High-end Luxury meets High-tech comfort and convenience
Simply put, our GV-80 is the nicest, best vehicle we have ever owned by far (and this is coming from a former BMW owner). The GV-80 is extremely attractive, stylish, luxurious, comfortable, and all of the things. You feel like you're driving a Bentley. We have the Prestige package, which adds that extra bit of luxury to take it to the next level: quilted leather seats, two-tone color, fine leather appointments on all the trim, accent lighting galore, and several convenience features. But this vehicle is SO much more than that.
Let's start with the basics: the mechanical aspects. We have a 3.6T version, which gives you the V-6 engine, and I would recommend that to anybody looking to buy a GV-80. The vehicle is not small by any means, so the extra horsepower is great to have, we felt like the 2.6T GV=80s were slightly underpowered, although still acceptable. The transmission is generous, with 8 gears and paddle shifting for when you want that. The drivetrain is AWD, with the option to engage 4WD on the fly at any point. Suspension is also very nice, and since you can choose your drive modes, you can stiffen the ride up in Sport mode or make it much more forgiving in the other drive modes. To be honest, it has a lot of play in it when you aren't in Sport mode, but it's still a nice comfy ride.
The size and utility of the GV-80 is also great. We have the 5-seater with no rear bench at all, since we are past the point of transporting hordes of kids everywhere. The seats are absolutely fantastic; you can configure them any which way you want, including lumbar support, they're extremely comfortable, and they have both heating and cooling options (the cooling feature works better than any other cooled seat I ever sat in). The middle row seats (except the center seat) seem to have every feature that the front seats do. The extra space in the back is great and allows us to transport small to medium-sized items wherever we wish. You can fit plywood or drywall in the back, although a full 4'x8' piece wouldn't allow the door to close even with the middle seats folded down. To be honest, the interior is too nice to transport such things, but it's nice to know you can fit some pretty big stuff in there cargo area.
But without doubt, the best aspect of this vehicle is the technology. You feel like you're in a spaceship. The display and convenience features are completely configurable to whatever settings you want. The main screen for display and navigation is pretty big, and there's enough room for split screen viewing with no sacrifice to content. Apple/Android Carplay works quite nicely and seamlessly. I use the voice commands a lot fo navigate and text. If Carplay navigation fails you, there is a built in navigation system which works very well also. The dash screen is also completely digital which has a ton of advantages. You can configure the dash settings in several different ways, and they change up in color and configuration when you change drive modes. One of the neater things is that when you signal to turn left or right, the corresponding digital gauge turns into a camera view of that rear-facing camera (useful for lane changes). And the heads up display is very nice, and also customizable. It's minimally what you need when driving normally, giving you lane departure and lane-change warning info along with speed limit and speed, but when you engage the auto-steering function and cruise control it lights up like a Christmas tree -- very cool. There are many more cool tech features that are too numerous to go into, but you'll see what I mean when you drive it.
Even the keyfob is killer. The 8-button remote allows you to do all of things you would normally do with a remote; lock, unlock, set off alarm, open liftgate, turn on the lights, and start the car remotely, but it can also move the car backwards and forwards after you have auto-started it; this is great for when that jerk parks too close to your driver-side door in the parking lot. Very next-level stuff in my opinion.
Safety features are also excellent and too numerous to name all of them, but you have every imaginable electronic safety feature in terms of lane-changing, rear-cross traffic alerts, collision avoidance, and so very many more. All of these are customizable for two different drivers; e.g., if you want to have the car stop automatically when if detects a front end collision, you can do that, or just make the alert sounds active, or disable the function completely. You can set it to somewhat self-steer through the lane-keeping function as well, but this is a far cry from a self-driving vehicle. It's a great feature that I use all the time but it is not advisable to use this on lanes that aren't clearly marked on both sides. I can't speak from personal experience about crash performance thank goodness, but it's very highly rated there from what I understand.
There are very, very few cons to this vehicle. They are relatively trivial and none are deal-breakers, but they are worth mentioning so as to give a fair and balanced review. There is no spare tire in most of these vehicles. If you are not travelling on very remote roads where a tow truck is far far away, this isn't a big deal. But I am used to having one. You can buy one third-party for about $550. Also, the tech features, particularly the profiles, can be a little buggy. Every so often, one or two features from my profile get reset to defaults (not the whole profile by any means). I just have to go into the profile and reset it, no big deal, but it is a minor nuisance after awhile. And the ride due to the suspension when you are not in Sport mode can be very bouncy. But all in all, none of these are big deals.
The last thing I will say is regarding the value....we test-drove many different SUVs in this class and year: Lincoln Navigators and Aviators, Kia Tellurides, Hyundai Palisades, Cadillac Escalades, and others; none of those vehicles compared to this one in almost any way at all. The GV-80 came out on top in terms of looks, styling, luxury appointments, handling, safety, features, and above all, technology. Only the Lincolns were close in my opinion in terms of styling and luxury, but not better. And the amazing thing is that the Genesis vehicle are all very competitively priced. It was cheaper than the Lincolns in the same class, and just an overall amazing value for the dollar. I would STRONGLY recommend this vehicle to everyone looking for a luxury SUV...I honestly don't feel like you would choose any other vehicle once you test drove this one. As for me, I'll be driving this one for a very long time!
Recommended
Verified Owner
