Our Lexus NX350 Premium AWD: Ownership review from the UK

We have done close to 1000 miles on the car now. So far, this has been a new experience for us.

BHPian ps_abhijith recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Background:We moved as a family to the UK back in 2021 for our work.

Initially, we were living in within London and the need for a car was not that much given the good public transport infra, congested roads, expensive insurance and 20mph speed limit. Once we settled in, we started looking to get a car for trips outside London and we ended up getting a used 2014 Lexus CT200h from Lexus approved. The car came with full warranty up to 2024 and 5 more years of warranty on the Hybrid system.

CT200h was a small Hybrid car from Lexus, with a 1.8 NA Atkinson cycle engine paired to an e-CVT transmission and a small motor on the front axle, the setup is derived from the Toyota Prius. The car has served us well since then, we have done close to 22000 miles in the past 2+ years on the car. Other than the annual service, there were no other issues on the car.

It had zero annual road tax, was cheap to insure, and ultra cheap to run. The car was regularly giving us 50 mpg in city, 55-60 on mixed, and up to 65 mpg on motorways. However, with 3 people and luggage on board did feel a bit underpowered on the motorway at times, and it did lack on modern tech with the only driver assist being cruise control.

Search for a new CarLast year, we moved out of London to a suburban village, just outside London. Few months back my wife who works for the Tata group received an employee benefit list, offering up to 25% off on some JLR cars. This included the F pace, and 25% off on the car was an eye watering offer!

Just out of curiosity, we decided to book a test drive for the car and were asked to come in the next weekend. The showroom experience was comparable to Tata in India, subpar customer service, advisors who were a bit shady and pushy etc. The car on the other hand, was a beauty to look at and the road Prescence was amazing.

We did the test drive on a car with the 2.0 Diesel engine and came out with mixed feelings. The engine was not that refined but felt powerful and shockingly the interior quality was cheap, and didn’t feel good even compared to our 10-year-old Lexus. On top of this the car was not known for reliability, especially concerns with the ingenium series engines.

The insurance cost for JLR cars were already crazy high (5-10k GBP a year if you were living within London) because of increased theft of JLR cars in the UK. So, after consulting with few friends who knew cars better, we dropped the plan. We thought of not getting a car till next summer, but casually kept looking at other options.

The following cars were considered and test driven in the following months. Mercedes GLB: 7-seater, Mercedes brand, good interiors.poor reliability of the small petrol / diesel engines, low resale value, limited extended warranty options. Heard about a version of the GLB with the 220d engine, but dealership mentioned its sort of a Unicorn model, no one has seen it.

GLC: Good car, gem of an engine (220D), luxury interiors.Felt a bit small compared to other SUVs, expensive to own, expensive to insure, again limited extended warranty options. Nissan X Trail: Lots of space, good tech, 7 seats, reliable.Cheap build quality, cheap interior bits, not so impressive fuel economy, rough ride. Mazda cx 60: Great looking car, good reliability, not so expensive to insure.Not many complaints, not known as a premium brand.

Volvo xc 60: Somehow was not interested in this one, didn’t even check further. Toyota Rav4: Good car, spacious 5-seater, relatively cheap to insure.Cheap interiors, outdated tech, top ends are a bit pricey. All this time we were not considering a Lexus as we knew the only available option for us was the NX series, which somehow didn’t appeal much to us.

The RX series was bigger, and still had the can bus security vulnerability and associated bad press. I went in for the annual service of our CT200 in last July, while at the showroom saw an NX350h in person. This was a new one and looked entirely different from the previous gen NX350.

Th car was tall, big, and the interiors seemed to be nice and premium. So, we visited the showroom again on the weekend with my wife for a test drive. The showroom experience was premium, and we were really pampered there.

We were given a 2023 model car for a long test drive. The car looked imposing from the front, beautiful from the sides and somehow unremarkable from the rear. Interior was nice, everything you touch was wrapped in premium leather or other nice materials, no scratchy plastics anywhere.

The highlight was the large 14inch touchscreen. We liked that there were few physical buttons too, and not everything was on the touch screen. The seating position was much higher compared to the CT which was almost close to the ground.

Ride was okey, given that the car had 20inch alloys with run flat tires, which are not known for ride comfort. The cabin was heavily insulated, once you close the door, it was completely isolated from the outside world. The car also felt powerful, overtaking and merging on the motorway was effortless.

