Has anyone downsized from an RX to a UX?

[Bluemarlin]

Parking an RX isn't so bad. I take my mum shopping so I can park in the wider parent and child spaces😉

[Roger Bill]

10 hours ago, EvilRacer329 said:

I love the space inside the bigger cars, but squeezing their bulk around other cars on narrow country roads is harrowing... I like the cosy, compact driving position and rarely carry more than one other passenger. At the higher trim level I purchased mine in it's a lovely vehicle, and having looked at a number of other brands recently with my partner no other manufacturer comes close for build quality.

I'm honestly staggered anyone ever finds a parking spot such an excessively large vehicle would fit in. But then I like small cars, and consider the second-row seats in my UX to be a wasteful extravagance most of the time. Each to their own.

My position is the same. I want the features, quality, comfort and luxury of larger vehicles in a smaller package. I recognise there is is a premium price to be paid for this and that makes it a more difficult specification for the car companies to sell.

[KentColin]

I agree with Nick ,horrendous is too strong. We've had a UX for 7 months now and love it. We wanted Lexus quality and comfort, just in a smaller vehicle. The boot is big enough and we rarely have passengers in the back but I agree the rear seating is not the  most spacious,  unlike our previous Yeti

[Barry14UK]

If a small car like the UX does all you require and you find it sufficiently comfortable, I appreciate that it is unnecessary to have a larger one which can make parking more difficult, cost more to start with, run and insure and suffer greater relative depreciation.  However, apart from the Morris 1000 I bought to learn to drive in (showing my age here!). all my subsequent cars, and there have been many, all previously owned, have been appreciably larger.  I found this helpful early on when I conveyed a lot of building materials and camping gear even with a roof rack piled high.  In my experience larger cars are more comfortable and I have got accustomed to this. Also,  I  now have back pain and am less supple with a large and heavy frame.  I can forgo the sharper handling of a smaller car for the comfort of a larger one, especially for the long journeys I occasionally make.  However, I wouldn't want anything larger than my 3rd generation RX450h, so would resist the temptation to change to the 4th generation.  So we may all have particular and different reasons for our choice and priorities can change over the years.

[jim]

I did have a RX a few years ago but while it was very comfortable for motorway trips it really was too big everywhere else (and it was too high for my mother to get in). I did downsize to various  Toyotas but present car is a UX300e. Big enough for me, seat high enough off ground to make getting in easy despite my bad back ( a have few fractures) and my wheelchair fits in back, it did fit with seats up but rarely carry back seat passengers so seats now down

[EvilRacer329]

I've definitely had a few heart-stopping moments on narrow two-lane or country roads when folks come around corners too fast with their wheels on your side of the white line. I'm certain there'd have been a collision in a larger car...

Do those of you driving RX's etc. just stick to bigger roads, avoiding narrow country lanes? Or am I just really bad at gauging where the edges of my car are? 🙂

Nick

[royoftherovers]

29 minutes ago, EvilRacer329 said:

I've definitely had a few heart-stopping moments on narrow two-lane or country roads when folks come around corners too fast with their wheels on your side of the white line. I'm certain there'd have been a collision in a larger car...

Do those of you driving RX's etc. just stick to bigger roads, avoiding narrow country lanes? Or am I just really bad at gauging where the edges of my car are? 🙂

Nick

No Nick, I BELIEVE YOU ARE RIGHT. I drive on dipped headlights in addition to DRL`s so as to permit oncoming traffic to see me sooner than they otherwise might.👍

[EvilRacer329]

25 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

No Nick, I BELIEVE YOU ARE RIGHT. I drive on dipped headlights in addition to DRL`s so as to permit oncoming traffic to see me sooner than they otherwise might.👍

Actually, I always prefer driving through country lanes at night because the headlights give both vehicles a sort of early warning that there's another car coming!

Nick

[Kissu]

On 12/27/2021 at 5:38 PM, Herbie said:

I own a 4RX but got a UX as a courtesy car a while ago.

Absolutely horrendous.

Being in the UX is like being in a matchbox toy compared with the RX; everything is so cramped up it's ridiculous.

Don't do it, you'll be immediately disappointed.

‘Horrendous” dictionary meaning terrible, extremely unpleasant.That is a very strong remark for what is a remarkable car.I’ve had my car for a nearly a year and I still look forward to getting behind the wheel,it’s such a nice place to be.I’ve owned cars as diverse in size from a Porsche Cayenne to a Smart car and the size did not make the car horrendous it’s the actual car itself.Not sure which version of the UX you drove but mine is not cramped and neither is it like a matchbox,in fact it is a very roomy comfortable place to be,it is all relative but perhaps a Hummer owner would say the same about your horrendous RX(I’m jesting with you)!

 

[Herbie]

Nope, I stick with horrendous.

My wife and I were amongst the first people in the UK to have a Smart (1999 reg V863 LFV) and that had plenty of room and was great to drive.

