Lexus NX 300h Review

Lexus NX 300h Review

My apologies for the review as I’m not a professional car guy, so this is a little more pedestrian of a review. My wife and I pulled into a dealership to look at the new cars since her Venza was pushing 8 years old. My only caveat for the Venza replacement was that it had to be a hybrid. The dealership we went to is a huge dealership that includes Toyota and Lexus, so we were there to look at the Highlander Hybrid, the RAV4 Hybrid, the NX 300h and even the RX 450h. After spending a couple of hours, my wife decided the NX 300h was the one. They had 2 NX h’s on the lot, a Nebula Gray Pearl with black leather and a Matador Red Mica with the Creme Nuluxe. The black interior put the gray NX h out of the running, as we both do not like black interiors. So inside we went to talk and after 2 days of negotiations wound up with her NX 300h costing the same as her Venza when we purchased that. All in all we got $5,000 off plus her Venza as a trade-in - yeah she can be a pretty tough negotiator.

The NX 300h came with the Lexus Safety System+ and is comparable with the Toyota Safety Sense P. In addition it came with
Blind Spot Monitor With Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and Intuitive Parking Assist with Automatic Braking. My wife really likes the kick sensor for the Touch-Free Power Rear Door, but it took a little practice and patience to get it working consistently. The 4 second delay on opening and closing that is the default makes one wonder if it registered the foot movement but it gives you time to step back since it won’t open if the key fob is too close. Yes the delay is adjustable to 0 seconds. My personal favorite are the auto tilt down outside mirrors when put in reverse. Makes lining up the lines in the parking lot when backing in real easy as well as giving you a look at where your wheels/tires really are. The Comfort Package is included in her NX h which comes with heated and ventilated front seats. At first I thought the ventilated seats might be a type of meh accessory, but it is good enough to keep you from running the A/C on some occassions. I, incorrectly, assumed the ventilated seats required A/C, but they run independently unlike some cars I’ve rented like Cadillacs. A first for us is this is our first vehicle, car or truck, with all wheel drive.

Our NX h did not come with Navigation. It came with the Scout GPS Link. I’m a little ambivalent about this as it uses your phone for GPS. This is good in that the maps never go out of date and unlike older versions of Scout GPS, it does show you maps on the main display. However, there is a catch. In order for it to work properly, you must have Lexus Enform and Scout GPS Link running on your phone first. This gives you directions and upcoming turns on the main display, but if you want it to display maps on the main display your phone must be plugged into the USB port - before the car is started. Personally after using it for a while it disconnects too much and because it relies on your phone, if you lose signal you may also have degraded GPS capabilities. I’ll let her decide if this is worth keeping as it is complimentary for the first three years, I’m just as happy with Waze.

A couple of the things we haven’t tried are the paddle shifters. The paddle shifters simulate a 6 speed transmission but there are limits as we are talking about an Atkinson cycle engine. My wife made a funny face when the salesman was demonstrating the paddle shifters as the first thing she asked when I told her her new car has to be a hybrid is,”Do I have to press any buttons?” She sees me pressing buttons and shifting my Prime and it alarms her that she has to do the same thing. She just wants to drive her car. So I’m assuming the last thing I’ll ever hear from her is, “It made a funny noise shifting from 4th to 5th yesterday.” As far as the driving modes dial, it has Normal, Sport and ECO modes. When Sport mode is selected, the Hybrid System Indicator (HSI) changes to a tachometer and the backlighting changes to red. Unlike my Prime’s Power mode, the steering becomes a little tighter/heavier but not like, OMG tighter. The additional steering tightness is quite subtle and you have to pay attention to notice it. The pedal sensitivity is enhanced and torque generation comes on a little quicker because of both the front and rear motors. It is no match for the Prime’s EV or EV Auto mode though. When in ECO mode the A/C and seat ventilation fans kick down in speed. The accelerator feels more sluggish of course which will probably help with winter driving. Normal and ECO modes are sticky modes which means the NX h will stay in that mode even after the car has shut down and then restarted. Sport mode defaults back to Normal after the NX h shuts off.

