For enhanced safety, the front and second-row seat shoulder belts of the Infiniti QX80 have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Buick Enclave doesn’t offer pretensioners for its second-row seat belts.
The QX80 Sensory’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Enclave doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
For enhanced safety, the front and middle seat shoulder belts of the Infiniti QX80 are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Buick Enclave doesn’t offer height-adjustable front seat belts.
The Infiniti QX80 has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Enclave doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The QX80 has standard Active Head Restraints (AHR), which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the AHR system moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Enclave doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The QX80 has standard Backup Collision Intervention that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Enclave doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
Both the QX80 and the Enclave have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning and available all wheel drive.
The Infiniti QX80 weighs 1016 to 1726 pounds more than the Buick Enclave. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH, results indicate that the Infiniti QX80 is safer than the Buick Enclave:
|
QX80 |
Enclave |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
27 |
69 |
Abdominal Force |
81 lbs. |
161 lbs. |
Hip Force |
144 lbs. |
204 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
31 |
134 |
Spine Acceleration |
21 G’s |
39 G’s |
Hip Force |
151 lbs. |
716 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.