so what are your thoughts on CVTs burning out because people use the gas to hold them on a hill? @sinsecure
1) They don't know how to drive.
2) They didn't have a salesperson who was good enough to show them all the features of this amazing vehicle. Seriously, so many of the "complaints" online about cars (this and others) are because people had no real introduction to their vehicle and all of its features/capabilities. As vehicles get increasingly powerful in a technological way, the value of a thorough delivery increases.
I'll give you an example. Not too long ago I had a customer come and test drive a QX60. Apparently I must have fallen down on the job, or salespeople just scare them to death. They bought the car through a broker. That meant they picked it up at a dealer somewhere, or more likely, had it delivered to their house and dropped off. No one showed them how the car works. They then had the chutzpah to come in and ask me to show them all the features on their wonderful new car.
I politely explained a couple of things. First, I only get paid when I sell a car. Not for taking them on a test drive, not for helping them select the features that are best for them (one of their questions was why the car they got didn't have all the cool safety features I'd shown them on our original test drive), and second - certainly not for helping someone else's customer figure out how to use the vehicle.** They had no idea they'd actually paid two commissions on their car - one to the broker they bought it from and one to the salesperson at whatever nameless dealership it came from. Somehow they thought they'd gotten a much better deal from the broker than they could have from me (not true).
So, hopefully a few people will read this forum and realize they shouldn't be using the accelerator to keep their JX/QX60 from rolling backward on a hill at a stop sign. For those that don't get it - well, we have a service department that needs to make money too.
Sorry for the rant, but hopefully you can discern between my sarcasm and politely helpful comments.
One point above brings me to Ning's question. Ning, I'll respond to your PM in a second. But what I'm going to say is come see me. You say you want a strippy "base" QX60. There's a reason you can't find any around. We simply don't sell very many of them. I work at the biggest Infiniti dealership in NorCal. I can get you that car if you really want it. But the true strengths of the QX60 over other vehicles are in the great luxury and safety features available. My boss wouldn't want me to tell you this, but if price is the only thing driving your decision making (I doubt that's really the case), then I'd suggest looking at the Pathfinder. It is cheaper for a lot of reasons. One of them is the lack of luxury features (cheaper interiors with less sound insulation and other less-nice stuff). Another is the lack of available electronic safety measures. Come in, let me show you the awesome benefits of the various packages, then decide if you want/can afford $5-10K more than your stated budget. If not, and you still want a base QX60, I'll get you one and make you a great deal on the vehicle.
**Yes, that means I don't get paid for hanging around this forum answering questions either - I do it for two reasons - first, to hopefully entice customers to come see me over another dealer/rep by demonstrating my unparalleled product knowledge and customer ethos

and second, because I actually learn things here from customers and that helps me do my job better.