Gadgetory

it's the G you buy when you want the coop but your spouse reminds you we're not going to be lifting babies and seats across the back of a two-door let's drive the 2012 Infiniti g37 sedan touring and check the tech let's face it a G coupes a gorgeous car the G sedan not so much it's not infinities fault I mean there's only so much you can do and you've got to create full-size access doors back here but the whole thing basically goes to Helen gets tubby in the rear when they add the extra doors it's just life in the design studio and it's not the most spacious car in the back either it's not bad it's not terribly good and I haven't been a big fan of the latest redesign anyway which made it less edgy and more kind of bulbous and round but what really matters is what goes on inside let's check it out now there's 2012 G is basically a carryover from 2011 but let me refresh you about the cabin text because it's one of the better cars in the industry for that especially considering it's you know pretty much down low on the Infinity lund here is our standard interface but it has optional navigation so you always get this color display you always get this infinity controller and that'll let you access a lot of settings audio a climate vehicle set up but the navigation part is optional and that includes a hard drive when you option that in I'm not a huge fan of the navigation map quality it's a little childish looking a little bit grainy that they have done quite a bit to improve it in the last couple model years but it's still a bit of a torture to read I mean do you really want to read Folsom Street with the characters laid out like that it's just bad cartography I think other things about it they were very nice and easy to deal with for example unlike some German cars I can mention scanning around the map to figure out where you are as easy just touch to recenter I love that or you can use these buttons here on the Infinity controller to move around I don't know maybe that's just me but I like be able to move the map around and see where I am and then when you want to get back to your current spot just hit the map button obviously you have Bluetooth calling here's one coming in now in addition to the Bluetooth calling hands-free have also got stereo bluetooth streaming in this guy because we've optioned up the premium sound system that means I've got 10 speakers around the cabin instead of the base 6 I get the ability to play DVD I believe that's actually part of the navigation option kind of a weird split there I've got bose amplification I've also got drivers audio stage that means you can tell the system to set up the virtual staging of the audio what's left right forward and back all right around this seat no matter how you get a g37 specta comes base with am/fm no HD radio XM is your satellite radio you'll get a USB / iPod iPhone Jack here in the glovebox I've got my ipod touch in there now the DVD playback ability comes as part of the navigation system and the hard drive to rip music - also a part of the nav rig also standard on all g37 s regardless of how you take it up is going to be a rear view camera what's not standard is rhere sonar that's part of another option package so again throughout this car I found they did some strange splitting and bundling of kind of dissimilar and similar technologies things that should go together aren't always things that shouldn't sometimes do one choice gearbox on this guy because we don't have what they call the sports 6mt model that's called 6mt because there's a six-speed manual we obviously don't instead you get the 7-speed automatic gearbox it goes in four simple gate positions left for your shift ability position and then you've got two paddles that are done the right way they're fixed on the column the way they should be with big long ears so just about wherever you are on the wheel if you know how to drive you're just a finger away from grabbing downshift on one side up shift on the other now what's under the hood here made of like a kind of garden-variety v6 and an arrow in v6 --is that are really good are fairly common but I will remind you there was a time when that was not the case until these guys came along and they built the best v6 anybody had ever seen and this is the descendant of that motor this one is now a 3.7 liter v6 hence the name of the car 328 horsepower 269 foot-pounds of torque 0 to 60 on this guy which means about 3,600 pounds takes about five point eight seconds by most tests while delivering 1927 mpg and again through that 7-speed automatic in this trim level but a six-speed manual is available let's see how all this works together okay so what's this guy like on the road now like I say one of the great v6 is in human history is under the hood of this car and the power comes on real nice real linear nice big high fat torque curve is what you pick up on right away what you also pick up on right away is a lot of harshness I blame that on the Sport Package this car has a very rough ride which is to say you feel everything in the road and not in a cool way it's not sporty to me it's just riding like a truck it's especially bad over certain undulation 's where you end up doing this a lot in the car that's not sporty when I'm driving to work that's just annoying and splashing my coffee all around the Sport Package also gives us a tighter steering ratio which is real nice this car has really nice steering and it turns in very linearly there's no weirdness about it and the on the road weight is just about right the car doesn't feel too heavy nor does it feel too light in some this is a rather capable sports sedan great powertrain gearbox is real nice by the way it didn't do anything I didn't like it's just a really good automatic but a little too much of the byproducts of sport are coming through for this to be a real comfortable everyday car for me as well okay let's price out our 2012 g37 journey again this is not the sport model the Camino transmission nor the all-wheel drive this one is 37 1 delivered then there are 4 chunky tech packages on there for you to consider and here's how I'd score them Premium Package 2150 mostly about Bose audio and the power moonroof yes now package 1850 I'm on the fence haughtily yes Sport Package 2150 hell no I like my car to not make my back hurts and finally the tech package 1200 basically adaptive cruise and pre-collision braking and seat belts I'd probably blow that one off