It came with a whole lot of safety features and full ADAS level 2 systems, including adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, auto emergency braking, rear cross traffic alert, safe exit on all doors, 360 deg camera, and a nice heads-up display. The touch buttons on the steering wheel felt a bit annoying and distracted us at times, but we got used to them quick. All in all, we loved the car during the test drive.

On top of this, Lexus were offering 10-year full warranty on the car (as long as you service the car on schedule with Lexus), and 5 more years warranty on the Hybrid system. That was a lot of confidence on the car from Lexus and offered a lot of peace of mind for us too. Once we were back in the showroom, we tried to narrow down on the model and the variant.

NX was offered in two models, in FWD and AWD configurations, and multiple variants in both models, with lots of customization options. Below two models were available: NX350h : Normal self-charging Hybrid, available in fwd and awd optionsNX450h : Plugin Hybrid, in AWD option.

The 450h was about 4k more than the 350h in price. For that you get a plugin hybrid with 47 mile claimed range and 50 more bhp. However, you had to give up on a bit of boot space and get a car which is 200+kgs heavier than the 350h, and slightly less fuel efficient once the battery runs out.

And the 450h was 6 categories above in insurance than the 350h (means a lot more to insure). Even though spending 4k more to get a more powerful plugin hybrid looked like a steal deal, we decided to go for the 350h for the following reasons:

1. Our purpose of getting the new car was mainly for motorway use, and we were planning to keep the CT200 for day-to-day use around town and commute to station etc.

35-40 mile on the battery was not that beneficial on the motorway.2. We had no provision to install a charger at home, as the car was to be parked in a garage on the other side of the house. Hence an EV / plugin would mean that we will have to charge from a public charger, which is expensive.3.

Was concerned about the insurance costs, 450 was in category 42 which is really high in the UK. Coming to the variant, we wanted to go for the Takumi model which is the top of the line for Lexus in UK. However, the sales advisor advised us to reconsider the Takumi model as it was 6k more expensive than the model below that (premium plus).

The main difference was Mark Levinson audio, heated rear seats, and wood trims inside the car and safe exit assist (assistance while entering a main road from a smaller road). It made sense not to spend the added 6k on the car as the only thing we cared about in that list was the mark Levinson audio. So, in the end, we went for the Premium plus model.

Ordering Process:

The cars are built to order in Lexus factory in Japan and shipped to the UK.

Every car can be customized in exterior color, interior color, options for sunroof etc. We went with the graphite black (black with shiny metallic flakes in it) with an all-black interior package, black alloys, and an electrically openable panoramic sunroof as the additional option. The final price of the car depended on this configuration.

Once the order was placed, we were able to see the progress on the Lexus link app. We were notified once the car was built, and when the car was shipped to the UK. Our ETA for delivery was around end of Sep.

Additionally, we were able make use of our Costco membership, and the car was bought via Costco auto program, giving us about 5k off on the car. Price Summary:NX350 Premium plus Pan roof AWD.Base Price: 54.5kAfter customization, additional options, first year tax, registration and other costs, the on-road price was around 59k, and we got about 5k off that.Lexus gave 1k as deposit contribution from their end. We also got the Lexus care packs:

Minor damage protection (small scratches, stone chips, small pin dents etc
Supaguard (Paint and interior coatings for protection)
Tyre and alloy protection : Free repairs on the alloy for scratches, free puncture repairs and upto 5 tire replacements in 3 years.

Need to note that the car came with run flats from factory and mostly will have to replace the tyre in case of a puncture.
Lexus Service Pack : Pre paid service pack for 3 services or upto the 4th year.

Front and rear dashcams were installed by the dealer for free (This was the only freebie from their end, the cost for the dashcams with installation was 749), which was indirectly for purchasing the 3 protection packs from them. We took delivery of the car on 30th Sep, and the delivery experience was pleasant. We were asked to sign few documents, and the keys were handed over to us in a welcome pack.

The car was parked on a delivery bay right next to where we were sitting. Following this, they helped us to setup the connected car features on the car to our phones, gave us a demo of all the basic features on the car, went through with the basic controls etc. The car was handed over with a full tank of petrol.

I checked with them if I need to bring the car in at 1000mile or a month for a checkup, which was answered by “see you next year for your service”.

Initial Impressions:

We have done close to 1000 miles on the car now. So far, this has been a new experience for us. The car is packed with tech which makes driving it a lot more pleasant, but the first hour was a bit hectic for us.

