Lexus NX Driver Assist Systems

Phil Catterall · March 24, 2021

I’m really looking forward to catching the train to Cambridge in 8 days time to collect my one-year-old Lexus NX-300H Premium Sport. To familiarise myself before driving the 185 miles back to my home in North Yorkshire I’ve been studying the 580-page Manual, downloaded from the Lexus UK website. I haven’t yet looked at the 308-page Navigation and Multi-Media manual.

The extensive driving support systems on this car are sophisticated and significant. I wondered if current owners find these systems useful and vital safety features, or are they a significant distraction, bleeping or flashing up on the display at the slightest indiscretion by the driver or producing false alarms for no apparent reason? If this is the case, I imagine drivers may well disable some of these driver assist systems. Maybe some just take all the driver assist systems for granted and simply drive the vehicle as they would any other car without these features?

1. Dynamic radar cruise control – having already had a car with this feature I think its great and will certainly be using it.

2. RSA Road sign assist – does this function work well? I am aware it is also installed on Toyota cars.

3. AHS Adaptive High Beam System – this system seems to assess the ambient light and your speed / direction of travel on the road and then controls the headlight light distribution and intensity accordingly.

4. Automatic High Beam - if this works reliably it must be very useful. My understanding is on unlit roads you can leave your headlights on main beam and they will automatically dip for approaching vehicles.

5. LDA – Lane Departure Alert with steering control – something I’ve never had on a vehicle, seemingly the car steers itself without driver intervention when it believes the vehicle is departing from its expected line.

6. LTA Lane Tracing Assist – Seems to work in a similar way to LDA by following white or yellow lines in the road to keep the car in the middle of the lane.

7. PCS – Pre-Collision System – A radar sensor is looking ahead of the vehicle and will apply greater braking than the driver applies or will apply the brakes irrespective of the drivers’ actions if a collision is likely, to help avoid it or to reduce the impact. This sounds like a really good safety feature providing that with sensible driving it only impacts on the vehicle when absolutely necessary.

So - what do NX owners generally find useful and safer to leave on and what do some owners turn off?

I also read somewhere that I may be buying a “Connected Car” sounds interesting and is something else to be investigated….

Best wishes

Phil

Steve Oliver · March 24, 2021

8 hours ago, Phil Catterall said:

Lexus NX Driver Assist Systems

I’m really looking forward to catching the train to Cambridge in 8 days time to collect my one-year-old Lexus NX-300H Premium Sport. To familiarise myself before driving the 185 miles back to my home in North Yorkshire I’ve been studying the 580-page Manual, downloaded from the Lexus UK website. I haven’t yet looked at the 308-page Navigation and Multi-Media manual.

The extensive driving support systems on this car are sophisticated and significant. I wondered if current owners find these systems useful and vital safety features, or are they a significant distraction, bleeping or flashing up on the display at the slightest indiscretion by the driver or producing false alarms for no apparent reason? If this is the case, I imagine drivers may well disable some of these driver assist systems. Maybe some just take all the driver assist systems for granted and simply drive the vehicle as they would any other car without these features?

1.    Dynamic radar cruise control – having already had a car with this feature I think its great and will certainly be using it.

2.    RSA Road sign assist – does this function work well? I am aware it is also installed on Toyota cars.

3.    AHS Adaptive High Beam System – this system seems to assess the ambient light and your speed / direction of travel on the road and then controls the headlight light distribution and intensity accordingly.

4.    Automatic High Beam - if this works reliably it must be very useful. My understanding is on unlit roads you can leave your headlights on main beam and they will automatically dip for approaching vehicles.

5.    LDA – Lane Departure Alert with steering control – something I’ve never had on a vehicle, seemingly the car steers itself without driver intervention when it believes the vehicle is departing from its expected line.

6.    LTA Lane Tracing Assist – Seems to work in a similar way to LDA by following white or yellow lines in the road to keep the car in the middle of the lane.

7.    PCS – Pre-Collision System – A radar sensor is looking ahead of the vehicle and will apply greater braking than the driver applies or will apply the brakes irrespective of the drivers’ actions if a collision is likely, to help avoid it or to reduce the impact. This sounds like a really good safety feature providing that with sensible driving it only impacts on the vehicle when absolutely necessary.

