They demoed Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar on the car, and the nav system will auto-program itself to direct you to your appointments.  Our car has the Infiniti Intelligent Key, right?  We kinda take that for granted, having had it a staple for so long now, but some of the other guys are still using a regular key, big, ugly, gets in your pockets and rips holes.  We had climate control, heating AND cooling seats – the other guys had heated seats, but not cooling ones – they had vented seats, pushing cabin air through the seats, but not actually cooled air.  I can tell you that the drive mode, when you switch it from Snow, to Sport, to-

James:  Do you really feel a difference in the drive?

Paul:  Oh yeah, night and day.  And the drive?  Great drive, very clean, very smooth.

James:  What kind of body roll did you get when you cornered?

Paul:  Well, we didn’t really race the vehicle, so I’d decline to comment on it, it was very much a demo sort of drive, there were many of us.

James:  Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t really have time to take it through a slalom course or anything like that. (laughs)

Paul:  What I can say is that it was a very smooth, very comfortable drive.  I can say that we’re lighter than the other vehicles by a good bit, so while they advertise more horsepower, they also need it being heavier and more bogged down.  The look, much more stylish than some of the competition, their platforms having not been updated in several years.  So, these here, this talk, there’s a lot of features here that make for a compelling reason to test drive a 2013 Infiniti JX35 and see for yourself – the intelligent 3rd seat, the boatloads of technology and safety features, the cutting edge aesthetics…  oh, right, our memory function on our seating saves 6 different settings for seating and comfort, whereas the Audi, for example, saves only two…  actually, I want to make a mention here, we had customers over the years saying, “If you had another QX4, I’d buy it right now,” and for a while there we didn’t have that offering anymore, that particular segment – this is going to win those customers back.  This is what’s going to do it.

James:  And remind us, what was the draw with that QX4?

Paul:  It was a true SUV in it’s size and it’s ground clearance, but it was all tech and luxury inside.  We haven’t had that, at the QX4 level price point, for a while.  The EX is a compact, and the FX is a clear 5-seater, and it more performance oriented.  The QX56 is a step larger in size, and a whole level higher in price.  This JX is what’s going to fill that gap, and it does so beautifully.

James:  Okay, so, cargo room – what’s it like if you fold flat that 3rd row?  It is useful like the old QX4 in that regard then?

Paul:  Okay, yes, perfect – they did a really excellent visual demo of the JX’s cargo capacity and it’s configurability.  They had boxes, little cardboard boxes, to help visualize what 1′x1′x1′ cubes looks like.  One cubic foot each.  And, from out of the back of the JX, they pulled three boxes, and said, “Okay, this is how much more space the JX has than competitor X.”  Then, they pulled out 8 boxes, and said, “Okay, this is what eight cubic feet looks like, and this is how much bigger we are than competitor Y.”  And then they took out 17 little cubic boxes, and that’s how much bigger we were than competitor Z.  It was HUGE, to see what seventeen cubic feet actually looked like.  It was just a number, up till now, to me.  And James, when you sat in that rear seat, and sat in the middle seat, and saw how comfortable it was, you knew where that space went.  It made..  it just made sense.

James:  Yeah, can’t wait to see the JX myself.

Paul:  The whole experience was awesome, best Infiniti meeting in years.  I got to preview some other vehicles coming up, stuff I’m not allowed to talk about, I can tell you-

James:  Did you get a look at the upcoming new Infiniti G?

Paul:  (smiles wryly)

James:  Can’t talk about it, right.  Heh.

Paul:  The JX is going to be a big push for Infiniti this year, they plan to sell a lot of these JX vehicles, and I believe we’re taking pre-orders right now.

James:  We already sold six of these, and we’ve got most of our microsite up now.  Any last words about the JX, Paul?

Paul:  Nope, that’s all I got for you right now, thanks.

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Well, there you have it.  Some of the stuff we talked about here really flipped my lid, namely the auto-text messaging about speeding and the fencing really knocked my socks off.  The technology in this new JX is going to be stellar.

The only other JX news I have on the horizon here is we just finished work on a prototype colour selector for our 2013 JX35 microsite we have here at 417 Infiniti – you’ll be able to browse and explore the colours and interior trim designs here onsite at 417 Infiniti, as well as a full breakdown of the packages and pricing and features and options for the new JX – so stay tuned for that, we’ll blog about it when it’s good to go!