2024 Lexus TX 500h F Sport — Living With The New 3-Row SUV

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Toe for Drives, where today it is December 21st, and I still have quite a bit of Christmas shopping that I need to accomplish, so I figured I would take you all with me in this, the new 2024 Lexus TX 500h F-Sport Performance Luxury all-wheel drive. A little bit of a mouthful, but this is quite a bit of car, and if you think this looks familiar, you are correct, because just last week, Emily and I took the Toyota Grand Highlander up to Frankenmuth, and this Lexus TX is the sister car to that, shares a platform, shares a couple powertrains, and also shares some interior bits with the much less expensive Toyota Grand Highlander. It's $20,000 more expensive as you go trim to trim to the Toyota Grand Highlander. In fact, this Lexus TX, as specced, is $77,000, so just about 20 grand more than the hybrid max equivalent Toyota Grand Highlander. Now, we have quite a bit to go over, and I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet, because there are a few trims, of course, of the Grand Highlander, there's a few trims of the Lexus TX, and they kind of match up apples to apples in some ways, and, well, I'm still trying to figure out which one makes the most sense. I don't think it's this, the 500h F-Sport Performance, because it just has some gimmicky F-Sport things that I don't know that you would actually need or want in your big three-row SUV, but before we talk about what is special on the 500h, let's go over all of the trims. So the base model is called the TX350, you can have that in front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, it starts at about $62,000. This is the mid-grade trim, the 500h, I'm not going to say the whole name because you've heard me say it about six times at this point, and then the top trim is the TX550 Plus plug-in hybrid, which has a V6, so quite a bit of variety in our range there. The mid-grade Lexus TX has Toyota's hybrid max powertrain, so it's a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, hybrid, combined power output is 366 horsepower and 409 pound-feet of torque, every 500h is all-wheel drive, and power is sent to a six-speed automatic from that 2.4-liter. If I haven't already bored you to death, let's talk about what this TX500h has that the other cars don't that make it unique. For one, it has the F-Sport adaptive dampers. Depending on what drive mode you're in, the dampers will adjust to suit. So sport mode, they're a little bit stiffer, normal and eco, they are softer. We also have these 22-inch wheels. We have a unique front fascia on this car for the F-Sport, we have different seats inside, and the 500 and the 550 get rear-wheel steering, and you can kind of see the angle right now, it's kind of hard to tell. This isn't a super aggressive rear-wheel steering system, it only turns just a bit, but you can tell if we look down the side here that the rear wheels have turned a little bit. Okay, I think we've gotten through the basics, and I'll put a timestamp if you want to skip all of that information, if you just want to see me drive the car, which is what I would do personally, because I just like to get in these cars and tell you what they're like to drive. That's what's making all the noise back there, just figured that out. Okay, of course, this is a three-row SUV. With captain's chairs, it is a six-passenger car. Right off the bat, what I don't like as much about the Lexus TX is that it has power-folding third-row seats, which I just think, I don't even know how to operate them, why won't you not fold down? There we go, okay. So immediately, if they were manual, I would have already had them folded down, but you push a button, and then you wait 30 seconds, and it folds down into the floor, makes popping noises. I understand the ease of a power third-row seat, but I really prefer having third-row seats that I can just pull a cord, and the seat falls down, job done. But if you don't want to do that, then Lexus has you covered here with this power third-row that is hilariously slow. Okay, I'm going to sit in the third-row just because I want to show you guys that this is Lexus's first vehicle that actually has a proper usable third-row, and obviously because, you know, we're probably going to have to do some things with putting gifts in here so they don't rattle about. That I like because that's one button, and it just gets out of the way. Nice step here to step up, and we'll step into our third-row seat. We'll go ahead and pull this back, and this is me being genuine. I do have enough room back here to be comfortable. Not only that, I have some cup holders, I have a USB-C port, of which there are seven in this car. We've got tie-downs for if you have something large back here with your seats folded down, and with this 500h luxury, we have some suede-slash-Alcantara bits to our seats, as well as perforated leather in the middle, so that's quite nice. I do quite like that. It just gets out