So - what do NX owners generally find useful and safer to leave on and what do some owners turn off?

I also read somewhere that I may be buying a “Connected Car” sounds interesting and is something else to be investigated….

Best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil,

Congratulations on your purchase, you'll love it 😊 I have a 2019 NX F Sport with all the features you're talking about. I love tech so I don't switch anything off and I don't think any of the features are annoying in any way and they certainly don't keep going off erroneously or anything (unless you have a fault, which I'll come to!!)

1. Yep

2. RSA Works really really well, sometimes a little too well, reading speed limits on the back of vans 😮 otherwise you can pretty much rely on it to tell you the current speed limit accurately.

3. and 4. Adaptive High Beam system, you basically leave the high beam switched on and the car will switch the headlights on when it's dark, dipped until it's both dark enough and you're traveling at over 42mph, when it will switch to high beam. The 42mph limit is frankly a pain as you typically need it on at low speeds too especially down little country lanes. It will then deactivate again at below 30 something mph (can't remember the exact speed but it's lower than the activation speed). If, while on high beam, the car detects headlights or tail lights ahead, it will deactivate the part(s) of the main beam that would blind the driver of that vehicle or vehicles. That's the theory and it largely works very well and cleverly, but sometimes I get flashed and I think it can react a little slowly. Or, the other driver has already flashed thinking you're not going to dip the lights, but do. Not sure. Some say they've seen NXs blind them, so the jury is out. Nevertheless I love it.

5 and 6. LDA, yes it does, a little, it just pulls you back into line a bit, can be a bit irritating sometimes so I tend to leave it off unless I'm on the motorway. Then put it on for safety.

7. Yes, never had it activate so far, thankfully.

The only problem I've had is the front parking sensors, as you may have read in other threads, if you have the problem, they go off erroneously in the rain. THAT'S annoying!

Don't get excited about the Connected Car business, as it really doesn't mean much, you can send a route to your car for the sat nav but if you have Android Auto or Carplay it isn't very useful. The Americans have full remote control but we don't get it unfortunately. 😕

Hope that's of interest, will be interested in your thoughts when you've tried it all out. Enjoy!!

Steve

Phil Catterall · March 24, 2021

HI Steve

Thanks for the very useful tips on the driving aids - much appreciated. I hope I can achieve your fuel consumption with mine when I get it, 37.6 according to your Fuelly script, that's excellent. Will be reporting back after my journey next week. After driving cars for almost 50 years I cannot recall so much anticipation in getting a car as for this one, having said that I've never paid out so much for a car as I have this time. Put it down to lockdown, no holidays, no clothes nothing to spend our pension money on for over a year, so we decided on buying a Lexus.

Best wishes

Phil

Steve Oliver · March 24, 2021

11 minutes ago, Phil Catterall said:

HI Steve

Thanks for the very useful tips on the driving aids - much appreciated. I hope I can achieve your fuel consumption with mine when I get it, 37.6 according to your Fuelly script, that's excellent. Will be reporting back after my journey next week. After driving cars for almost 50 years I cannot recall so much anticipation in getting a car as for this one, having said that I've never paid out so much for a car as I have this time. Put it down to lockdown, no holidays, no clothes nothing to spend our pension money on for over a year, so we decided on buying a Lexus.

Best wishes

Phil

I'm pretty much the same in the excitement I had for this my first Lexus and most expensive car I've bought. My dealer made it wonderful though, while I was waiting for delivery of my NX, he sent titbit videos and quick flash photos of the car to keep the excitement going. He was absolutely marvelous. Ryan at Chester. Best salesman I've ever dealt with.

Steve Oliver · March 24, 2021

And I had the presentation room too...

Neo_gsf · March 24, 2021

1. Dynamic radar cruise control – The only time I use Cruise Control is in 50mph Average Speed Camera roadworks. All other times I prefer driving the car myself

2. RSA Road sign assist. Fairly accurate but it can read signs incorrectly (e.g. my NX used to read the green signs with the word 'Zone' on (for the ULEZ zone in London) as 100mph) 🙄 Also, as Steve says, it reads signs on backs of lorries and also signs from side roads you might not even be going down.

