2010 Lexus GX460 Premium Review

The 4Runner's uptown cousin is equal parts tech and truck.

2010 Lexus GX460 Premium Review Neither is felt as Lexus class defining RX, nor proposing the Voguenarian drama of the LX, the GX is part luxury, park utility, part truck and park tech. Let’s check the latter on the 2010 GX460. Now, the GX isn't a real pretty thing, it's a truck, a Lexus truck but a truck with real off- road, all wheel drive, a frame underneath that body, a V8 and lots of big parts. But faithful to the Lexus buyers MO of wine auctions and charity golf, our GX came in Claret Mica. The black leather inside covers three rows of seats. Now, from the driver's seat, this Lexus doesn't look like most other Lexi, different kind of a look and feel inside, lots of big squared off He-Man stuff all over the place. You don't get navigation base with this guy. That is not in every vehicle. It's a package option even on this premium trim GX. That said, it's a great system. We love it a lot. Easy to deal with, nice big touch screen, it is hard drive based but by the way, there is no place for you to rip your own music. It’s hard drive for the navigation system only. XM provides the traffic, the weather, stock quotes, sports scores and if you need more than that, you've also got Lexus Enform which is their version of OnStar which will handle all the usual help me, help me stuff as well as trying to find you a good restaurant and getting you a reservation there. Now, your base audio rig is some Lexus premium sound stuff with nine speakers, you're going to want the Levinson. It's one of the better systems on the road. It's part of a pricey package but it gets you 17 speakers, 330 watts, all kinds of surround decoding, 7.1 around the cabin. However, another package on top of that, if you want rear set entertainment. And your audio sources that come out of that system are just about everything you want. Down here under this big macho square door, we've got the USB/iPod/aux jack. We've also got an optical disk slot up here which unfortunately in this car is not working. So, I can't show you what a movie looks like but CD and DVD goes in there. Now, the ass end of a GX 460 is interesting, you've got the lift up glass which is still relatively exotic on utilities and that of course sits inside of a barn door here, not a lift gate which gives us this really ungainly strut over here, which will help you lock the door open. This guy is a three-row vehicle, well three-row, if you've got some very bad children you want to punish. They go back here in these little scrawny seats that are also power folders. Now, if they go all the way down, you do get a flat load floor in the back but notice, you've got a high lift over which is either good because it's kind of nice on your back to not lower things way down in but on the other hand, we've lost a bit of space here. The second row is kind of a letdown, especially compared to what Chrysler and Toyota are doing with their minivan second rows these days. This is your fold down, it's not flat, it's not low, it's not even level, it's just okay. This is no Chrysler Stow ‘n Go, I'll tell you that. Under hood is where the 460 part of GX 460 comes from: the company’s 4.6-liter V8 offering 301 horsepower and 329 foot-pounds of torque through that 6-speed automatic that isn't particularly cutting edge. The combination is Swiss watch smooth however, but this guy still weighs 5,340 pounds, so 0-60 happens in a sort of leisurely by today's standards 7.8 seconds with 15/20 MPG that really just turns out to be 15. The standard all wheel drive here is the real thing, with a 2-speed transfer case mounted to mid-ships. This isn't that pansy performance all wheel drive meant for carving a tenth of a second off your 0 to Rite Aid weekend errand times; now it's the real thing. Now, this guy never feels anything but tall and truckish no matter what setting you're in, sport or whatever. It is what it is. It's a body-on-frame vehicle that weighs 5400 pounds. That said, it still feels like a Lexus, really refined, nice and smooth, it's just kind of a weird disjointed experience because you know you're driving a truck but it feels like a Lexus. You know what bugs me about this car is the steering that shifts is annoying. It's very on center bias, so the wheels always trying to snapback to the middle a little more than it should. And while that's not an issue when you're driving actively off-road or really out there motoring, when you're just driving around town and you'll find your hands end up kind of fatigued just trying to hold a line with more effort than it should require. And if you let your hand off inadvertently, this car really snaps back to center in a way that could move you out of position. I always feel like a fool wheeling in a luxo barge like this but it does have real off-road credentials. Let's price one of these guys out. A GX 460 in the premium package, it's mostly a bunch of soft trim is $57,600.00 with delivery. Now, adding on the CNET packages $4,900.00 for the one that brings you Levinson audio with surround, the front DVD playback, hard drive navigation system, all the XM information stuff. Now, if you want that to also include rear seat entertainment, it becomes like a $7,300.00 package, ouch! You can spend a lot of money on one of these. If you do, please get it muddy once in awhile.