of the way. Let's quickly evaluate the second row, and then let's get on the road because I'm tired of walking around this parking lot and talking to myself. And just sitting in this car, it does have quite a bit more insulation than the Toyota Grand Highlander. You feel more sealed off from the elements. We also have a pano roof, we have sunshades, and with this luxury package, we get the 21-speaker Mark Levinson sound system, which is not as good as I thought it would be, so that's a little bit disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good system, and if you want to hear a test on that, head over to the Daily Motor YouTube channel. Charlie has a full comprehensive video reviewing this 21-speaker Mark Levinson. One thing that's cool are these detachable cupholders, though I don't really know when you'd actually ever want to detach them. I guess if you needed to put something in the middle, which maybe you will need today, but it kind of frees up this console space, and I like the option to remove them even though I don't know when you'd use them because I don't like when there just isn't anything here and these lock in place and should not rattle. Okay, two more USB-C ports, we have our own climate control panel back here with heated and cooled seats. Seatback pockets, okay, let's hop up front. Our doors are electronic, little buttons here on the inside, but if you get locked in the car and the battery dies, you do have a manual release right there, so that's a good thing. Same for front and rear. We'll take a quick peek at the engine, and then we're going to leave this parking lot. Hood shocks, that is good, that's what you need on an $80,000 SUV. Here's our 2.4-liter turbo, again, 366 horsepower, 409 pound-feet of torque. Those are combined numbers from our Turbo 4 plus our electric motor, and well, it is a little bit zesty. We'll show you that. I'll give you some performance driving impressions once we are on the road, but today's going to be more of a living with the Lexus TX. 22-inch wheels wrapped in some Continental all-season tires, and you'd never know that car and driver had this car before me. There are no signs of it at all. Okay, let's hop in. Really, really nice front seats. I absolutely love the way these look. They're also very supportive and have nice materials. I love petting the Alcantara, but this is kind of a different Alcantara material than I'm used to in Lexus, so I'm wondering if they're calling it suede or microsuede or something. One thing I think that would have went a long way in this car would have been a headliner in this same material. You know, an equivalently-sized Hyundai Palisade gives you a suede headliner for like $20,000 cheaper, so I think that would have gone a long way, just my opinion. Cool. So, everything up here that you would expect. We have Toyota's kind of standard infotainment system, though it is larger on the Lexus. As opposed to 12-inches, it's 14-inches, a little bit bigger, and that is mostly to suit these climate controls that are in the screen, because the regular Toyota screen is about this size, and it just adds those couple inches down here to fit our climate. Though our knobs are still physical, but you guys have all seen this, it's the same as it is in any Lexus with this new 14-inch screen. We've got wireless Apple CarPlay, here's what it looks like when it's not in CarPlay. We've got a 12.3-inch digital cluster, same thing you get in the Grand Highlander. I kind of wish they would have changed the design a little bit. The good thing is, you can configure it. This has the optional technology package, which gives you the buttons that you have to foreplay first before they can, I don't know, I hope you guys can see this. But on the heads-up display, when you touch the buttons, they light up and then you're able to do what the button says, and you can also switch it by pressing this menu button at the bottom. But you can't just press the button. You have to wait until it pops up, so it just adds an extra second. Kind of a silly thing to complain about, but just an observation. But this is an option, so you don't have to have it. We've got a power-adjust steering column, which is very nice, and it's what you'd expect in a near $80,000 SUV. Wireless phone charger, which we will be testing today to see if my phone stays put as we drive about. We have those same detachable cup holders up front that you guys saw in the second row. We have a split-folding armrest, which is different than what you get in the Toyota Grand Highlander. That one slides back and has two armrests on either side. I don't really have a preference. If anything, this is easier to take things in and out of, you know, than the Grand Highlander, so maybe I prefer this one. We have switches down here for traction control, off-road mode. Our other drive modes exist here in the infotainment screen as shortcuts or on the second screen if they're not shortcuts. All right. That's enough of a tour. We'll talk about the rest while