Now my wife’s favorites, besides the kick sensor for the power rear door, are the remote start, door management, and total checkout of the car before she goes anywhere, like the odometer, how much gas she has and how much oil life is remaining. This is done through the Enform Remote app on her phone and even works with her watch. How does this compare to my Prime Advance’s remote climate? It doesn’t, because although you can remotely start the NX 300h to warm or cool the passenger compartment, it only uses the last setting you made before shutting the NX h off. On my Prime Advance, I can make it max heat or cool while parked in the garage and use household electricity to do that, no engine running necessary.

Other comparisons are the ride, handling and performance. It rides better than my wife’s old Venza by far and even better than the Mazda CX-5 I’ve rented but about the same as the RAV4 Hybrid and Ford Escape (my second favorite rental). At low speeds my Prime rides better but the NX h and Prime ride seems identical at hightway speeds. It blows away the aformentioned cars with noise though. Very quiet but not RX 450h quiet, where when you shut the door it makes you think you went inside your house. Road noise is a little more pronounced than the RX h with the 2.5L 4 cylinder in the NX h making a lot more noise quicker than the 3.5L V6 in the RX 450h. When accelerating, the NX 300h reacts quicker than say the CX-5 or Escape when you press the gas pedal, but there is no comparison over a longer distance like say an on ramp to a highway. CX-5 and Escape are lighter vehicles and develop a lot of power at the top end. My wife’s Venza with the 2.7L front wheel drive is very torquey and quick which builds up speed very quickly but like all non-turbo 4-cylinders, dies off accelerating at the higher end of 50+ mph. Both the Venza and NX h have enough power for your everyday merge and are somewhat similar in performance although the NX h is by far smoother in application of power. I’ve always felt power (and speed buildup) is better generated in a hybrid when the gas pedal is pressed in a smooth manner all the way to the floor than by jamming the accelerator to the floor, but that is my opinion. The biggest difference between the Venza and NX h is when you try a passing maneuver. The Venza, like all ICE only cars I’ve rented or driven, seems to hesitate just a bit like about 2 seconds while the 6-speed transmission kicks down to respond to the sudden increase in power. The NX h acceleration is almost instantaneous because of the electric motors. Make no mistake, you can hear the engine in both cars quite a bit when this happens. The Prime in hybrid mode is no match for the NX h even though the NX h has over 800 lbs on the Prime. The Lexus NX h is also really hard trying to get it to glide, about as hard as the Prime.

I’ve always wondered if there was something special or different between the Lexus safety systems and those of Toyota, even though they are the same company. The Lexus Safety System+ is equal in some respects to my Prime’s Toyota Safety Sense P and superior in most others. The Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist on the NX h is by far the most agressive I’ve come across. Definitely better than my Prime which beeps and puts a little pressure on the steering wheel. The NX 300h doesn’t beep but simultaneously vibrates the steering wheel on the same side as the lane marker being crossed and tugs the steering wheel back towards the middle. The haptic feedback is a nice touch, in my opinion, and may combat the constant alert beeping syndrome (they all start to sound the same after a while). In addition, this keeps you from looking away from the road to identify what the heck is beeping now. The dynamic cruise control is about the same on both the NX h and Prime. The automatic high beams in the Prime seem slower to react than the Intelligent High Beams in the NX h although both are adequately responsive.

The Prime Advanced came with Intelligent Parking Assist while the NX 300h came with Intuitive Parking Assist. The parking sensors in the NX h seem way more sensitive and react faster than those in the Prime. The NX h sensors pick up areas like the side of the garage door that the sensors on the Prime ignore. Both the Prime and NX h came with Blind Spot Monitoring with Rear Cross Traffic Alert and seem to operate the same. Both can pick up traffic on our rural road while backing out of our garage at about the same distance.

