24 hour test drive.

[Barry7]

As was kindly arranged by the owners club, I took the advantage of having a 24 hour test drive. I chose to try the NX as this could be my next step from the RX. This was arranged with Lexus Sidcup, who didn't seem aware of the offer, but were good enough to honour it anyway.

The car was a blue NX300h F sport 18 plate with 10k on the clock priced at £37,500

Having come out of my RX I was expecting the NX to feel a bit cramped and under powered. How wrong was I? Very nice inside, smaller, but still very nice, with plenty of power and pleasantly smooth.

The plus points:

Active cruise control. My first experience of this and I think it is fantastic.

Fuel consumption, 40 mpg over 175 miles of varied driving  

Styling

Lane keep assist

Illuminated door handles, looks very cool when unlocking car at night!

Lock via powered boot door - can shut the boot and lock the car with the press of one button

Sat nav instructions repeated on dash

Sequential indicators

The Negative points:

Because this was an F Sport, did not like the driver or passenger front seats, too hard

Suspension too firm - again probably due to being an F Sport

The silly switch to turn on sound of exhaust through the speakers, this seemed too "boy racer" for a Lexus

The silver trim around the information screen constantly reflected on the wind screen - a big distraction

Information centre control via the touchpad - far too sensitive (even on the lowest setting) to use whilst driving

Automatic High Beam was good, but very difficult to set, not intuitive or logical.

Lack of internal storage space - in comparison to the RX at least

In summary, I would definitely consider getting an NX to replace the RX at some point, but it would have to be a Premier to maintain the luxury of the RX, and I would like to see the touchpad replaced on future models as in my opinion it was not at all user friendly.  Definitely worth considering if you want to downsize but not good enough to coax me out of my RX at the moment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2018 by Barry7
Spelling

[DanD]

As a matter of interest, why did you find the automatic high beam "very difficult to set"?

Sent from my LG-H930 using Tapatalk

[Barry7]

Maybe I was doing it wrong but the only way I could get it to set, was to turn the high beam on and then press the auto high beam button that is mounted low down on the right side of the dash. You also had to hold the button for a few seconds before it would set. I have used auto high beam on Mitsubishi Shoguns and you just turn on the system and flash the headlights.....done.

[ColinBarber]

Once set you don't have to touch the button again though - it doesn't reset itself, you have to turn it off again. Similar to the parking sensors.

[Mr Vlad]

Auto high beam difficult to set up?

Am I missing something but my last few cars have had it as all I had to do was turn the toggle on the stalk to auto and hey presto done. However the system in my last Ford was much better than in the lexus. 

Good post tho Barry.

[Barry7]

Just to confirm, this was auto high beam, not just auto lights.