4. Automatic High Beam. I turned off completely in my NX, my RX and GS F. Works far too slowly when detecting oncoming cars and sometimes didn't come on when I wanted it to.

5. LDA – Lane Departure Alert with steering control. Useful but I only set it with vibration - I turned off the audible warning as it is surprising how often it went off when getting close to the lines

6. LTA Lane Tracing Assist – Useful assistance combined with above

7. PCS – Pre-Collision System – The bright red "Brake!" warning appears as well as an audible warning when you are going around a corner and there's a parked car on the opposite side of the road. The first time it happens it scares the life out of you, but it does happen quite often so you get used to it

malcolmw · March 24, 2021

Our experience is much the same as Neo_gsf above.

We also use the radar cruise control on less busy motorways set at 75mph (true speed just over 70mph). We don't use LDA/LTA as it warns just too often for us. AHBC is pretty poor in rural areas.

We are not sure if the model which you are getting has the "smart" parking sensors. These really are useful as they brake you to a stop before you hit anything when creeping into a parking space. 🙂

First_Lexus · March 24, 2021

I use the radar cruise every time I’m on the motorway (when it isn’t raining) and find it excellent. It is a much more intuitive system than that I had previously in a Honda Accord.

Lane assist I use less often, for the same reasons noted above i.e. I find it activates rather too often even when nowhere near the lane lines.

High beam assist works very well for me, although I’m in a very rural area and you can generally see another car coming from some distance away! I always leave it on, and haven’t had any problems with it in the four years I’ve owned an NX.

DanD · March 24, 2021

15 hours ago, Phil Catterall said:

1.    Dynamic radar cruise control – having already had a car with this feature I think its great and will certainly be using it.

2.    RSA Road sign assist – does this function work well? I am aware it is also installed on Toyota cars.

3.    AHS Adaptive High Beam System – this system seems to assess the ambient light and your speed / direction of travel on the road and then controls the headlight light distribution and intensity accordingly.

4.    Automatic High Beam - if this works reliably it must be very useful. My understanding is on unlit roads you can leave your headlights on main beam and they will automatically dip for approaching vehicles.

5.    LDA – Lane Departure Alert with steering control – something I’ve never had on a vehicle, seemingly the car steers itself without driver intervention when it believes the vehicle is departing from its expected line.

6.    LTA Lane Tracing Assist – Seems to work in a similar way to LDA by following white or yellow lines in the road to keep the car in the middle of the lane.

7.    PCS – Pre-Collision System – A radar sensor is looking ahead of the vehicle and will apply greater braking than the driver applies or will apply the brakes irrespective of the drivers’ actions if a collision is likely, to help avoid it or to reduce the impact. This sounds like a really good safety feature providing that with sensible driving it only impacts on the vehicle when absolutely necessary.

So - what do NX owners generally find useful and safer to leave on and what do some owners turn off?

I also read somewhere that I may be buying a “Connected Car” sounds interesting and is something else to be investigated….

Best wishes

Phil

My comments are not dissimilar to the ones provided already. I sense that, like me, you like your gadgets and intend to make the most of them!

1. dynamic/radar cruise control is brilliant, but doesn't work in heavy rain. When you first switch it on, a long press of the stalk will enable traditional (i.e. not radar) cruise control which, depending on circumstances may be preferrable.

2. RSA. I have mixed feelings on that one as I don't find it wholly reliable as it can, as mentioned above, pick up random signs.

3/4. AHS/AHB Works very well on straight-ish roads. AHS itself is just brilliant. My frustration is that, as it is speed dependent, it switches off below a certain speed and often when you most need it. When on a bendy country road, the system will switch to low-beam as you approach a sharp bend. On top of that, trying to find the switch to turn it off in a hurry is a bit hit and miss as it sits by your right knee. On such roads, it is best to revert to full manual control!