we're on the road. 360 camera here, which is actually optional. That does not come standard, which is silly. Put ourselves back into drive, and off we go. Now, this is not my favorite steering feel in a luxury SUV. The rear-wheel steering certainly helps, but it's not as aggressive of a rear-wheel steering as you'd get in something like a BMW X7 or a Mercedes GLS, so it's there. It helps this thing be a little bit more agile, but it doesn't feel as nice as the German equivalents. The steering, it's light enough, but I think it could do to be a little bit lighter when we're cruising around here in normal mode. Also, I am starving, and I think we need to first find a drive-through to acquire some food. There's an edge with a wreath on the front of it. The car is warning me there's cross-traffic. OK. Good torque from the 2.4-liter taking off there. I do love powerful hybrids. They are good around town because you can just get on with it. It's about half throttle, gets up to speed nicely. Admittedly, this is my first time driving this car with no music, and I'm hearing wind noise from this side, and I'm hearing some sort of a rattle from over here. This is VIN number 12. This is only the 12th one of these off the line. It's very early production, but it's not a pre-production. We also have a camera rear-view mirror, which is nice. That's something you should have in an SUV this size. I guess what I'm really trying to evaluate here is, is this worth $20,000 more than a Grand Highlander? So far, after living with this thing for four days, I don't really know if it is because I quite liked the Grand Highlander, and you guys can go back and watch that video if you are interested. And boy, am I happy that we got a traditional automatic transmission in this and not a CVT. Not a big fan of CVTs, as you guys know, and as I think a lot of you probably aren't as well. I wouldn't say that I'm anti-CVT, but much happier with 6-speed automatic with paddle shifters as well. Also, if you're curious what it's telling me here, it says, sit up, driver's face not detected. That's because I'm wearing a camera on my face, which it's probably getting confused with my eyeballs. And our first stop today is, rather embarrassingly, the Arby's drive-thru, because it is the closest drive-thru to Target, which is the first store that we will be going to today. So let's go ahead and do our Michigan left here, so we're able to turn right. We'll use some of that 409 pound-feet of torque. Pretty good feel through this brake pedal as well. Man, hybrid brake pedals have just gotten so much better throughout the years. Ooh, good maneuverability test. Exciting things happening. Thank you for choosing Arby's. I'll be with you in just one moment. Hello, can I please do a three-piece chicken tender meal with a strawberry lemonade? Curly or crinkle fries? Curly fries, please. Anything else? That's it. 1133, we'll be happy to halt at the window. Thank you. Rear-wheel steering getting me around nicely here. It really is necessary in big SUVs like this, not just to maneuver, but to give you the peace of mind while maneuvering, and obviously that's why, but there are lots of tire marks on that curb, so it is a thing to crash into the curb if your vehicle's not confidence-inspiring. So, super-fast auto up-down windows. This is important in a drive-through. Have your method of payment ready. Cool, thanks, you too. Good stuff. Now, let's go eat our fast food in the Target parking lot. Let the all-leather Corvette go first. So, what am I getting at Target? I am going to get Emily a, oh, what's it called? This kettle thing that boils water in a minute. Let's back into this corner spot, and we'll test out our 360 camera here. Put us into reverse. I didn't line that up very well. Camera quality is nice, and what I like about this is you can see through the car, and now that isn't super important while just parking like this in a parking lot. It's nice for if you are off-roading, if you're going somewhere where there's uneven pavement, you can see under the car, which is nice. Car thinks that charger is driving at me. I'm just going to straighten out because I'm in it. There we go. Now we're even with the line. Put ourselves into park. It will automatically apply the parking brake, which I like. Power button front and center there. Okay, well, I don't think you guys all want to watch me eat. I will say, though, Arby's lemonade is the best, but it used to be so much bigger than this. This is a large, and it used to be, like, you know, the big gulp size, which was the same price, but then shrinkflation or whatever they call it happened, and now what used to be a small is now a large, and the small is just a little baby guy, so. Anyways, all right, well, I'm going to eat my fast food and then enter Target not wearing the POV hat because I don't have the social confidence for that, and then we'll come back and we'll hit our next destination. Actually, before I even head into Target, I just finished eating my Arby's. I