The 2010 Lexus GX460 officially goes on sale next month, with a base price of $51,970.
To listen to some folks in the mainstream media, the sport-utility vehicle is dead and gone. Don’t try to tell that to American motorists. Sure, sales are down, and many buyers are switching from conventional SUVs to lighter, more nimble and efficient crossover vehicles, but to misappropriate Mark Twain, reports of the sport ute’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
Just ask Toyota, which has blanketed the market with an array of conventional sport-utility vehicles and crossover-utes though both its mass brand, as well as up-market Lexus. The latter marque’s RX line dominates the mid-luxury crossover segment, the big RX570 targets buyers looking for the ultimate combination of off-roadability and create comforts.
Smack in the middle is the GX, a three-row, body-on-frame ute which is making its second-generation debut. At first glance, it might be a bit confusing, the new 2010 Lexus GX460 replacing the older GX470. In fact, while the displacement is down, Lexus has found a way to squeeze out more power, torque – and fuel economy.
The 2010 Lexus GX460 features a body-on-frame design shared with the Toyota 4Runner.
As you’d expect, the ’10 GX gets still more of those high-tech features Lexus buyers love, and an array of new infotainment and creature comfort features. The list is a long one, and we’ll get to it in a moment, but what we most hoped for from the latest Lexus offering wasn’t quite up to expectations. While the GX460 looks great on paper (or your handy video monitor), it still lacks a little bit of soul, as we discovered during a day of driving around San Diego and the nearby hill country.
In Lexus-speak, the new model more closely adheres to the brand’s new design philosophy, dubbed L-Finesse. The goal, explained Charles Hubbard, of Lexus College, was to make the 2010 GX460 look like it was laser cut from a machined steel bar.
In reality, the changes are subtle. We needed to see the image of the 2009 model morph into the ’10 several times before they became obvious. Most notable is the new 3-bar grille, while a sharp eye recognizes the body has a more wedge-like shape than last year’s GX. The taillights are now quick and energy-saving LEDs, and though the rear hatch still swings to the side, a distinct anomaly in the segment, it gets flip-up glass, which simplifies loading smaller objects into the cargo compartment.
The exterior changes to the 2010 Lexus GX460 are modest, including the new, 3-bar grille.
In terms of dimensions, the 2010 Lexus GX460 is 0.2 inches wider, 1.2 inches lower and 1 inch longer.
Inside, the cabin is more car-like, to our eye, though that steel bar image has been used to define the instrument panel layout. Lexus has done a nice job with the tri-color leather. There are two different center stacks, depending on whether you opt for the navi system, but even if you don’t, you’ll get a small screen that displays images from the standard backup camera.
While there are plenty of 3-row utes on the market, most offer about as much usability, in the back, as the rear seats in a typical sports car. Lexus has, if anything, made it easier to get to the back seats, with a slide-forward second row seat on the passenger side. It’s about as good as it gets in the SUV market. On the other hand, if you simply want more storage space, you can fold down the back row with the touch of a button.
The 3rd row of the 2010 Lexus GX460 folds with the touch of a button.
There’s a great optional rear seat entertainment system, which mounts separate monitors in the back of the two front buckets. That may make it hard to see from the third row, however. The standard, 9-speaker sound system is impressive, but the optional, 17-speaker Mark Levinson audio package is likely to be better than what most buyers go home to. The infotainment systems also feature Bluetooth and the ability to connect iPhones and other portable storage devices.
We’ve come to expect to spend at least an hour at any Lexus preview going over all the technology in a new model, and the GX460 didn’t disappoint. The highlights include a pre-Collision System with Dynamic Radar Cruise Control, Driver Attention Monitor – which uses a camera to detect a distracted or tired driver, and Lane Departure Alert (LDA). It will be difficult to outdo the 2010 Lexus GX460 on the airbag front, as there are 10 of them. There are intelligent headlamps and a smart high-beam system that senses both oncoming traffic and a car in front of you automatically.
It's easier to store small items in the back of the 2010 Lexus GX460 with the new, flip-up glass.