In order to keep the manufacturer's warranty with no Smart service centres over here, we drove it from our home in Preston, Lancashire, to Antwerp, Belgium, for its services and it was great.

The UX300e that I had wasn't a patch on our old Smarty.

[rayaans]

9 minutes ago, Herbie said:

Nope, I stick with horrendous.

My wife and I were amongst the first people in the UK to have a Smart (1999 reg V863 LFV) and that had plenty of room and was great to drive.

In order to keep the manufacturer's warranty with no Smart service centres over here, we drove it from our home in Preston, Lancashire, to Antwerp, Belgium, for its services and it was great.

The UX300e that I had wasn't a patch on our old Smarty.

Load of tosh. 

The ux300e does the basics right. Good interior, smooth ride (smoother than an RX) and handles better. It's more comfortable than an ES too

Yes its not got a lot of space but when there's usually only one person in the car and it's used in town or for short journeys that's not even an issue. 

Take it from someone who has both. 

[zoltan666]

2 hours ago, Herbie said:

Npatch on our old Smarty.

My Ninja blender has a better motor than a Smart. Can't believe it takes up floor space in a Mercedes show room. Why did Brabus tried to turn a turd into a lemon it's a mystery. But hey, you loved it🙂

[Bill Dawes]

Putting my two pennorth in. I am waiting for a UX Takumi, looking forward to it immensly but went for it with open eyes knowing full well that despite being bigger than my current Kia Niro, poor packaging design means cramped back seats and a smaller boot in the UX. I justified it on the grounds of most of the time it will carry me and my wife, dropping seats down will give us enough space for holiday luggage (if we go self catering I have to say it is not far off everything including the kitchen sink thanks to the need to take substantial amounts of gluten free foods as I have a gluten intolerence) and well ok, I just wanted one, very little sensible reasoning with a car choice if you are a car enthusiast. (well I did buy a Austin Allegro and a Metro, both very good cars I have to say in defence)

My bet is when Lexus redesigns the UX it will bring it more in line with other brands better use of space utilisation.

Bill D.

[EvilRacer329]

I think cramped back seats are becoming a common theme on a lot of new cars. part of the problem is that the most efficient shape for interior space is a box, which people don't like from an exterior styling perspective. The sloping rear roofs on many modern cars are more aesthetically pleasing, and are also more aerodynamically efficient. Same is true for the hatchback doors - the flatter profiles of older designs are poor aerodynamically, so a more raked design is used. Combine these two together and you get a low roof for rear passengers and limited boot space.

Then you have crash safety. Belt lines have been rising for decades - that means more door, less glass. It's also a more modern look that people prefer, but it again creates the appearance of a more cramped interior due to letting in less light. My new UX has white leather and a sunroof, and it feels like a much bigger car than my previous UX with its black leather and no sunroof. The bigger, thicker doors also mean either larger exterior dimensions or smaller interior ones.

Next, we have the modern preference for larger wheels. Positioned inboard where they are to allow for rear crumple zones, the larger wheels and correspondingly larger wheel wells are increasingly eating into where the rear doors would be, and pushing the rear seats forwards and inwards. On the other end of the scale, front wheels get pushed further back for the same reasons, which push bulkheads and front seats further back, further encroaching on rear legroom.

The UX, like many modern "hatchbacks" has a raised ride height to cater to modern fashions; combined with the equally fashionable lower roofline and you end up squishing the interior volume and headroom. My friend had an old Hyundai i10 that he parked up next to my UX, and his tiny little box on wheels was both closer to the ground and had a taller roof than my UX, and wasn't that much shorter. The larger wheels and bluff front end have the effect of making all modern cars look big and chunky (the UX was described as "a tank" by a friend and "a truck" by a family member) despite that not actually being the case.

It sounds like I'm defending poor design, but the reality is that we (consumers) made this bed ourselves. If we all bought Kia Souls with small wheels we'd all have loads of interior space. Instead, we bought things like BMW X6's, huge tanks with barely more interior space than an old Ford Fiesta. Unless tastes change, I can't see future vehicles becoming boxy again, and as previously mentioned - aerodynamics may not allow for it. Long and low would do it, but again - cars are going out of fashion, and everyone wants chunky crossovers and SUVs.

My UX has laughably little boot space, and a short road trip with 4 adults and all their luggage stretched it to bursting. But that's happened once in 18 months of ownership, and the rest of the time it's 1-2 adults and minimal luggage, so l it fits me perfectly. The upshot is that I get amazing fuel economy (45-50+ mpg), have a small and (relatively) light car that I can have fun with, and consumables like tyres last forever. An NX or RX would be more practical for when I need to give lifts to lots of people or haul a bunch of stuff, but that's a little bit like buying/heating/cleaning a mansion for the one occasion I need to host a cocktail party. 🙂

Nick

[EvilRacer329]

17 hours ago, Herbie said:

Nope, I stick with horrendous.