5/6. LTA/LKA Useful, in particular when driving at night or poor light... or if you know you're tired. Note that the system will only activate (vibration through the steering wheel and/or audible warning) if you cross a line without indicating. Works well in my view, but best on dual carriageways and motorways.

7. PCS is very good and also very useful when parking.

Connected Car is next to useless from my experience.

paulrnx · March 25, 2021

20 hours ago, Neo_gsf said:

1.    Dynamic radar cruise control – The only time I use Cruise Control is in 50mph Average Speed Camera roadworks. All other times I prefer driving the car myself

2.    RSA Road sign assist. Fairly accurate but it can read signs incorrectly (e.g. my NX used to read the green signs with the word 'Zone' on (for the ULEZ zone in London) as 100mph) 🙄 Also, as Steve says, it reads signs on backs of lorries and also signs from side roads you might not even be going down.

4.    Automatic High Beam. I turned off completely in my NX, my RX and GS F. Works far too slowly when detecting oncoming cars and sometimes didn't come on when I wanted it to.

5.    LDA – Lane Departure Alert with steering control. Useful but I only set it with vibration - I turned off the audible warning as it is surprising how often it went off when getting close to the lines

6.    LTA Lane Tracing Assist – Useful assistance combined with above

7.    PCS – Pre-Collision System – The bright red "Brake!" warning appears as well as an audible warning when you are going around a corner and there's a parked car on the opposite side of the road. The first time it happens it scares the life out of you, but it does happen quite often so you get used to it

My experiences were almost exactly the same 👍

I turned lane keeping assist completely off. Too many false warnings on poorly surfaced B roads with intermittent road markings. I’ve been driving for over 40 years now and I know how to steer a car 😀

LenT · March 25, 2021

23 hours ago, Phil Catterall said:

After driving cars for almost 50 years I cannot recall so much anticipation in getting a car as for this one, having said that I've never paid out so much for a car as I have this time. Put it down to lockdown, no holidays, no clothes nothing to spend our pension money on for over a year, so we decided on buying a Lexus.

As a fellow oldie, Phil, I appreciate your reasoning. It's the sort of purely indulgent purchase that pensions are for and that one deserves to celebrate a life well lived.

Best of all, it's not just a car purchase, its become a project with all the detailed examination that that deserves. All the very best and many years of just enjoying it.

Phil Catterall · March 28, 2021

On 3/25/2021 at 10:48 AM, LenT said:

As a fellow oldie, Phil, I appreciate your reasoning. It's the sort of purely indulgent purchase that pensions are for and that one deserves to celebrate a life well lived.

Best of all, it's not just a car purchase, its become a project with all the detailed examination that that deserves. All the very best and many years of just enjoying it.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and mindful comments - very useful indeed. It seems like I could be another Lexus driver who turns the lane assist function off as well, but I'll give it a go before making a decision on it.

Best wishes

Phil

ColinBarber · March 28, 2021

On 3/24/2021 at 3:57 PM, DanD said:

Connected Car is next to useless from my experience.

It is dependant on the age of the vehicle. For the MY2020 NX you get full LexusLink functionality so you can see the charge state of your 12v aux Battery. That would be quite useful for a number of people who have suffered flat batteries during Covid lockdowns due to lack of use of the vehicle.

Steve Oliver · March 28, 2021

47 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

It is dependant on the age of the vehicle. For the MY2020 NX you get full LexusLink functionality so you can see the charge state of your 12v aux battery. That would be quite useful for a number of people who have suffered flat batteries during Covid lockdowns due to lack of use of the vehicle.

Really? Is this UK spec, Colin? 🤔

ColinBarber · March 28, 2021

29 minutes ago, Steve Oliver said:

Really? Is this UK spec, Colin? 🤔

Sure

https://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/about-my-lexus/my-lexus-portal/lexus-link#features-table

Phil Catterall · March 28, 2021

58 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

Sure

https://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/about-my-lexus/my-lexus-portal/lexus-link#features-table

That's really good news Colin. I have the app on my phone ready to go on Thursday. So I'll try and activate / authenticate it as the new owner before I drive it back home.

Phil