The forward and sideview video system helps you see around the big brute of a ute, something useful whether you’re squeezing into a tight mall parking spot or attacking a rugged trail. Hill Start Assist makes it easy to start up even in a place like San Francisco, without rolling backwards. The optional Crawl Control can be used to set a fixed speed, up to 3.7 mph, and hold it even when you’re nosing down the steepest hill. The GX offers full-time all-wheel-drive – of course – and the Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System, or KDSS, uses a hydraulic system to maximize wheel contact with the dirt or pavement, even on the craggiest of trails.
Then there’s the new, 4.6-liter V8, all aluminum, with dual VVTi. It may be a wee bit smaller than the ’09 powerplant, but it makes 38 more horsepower and 6 more pound-feet of torque: 301 hp and 329 lb-ft, to be precise. In turn, you’ll hit 60 in 7.8 seconds, according to Lexus, down from 8.1 seconds before. The EPA rating on the new package is 15 mpg City/20 Highway/17 Combined.
The design theme of the 2010 Lexus GX460 is a machined bar of steel.
Focus on the City numbers, for that’s where we expect most buyers of the 2010 Lexus GX460 will be spending most of their time, in urban and suburban settings, where the real challenge is stop-and-go traffic and the crowded local malls.
Nonetheless, the new ute certainly has the underpinnings of a true off-roader, something we set out to verify by taking the GX on a drive to a 1000-acre horse farm on the northern fringe of San Diego.
During the highway portion of our drive we found the GX to be competent and comfortable, but there’s a certain numbness to the vehicle that has plagued much of the Lexus line-up, over the years.
Anyone expecting the nimbleness of the latest Lexus RX could be in for a shock. One problem is the ute’s sheer size, now 5,300 pounds, or roughly a quarter ton more than when the original GX470 was first introduced, in 2003. And this is, after all, a body-on-frame, not unibody package.
The new rear seat entertainment system offers twin LCD screens.
The “trail” we got to drive was notably less challenging than what we faced on the launch of the earlier GX – where the deeply-rutted tracks did some serious damage to the SUV’s running boards. Even then, we did jounce and bounce a fair bit, though the KDSS system – which actively adjusts the ute’s rollbars – did a reasonable job of keeping us in contact with the ground. For those who do intend to go off-roading, the optional Air Suspension would be a wise choice, not only increasing ground clearance but giving you better control of the suspension with its 3-mode settings, depending on road conditions. The self-leveling Air Suspension is standard on the Premium version of the GX.
Sharing much of the underlying features of Toyota’s popular 4Runner, we weren’t surprised by the manners of the Lexus alternative, though we’d have certainly appreciated the ability to select terrain modes, as the Toyota model permits.
The 2010 Lexus GX460 falls in the middle of the brand's 3-model CUV/SUV line-up.
Reflecting the realities of the fast-changing U.S. auto market, Lexus has relatively modest expectations for the 2010 GX460, sales of about 14,000 units in the upcoming calendar year. When it goes on sale, in December, the base model will be priced at $51,970, while the Premium will go for $56,765. Those figures give Lexus a distinct price advantage over competitors like the BMW X5 – about $4,200 – and the Audi Q7 4.2 – about $9,000.
But it lands right on top of the new, $51,750 Land Rover LR4. In years past, the British ute – or more precisely, the old LR3 – would have made for an easy comparison, simply not delivering the features and refinement of the old GX470, even if it was markedly better off-road. The new LR4 is another matter. It features a markedly improved cabin and lots of nice, luxurious touches. It’s still the best off-roader, especially with its Terrain Response Control, which will instantly set up everything from brakes to accelerator and gearbox to best deal with specific road conditions. And now, the LR4 gives Lexus more of a run for the money overall.
But Lexus still has quality and reliability going for it, areas where Land Rover has long fallen short. If those are key to your purchase, they’ll probably win you over to the new GX. On the whole, the 2010 Lexus GX460 is enough of an improvement over the old 470 to garner our attention. It’s a bland but well-equipped and competent vehicle that will nonetheless make sense for suburbanites who want a 3-row, go-anywhere SUV.