My wife and I were amongst the first people in the UK to have a Smart (1999 reg V863 LFV) and that had plenty of room and was great to drive.

In order to keep the manufacturer's warranty with no Smart service centres over here, we drove it from our home in Preston, Lancashire, to Antwerp, Belgium, for its services and it was great.

The UX300e that I had wasn't a patch on our old Smarty.

That's...interesting. Everyone I've ever spoken to who's driven those said that they were, in fact, horrendous. Terrible gearbox, no power, noisy, rattly, bumpy, poor-handling, unstable at speed (when they eventually got there), and on one case the sunroof exploded on the motorway. I suspect that if you were to drive one of those today, 23 years later, without any rose-tinted spectacles on, you would find that your recollections are somewhat...skewed.

Interior space wise, at least for the front (only) seats, I can believe it felt more spacious - crash regulations in 1999 weren't what they are today, and modern design has trended towards cosier-feeling cabins. It's not possible to build a small car that will pass modern crash standards with as open-feeling a cockpit as cars of yesteryear.

Nick

[Herbie]

@EvilRacer329 Good points about the current design of the cars and it reinforces what I said earlier in this topic about the RX feeling like the opposite of Dr. Who's TARDIS - looks big on the outside but really isn't that big on the inside. We often struggle for boot space in the RX and leg-room for rear passengers.

You could well be right about the Smart. It was great fun to drive back then when I was younger and fitter but my back injury would prevent me from driving one now. The same back injury is also the main reason why we have the RX; it's the easiest car to get in/out and the seats are so comfortable that it makes driving a pleasure again instead of something to be endured.

[Herbie]

My RX has been in for service and MOT today and although I often read on these forums of people getting other RXs, ESs or NXs as courtesy cars, I ended up with another darn UX300e!

I still stand by my original impression - only had the thing for four hours and banged my head three times as I was getting in!

[Phil xxkr]

8 hours ago, Herbie said:

My RX has been in for service and MOT today and although I often read on these forums of people getting other RXs, ESs or NXs as courtesy cars, I ended up with another darn UX300e!

I still stand by my original impression - only had the thing for four hours and banged my head three times as I was getting in!

Makes a change from a brick wall Herbs 🤣🤣🤣

[cur666]

10 hours ago, Herbie said:

My RX has been in for service and MOT today and although I often read on these forums of people getting other RXs, ESs or NXs as courtesy cars, I ended up with another darn UX300e!

I still stand by my original impression - only had the thing for four hours and banged my head three times as I was getting in!

You didn't bang it hard enough!

[rayaans]

10 hours ago, Herbie said:

My RX has been in for service and MOT today and although I often read on these forums of people getting other RXs, ESs or NXs as courtesy cars, I ended up with another darn UX300e!

I still stand by my original impression - only had the thing for four hours and banged my head three times as I was getting in!

surely if you're banging your head on a UX, either your head is too big or you'd bang your head in any saloon car anyway? Lol

[Herbie]

6 minutes ago, rayaans said:

surely if you're banging your head on a UX, either your head is too big or you'd bang your head in any saloon car anyway? Lol

Most saloons are difficult for me due to my back injury (hence why I have a RX) but the UX is amongst the worst.

[rayaans]

16 minutes ago, Herbie said:

Most saloons are difficult for me due to my back injury (hence why I have a RX) but the UX is amongst the worst.

Sure. But that's a personal problem not an issue with the car. I'm 6 ft 1 and manage to get in fine. It's no smaller than a Vw golf or equivalent really

[Phil xxkr]

1 hour ago, rayaans said:

Sure. But that's a personal problem not an issue with the car. I'm 6 ft 1 and manage to get in fine. It's no smaller than a Vw golf or equivalent really

To have such joyous sympathetic ear and disposition must make you - (wait, I'm valiantly looking for the most appropriate phrase, can anyone help?) 🤔

[Herbie]

4 hours ago, rayaans said:

It's no smaller than a Vw golf or equivalent really

I've never been in a Golf so I wouldn't know but one thing I did notice about how small the UX is, is that although I haven't got a huge backside I found that I was basically sitting on the seat bolsters rather than the seat proper.

One thing I did really love about it (possibly the only thing) was the Head Up Display. I know it's not UX specific and many cars have it but I've never seen or experienced one in reality. What a fantastic invention! I think all cars should be fitted with a HUD as a matter of course, just as rear view mirrors are fitted - it's certainly as useful as a rear view mirror.

[cur666]

On 3/21/2022 at 11:14 PM, Herbie said:

My RX has been in for service and MOT today and although I often read on these forums of people getting other RXs, ESs or NXs as courtesy cars, I ended up with another darn UX300e!

I still stand by my original impression - only had the thing for four hours and banged my head three times as I was getting in!

Maybe invest in a crash hemet?