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 Chevrolet Tahoe 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 Tahoe doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
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 Tahoe 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 Tahoe doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The QX80 has a standard blind spot warning system which uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the Tahoe’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the QX80 has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the Tahoe.
Both the QX80 and the Tahoe have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, 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, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.
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 and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Infiniti QX80 is safer than the Chevrolet Tahoe:
|
QX80 |
Tahoe |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Abdominal Force |
81 lbs. |
111 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
31 |
88 |
Spine Acceleration |
21 G’s |
24 G’s |
Hip Force |
151 lbs. |
248 lbs. |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
684 lbs. |
764 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.