think I understand why these detach now. It all makes sense, okay? I set my fries in here. Ton of crumbs, right? I can now pop this out. Okay, there's a couple still in there, but you get the idea. That makes a lot of sense. And then you click it back in. So, for cleaning purposes, these make sense. They really do. Exiting Target now with the largest Target bag I've ever seen. I didn't know they made ones this big, but we're going to see where we can put this in and navigate under a tree in the Lexus TX. Now, obviously, this is a large three-row SUV, but cargo compartments and solutions are not always that great, so I'm going to open that into the tree as well. Ignore that. This is kind of the make-or-break for me with some of these big cars because I don't like when you put something in the back of a car and it rattles around and goes everywhere. I also am second-guessing myself on if this is the right tea kettle, but we'll gloss over that for now as well. So let's see what our room is like under here. Ah, okay, there's no room under there, so let's... I also didn't mean to completely pull this out of the car. Put that back as well. Okay, so I don't really think I want to put it back here. Let's go ahead and go into the second row. Thank you to the helicopter for giving us good audio. I wonder if maybe we can sort of wedge it, like, right here. Yeah. No, that's good. I think that's the solution. Okay, onwards to the next place. Lots of good audio happening today. Startup sequence is pleasant. Also, it's Thursday at... what time is it? It's Thursday at 3.30, and it was a madhouse in Target, so imagine what it's going to be like this weekend on the 23rd and 24th. That's going to be dreadful. That's why I was getting it all done today instead. And obviously not all of my Christmas shopping is happening today. I'm not that irresponsible, but, you know, some is happening. It's more so just the little things that I don't really think about, like candy for stockings and tea kettle thing, I guess. So now we're going to go to Whole Foods, of all places, and we're going to get this little tin of matcha that Emily wants because she wants to start making her own matcha at home, and I just bought her a matcha starter kit. Sitting in traffic here, trying to leave Target. We do have an auto-hold button right below our shifter. Nice feeling turn signals. They click into place, unlike some of the older Lexus products. Here we go. The bag is moving around. It didn't do a good enough job securing it. I love when cars have an under-trunk area to put things. It just makes it so much more pleasant, but this is a hybrid. It's all-wheel drive, so we do lose some of our storage space in the back. Let's talk about ride quality. Ride quality is decent. I think if you were to opt for either the TX350 or the TX550H+, you would have better ride quality. There are a couple things that kind of disadvantage this car. For one, the 22-inch wheels, and two, the F-Sport dampers. Now, they are adjustable, and you can put the car in sport like this, and it stiffens them up a bit. Excuse me, my Arby's is coming up on me. That's disgusting. And then in normal mode, they soften up. There's not too noticeable of a difference, and we're actually going to scoot off for a second. We're going to take a couple of corners and listen to the target bag get thrashed around in the back. But we got to do some performance driving. Come on, it's the F-Sport performance. So silly. It seems like a little bit of a weird trim level. I think even going with the base TX350 with just the regular 2.4 turbo, the 8-speed automatic, I think you'd be plenty fine with that. After coming out of the Grand Highlander last week, it was a great car. I really enjoyed driving it, and it was great on the highway. And the 8-speed behaved nicely, so did the 2.4. So you don't necessarily need to get the F-Sport with the hybrid max, in my opinion. And I have not driven the 550h Plus with 3.5 V6, but I imagine that's quite nice as well. If you're curious about that car, there's a video over on the Topher. He drove one at the launch event for the Lexus Texas in Texas. Throttle response is nice as well, and the hybridization really helps that. Toyota's kind of calibrated this hybrid max powertrain to work pretty dang flawlessly. And, of course, Toyota is kind of the king when it comes to hybrids. They've been doing it for so long. They kind of pioneered the hybrid SUV back almost 20 years ago with the RX hybrid. And, you know, it just goes to show that they know what they're doing. They've been in this game for a while. And as far as powertrain goes, I mean, it really is a treat. Average MPG this week, 19.8. I have been expressing the F-Sport performance nature of this car a little bit more than the average person probably would. EPA is 27 city, 28 highway, 27 combined. So to kind of relate that to the Grand Highlander, the Grand Highlander did quite a bit worse than EPA on our road trip to Frankenmuth. Yeah, so the 19.8 may actually be pretty