Lexus Enform versus Toyota Entune. Not exactly the same because functionality is broken up among 3 different apps for Lexus Enform. Toyota Entune is a single app encompassing all of Prius Prime’s, sometimes unique, functions. Lexus Enform Remote is an app that allows the driver to check on status of the car like whether the doors are locked, how much fuel is left, and where the car is parked. Remote also engages certain remote function, like locking or unlocking the doors, starting the engine and enable guest driver profiles, like valet, friends, family and a couple of custom guests. Lexus Roadside Assistance of course activates roadside help. Lexus Enform Appsuite 2.0 has some of the same apps as Toyota Entune, such as Pandora, iHeartRadio and Slacker Radio. The biggest difference is if the Lexus detects Enform Appsuite isn’t running, it’ll ask to run it, over Bluetooth no less. This might sound odd but they work well running at the same time on my phone.

So how is it with gas? Well for a 2-ton (weighs almost 4,200 pounds) AWD SUV, not bad. My wife is the main driver and is no hypermiler so her tanks have been averaging 36.8 mpg across 7 fill ups with the best being 39.4. The car definitely stays in EV mode longer than my old 2005 Prius on the same roads and can be used accelerating at a higher speed as well. Lexus really uses the electric motors and battery far more aggressively than either the 2005 Prius and 2012 Prius Plug-In I’ve owned or the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Toyota Highlander Hybrid I’ve rented.

If you have any other questions I’ll be more than happy to answer them.


Unsupervised!

 

Nice! She test drove the RX h as well as a Highlander Hybrid but she thought they were too big. We can afford the RX h but she didn't want to. She's the bookkeeper in our family. We actually looked at a Satin Cashmere Metallic RX h with the Nobel Brown and she liked it. I don't think Lexus makes a paint job without metal flakes. Our "official" color is Matador Red Mica and sparkles too!

 

Out with the old Sunset Bronze Metallic Venza and in with the new Matador Red Mica NX 300h.

I'll have to take some more outside. Inside shots make the color seem off. And it's really like a bright red.

 

As for noise I can tell you the RAV4 Hybrid is noisier. I thought when the ICE kicked in it did so harder and was very noticeable. I was really disappointed and we quickly moved on from that test drive. Between the normal ICE only RAV4 Limited I've rented and her NXh the steering felt not as tight as the NXh even after we've had it for 5 months now. But as far as comfort the Lexus just felt very driver centric, enveloping and was just a grand comfortable ride. It's a little hard to describe the seats comfort, but when I got into the rented RAV4 Limited I had to adjust myself to find a comfortable spot once I adjusted the seats. The NXh doesn't require you to find a comfortable spot. You can tell also the difference when you shut the door in a Toyota and in a Lexus, the world just gets sealed away. The view is better IMHO from the driver's perspective on the NXh than the RAV4. Oh and even though I have a slightly more advanced audio system on paper in my Prime Advanced, her NXh still sounds better. The biggest difference though is her audio is also infinitely more adjustable. I don't blame your wife for feeling intimidated by the RX, my wife was too as well as the Highlander Hybrid. She just thought they were way too big. You might find the NXh drivers side a little claustrophobic at first, but it now seems more intimate. Everything is within easy reach and seems effortless. See if you can get an NXh with a Navi built in and not the Scout GPS Link which requires a phone. Takes a bit of prep work to try and make that work. Not very Lexus like. Looks like Lexus will come out with a Lexus UX250h early next year. You might also want to look at that since it uses Global Architecture - Compact and has Lexus Safety System+ 2.0. It'll be about 5 inches shorter and 600lbs lighter than the NXh. I'm impressed with the Prime's Toyota’s New Global Architecture (TNGA). It does seem to provide a firmer more solid feel of the road while providing a smooth ride.

 

Not sure about eating into NX sales. Different markets, kind of like comparing the C-HR eating into sales of the RAV4. The NX seems more conventional of a SUV.

Our Lexus dealer had a UX250h unveiling. It’s a bit lower to the ground than the NX. I thought it felt like getting in and out of the C-HR. There is more headroom and legroom in the C-HR but the UXh seemed roomier probably because of the moonroof which you can’t get in a C-HR. Of course inside there is no comparison, the C-HR just looks cheaper inside.

The UXh is shorter than my Prime and turns on a dime, about like my old PiP. Like my wife’s NXh the UXh’s ICE kicking in is smooth and quiet. You couldn’t go wrong with the UXh. Kind of reminds me of a luxury all-wheel drive Prius, with more pep and better looks.


Unsupervised!