Alright, so after months of deliberation, the wife 'gently encouraged' me to make a decision on our purchase of a family vehicle, which ended up being an Ingot LTD 302a.
I've long been a big fan of Ford (other car's an '11 Mustang GT) so I started out biased towards the explorer, but I still cross-shopped it with pretty much every non-minivan 7-seater for sale in the US, from the Kia Sorento all the way up to the Merc GL, travelling through three NYC boroughs and Long Island.
The Infiniti JX put up a good fight, and in the end it was a very close call. I found the JX slightly more refined inside and slightly more techie, but a worse drive - kind of soft, squishy and sluggish - and with a surprisingly much noisier cabin.
What I loved about the JX is the 360 degree camera, which would have been very useful for my house where I have to back into a tight driveway then make a sharp turn, but in the end I figured it wasn't sufficient to make me like the vehicle more overall.
Unfortunately it seems like inventory is incredibly tight this time of the year (probably not surprising) so I had to go with the one color scheme I wanted to avoid the most (ingot/black), and I had to accept the big wheels and a towing package I couldn't care less about.
But here I am - picking the vehicle up tomorrow night, barring any hiccups with the dealer paperwork (keeping my fingers crossed, 'cos it'd be a 22 mile walk home from the dealer otherwise...)
I've long been a big fan of Ford (other car's an '11 Mustang GT) so I started out biased towards the explorer, but I still cross-shopped it with pretty much every non-minivan 7-seater for sale in the US, from the Kia Sorento all the way up to the Merc GL, travelling through three NYC boroughs and Long Island.
The Infiniti JX put up a good fight, and in the end it was a very close call. I found the JX slightly more refined inside and slightly more techie, but a worse drive - kind of soft, squishy and sluggish - and with a surprisingly much noisier cabin.
What I loved about the JX is the 360 degree camera, which would have been very useful for my house where I have to back into a tight driveway then make a sharp turn, but in the end I figured it wasn't sufficient to make me like the vehicle more overall.
Unfortunately it seems like inventory is incredibly tight this time of the year (probably not surprising) so I had to go with the one color scheme I wanted to avoid the most (ingot/black), and I had to accept the big wheels and a towing package I couldn't care less about.
But here I am - picking the vehicle up tomorrow night, barring any hiccups with the dealer paperwork (keeping my fingers crossed, 'cos it'd be a 22 mile walk home from the dealer otherwise...)