accurate. I would say if you drive around like a grandma and really take advantage of this hybrid, you could maybe squeeze like 22 or 23 out of it. It's also wintertime, and, you know, cars always get worse in winter for a number of reasons. Ooh, yes, very zesty. Zesty-ized throttle response there in sport mode. Make sure this person's not going to straddle. Good kick down. Car is in sport mode. Yeah. Handle's pretty nice. Steering tightens up quite a bit as well. See that transmission holding gears just a bit longer. All of Emily's Christmas presents are just going to be broken by the end of this. Wow, that, that is a ram dually hauling an entire shipping container. Let's try out manual mode here. Push the shifter down once. Push into M1. You've got no shifting down here on the stick, but you do have it with our paddle shifters here. And it won't hold gears. It'll shift for you at redline. But if you do want to shift yourself, it does react pretty quickly. And you saw 80 sneaks up on you. Blips on downshifts are very smooth. No jerk. We'll leave it in third gear and kind of use that torque to pull us out of the corner. Yeah, it's still pretty wispy. And it just kind of, what's the Rolls Royce word that they use? Waftability. It's still waftable. So left and down, put you back into drive. There we go. Put ourselves into normal mode. Eco mode just numbs the throttle response, you know, like any other eco mode does. So not the biggest fan of that. Pretty impressive handling characteristics here for a big three-row all-wheel drive SUV. I mean, steering feels nice. It's weighted nice. Corner's pretty dang flat. We had a little touch of understeer, but I did come in kind of hot to that corner. Yeah, this thing handles great. I would say handling characteristics versus the Grand Highlander, this feels more like an $80,000 SUV in the handling department. So you definitely get your value there as far as driving dynamics go. I do like the lightness of the steering in the Grand Highlander. Torque here is really great. It really is. The holidays are just a wild time to be on the road. I mean, they really are. All of the people who don't generally leave their houses are leaving their houses very cross about having to leave their house that they don't usually leave. Getting my word count up today. Most of the roads we've been on so far in today's drive have been silky smooth, like this one, because our governor decided to fix all of them at the same time over the summer, which was very nice, but very inconvenient. But at least now for winter, they're nice and smooth. But the reason I'm bringing that up is because there is a hideous interior rattle behind this 14-inch infotainment screen. And I'm hoping that when we merge here, you may be able to hear it. And I want to preface it by telling you what to listen for. I'm sure you'll hear it, but I'll describe it anyways. It sounds like a pack of ice mountain water bottles sort of blustering around, like that sort of squeaky noise that you have when plastic water bottles are rubbing together. Now, this is a dreadful entrance ramp, so hopefully we'll be able to hear our interior rattle. Oh my gosh, they've repaved it. All of my plans are failing today. All right, let's give you some highway impressions here. Getting up to highway speeds. I'm going to try to not get sideswiped by a Honda Pilot. Now, that is a very nice-looking car in gray, I will say. It's got our cruise control set, which luckily you don't have to give foreplay to get the cruise control to turn on. That just does its own thing. This is very irritated because it wants me to sit up. Sometimes it just yells you and it just says, sit up. Yes, I know, I understand. Please stop. Please stop it. Ugh. Lord, okay. So, top tip. Don't drive your Lexus Texas if you're wearing a POV camera. It's almost like if you've been wanting that Lexus minivan thing that they sell in Japan, this is the closest thing you're going to get in America. Because the whole back of it's set up like a minivan. The only thing that you're really losing is the front-wheel-drive architecture cargo storage in the back and the sliding doors. Crazy impact harshness on these 22s. You guys hear that? I don't have a pack of water bottles in the back, it's the infotainment screen. I feel like I'm being too hard on this car. It is nice, and I do like driving it around, but for $77,000, it's not blowing me away. It really just isn't. And I think that I would probably just go and spend my money on a BMW X7 instead. It's also in a tough spot because the Grand Highlander exists, and that's also a very nice car, and it's quite a bit cheaper. I think the one thing that I am quite firm on is that this F-Sport trim level is quite silly. Just get a TX350. And if you want the hybrid, pony up an extra, like, $4,000 and get the 550h+. What they need to make is a hybrid that isn't an F-Sport, because they don't do it. Unless you get the plug-in hybrid, of course, because the base model is just a petrol only. So, I don't know, kind of a weird and kind of confused lineup, and they may sort that out over the next couple of years. Good merits for this car. The powertrain is lovely. The interior materials themselves, as far as touching feeling goes. Lexus materials are always top-notch. The one thing I'm disappointed about is that we don't have leather on top of the door panels and the dashboard. This is the same material you get in the Grand Highlander. I don't know, I mean, the ride is kind of mediocre. The impact harshness over bumps, not great. It has multiple interior rattles. It's almost 80 grand. Let's see how it handles the Whole Foods parking lot. That's definitely going to be an important test for this. We're going to go into the thick of it, too, because this is important research. Fantastic color on that Honda Fit. Check that out. All right, let's snag this spot that's one from the end. 360 camera coming in handy. Parking lines coming in handy. Rear-wheel steering coming in handy. Get us right up to the curb there. Hear a bit from our parking sensors. Oh, that reminds me. This did something else the other day that I didn't necessarily enjoy. Backed it into Emily's garage, and I wish I would have taken a picture so I could show you guys what I'm on about, but I was too frustrated in the moment to do it. Got out of the car, okay, walked around back, because Emily's garage is kind of tight, and I didn't have room to walk around the side because there was a garbage can in the way, so I walked around back of the car, went like this, scooched by it, and it did that! I'm so glad that that just happened. And you can imagine, okay, that this is not ideal when you're backed into a garage, because I was this close to the wall. So at this point you're inferring, yes, it did. The hatch smashed itself into Emily's house. I don't think it damaged anything, because, you know, it's just drywall that it ran into, but you can see where I brushed, yeah, it didn't damage anything. And more importantly, actually, it didn't damage the wall in the house, which is what I was worried about. But that is extremely sensitive. You just barely run your foot under it and it opens, which is nice in some scenarios, of course, if your hands are full and you want to open the back of this thing. It's very easy and very sensitive, but top tip, don't back your Lexus Texas into your garage if you don't have room to then open the back. Okay, I'm gonna go into Whole Foods and hopefully get some matcha. Exiting Whole Foods, back to the Lexus Texas. And this little thing of matcha was $32. So hopefully that's good. But I got myself a zesty drink as a treat. So just pop this in here. Actually, opening that door reminds me. One good thing about this car, and one thing that you don't get in a lot of cars now, I will demonstrate. Take our key fob and we'll relock our doors. I can now walk up to this back door and it will open. Rear proxy key, such an underrated option on cars, and happy that this Lexus TX500 has such an option for our $80,000 price tag. They say like rats run across the top of these cans in the factory or something. Yeah, whatever. We all die. You either kill yourself or get killed. Okay, we're making one last stop, but this is going to be the end of the video. I'm just going to go across the street into this. I think as far as living with this car goes, it is quite nice. I love the power door handles. I love the ease of the rear proxy key. The power hatch, of course, that is nice with the foot activation, as long as it doesn't open itself into your garage wall. The infotainment is very straightforward and easy to use. We still have a volume knob. Everything in here is power. And I've had a good few days with this car. I've had a good day today with this car. And all of my little nitpicky things are all just honest observations that I want to share with you guys because I hate when people review cars and they only say good things about them because you know that they're not being completely honest. So we've got to pick some things apart, talk about some things that could be improved on. And I think my perfect Lexus TX500h would be a non... Ooh, nice Land Cruiser. Very good. My perfect Lexus TX would just be a Land Cruiser. But if I had to have a Lexus TX, I wish that they would have a trim level where I could have the Hybrid Max without the F-Sport bits. And I think that'll probably come along sometime in the next few years when they kind of iron out this... What's the word? Oh, it's a reindeer. Oh, wait. No, it's a Volvo XC90. So we'll park up over here. We'll wrap up the video, which is probably much too long already. So if you stuck around until now, thank you so much for that. So there you guys have it. A day in the life with a Lexus TX500h F-Sport performance, luxury, all-wheel drive, parked now in its natural habitat at the shopping center. So overall, pretty good day with the car. And yeah, that'll wrap it up for us. Thank you guys all so much for watching. We'll see you in the next one. Take care.