There were so many warnings / alarms while driving it (speed change, road signs, missing road marking etc etc), was kind of a sensory overload for us. On top of this, had to get used to the seat height as well as increased size of the car. The seating position is high, real high, you almost look down on pedestrians on the road.

This is with the seat at the lowest seat height setting.The ground clearance is an added boon, no more worries about scraping the underside on speed breakers or kerbs.Once you are inside, you are fully isolated from the outside world. No noise creeps in. The car feels solid and premium in every bit.The engine sound is not audible in low speeds.

On the motorway, it comes into the cabin more as a sweet growl when the car accelerates. While cruising, only noise you hear is a small bit of tire noise.The suspension is not that plush, but not very firm too. Car drives in a settled manner on most roads.

It doesn’t feel like a rocking boat.The default audio unit on the car is not bad, comes with a 10-speaker setup and is more than adequate for us.The 360-camera system is really useful, especially while parking and going though width restrictions on small roads.The car has 3 driving modes, eco, normal and sport. Switching to sport mode changes the throttle response by a large margin. Eco mode has felt more than enough for me, most of the time.The car also has paddle shifters, which I had tried few times, but the smooth cvt in full auto is much less work for me.

The safety systems work exceptionally well. On the motorway, adaptive cruise + Lane keep assist is a real boon, you can be relaxed and not worry about someone in front slowing down. It requires you to keep at least one hand on the steering at all times.

Emergency stop works, especially while reversing. The car also recognizes speed limits and other road signs and lets u know the speed limit at all times. The adaptive cruise control, if you use it on small roads, recognizes turns on the roads, and brakes while turning.

We are still getting used to all of this. The built in Lexus navigation is similar to google maps, and has live traffic updates. The cruise control works in slow speeds, which is really handy on roads with 20mph limits.

Most older cruise controls need a min of 25 mph speed to work. The car has auto high beam with Lexus blade scan, it really works. It turns parts of the headlight off against oncoming traffic, while lighting up the rest of the road ahead.

You no longer need to be doing the low high beam switching manually. The car has a claimed fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg, we have seen anywhere from 42 to 49 mpg on long drives so far, it seems to be having a larger Hybrid battery, and the ev driving ratio is impressive. Also the switching between the EV and engine mode is seamless, you don’t even hear the engine coming on at times in slow speeds.

The regen braking is not that aggressive, and the car can coast longer without the regen kicking in. The brakes are a lot more progressive, but you still have the weird feeling when you start to brake. Initially it engages the regen, goes upto the max regen level, holds it there for a moment, and then the actual brakes kick in, and you can feel when that happens, the car looses speed much more rapidly.

However, this is not noticeable unless you focus on how the braking in going, to a normal user this will not be even noticeable. The remote access features work as expected. You can lock / unlock the car from your phone, you can open the boot.

You can also start the climate control to pre-condition the car. It also comes with heated and ventilated seats for the driver and passenger, heated steering wheels, heated outside rear view mirrors, and an auto dimming outside rear view mirror for the driver. No more being dazzled by the light of the car behind you via the outside rear view mirror.

It also offers a basic tracking feature for the car.

Other observations:

The car is heavy and tall, that shows if you try to push the car on tight turns in small roads.On rough road surfaces, the suspension + run flat tires get noisy.Audio quality on android auto is pathetic, the first time we heard it we were disappointed on the whole audio setup. But it was worlds apart once we disabled android audio on the phone and connected via Bluetooth for audio. Apple CarPlay seems to be having better audio quality.The car doesn’t come with a spare Tyre or a Tyre repair kit as it has run flats.The panoramic roof is tinted.

Once the shade is open, it brings in a lot of light into the cabin. Only the front part of the glass can be opened. The safety systems seem to get confused in the below situations:

On roads with no road markings / faded road markings, car starts to show all kinds of warnings + steering vibrates.
On roads where the left end of the road is not marked properly with a solid white line, the Lane keep assist sometimes struggles.
When you are driving up a small rolling hill and the moment car reaches the crest, it gets confused as it no longer sees the road / road marking ahead for a second, shows all kinds of warnings, but is all good as soon as you go over the crest.
If you are driving in a road with cars parked on the side, the car will auto stop if you don’t steer away from the parked car sooner.

Notes:This car is a 2025 model year build.

There were spec changes which were a surprise even for the showroom people.

The official spec says there is no support for wireless android auto, but the car has it. Strangely, it still came with a USB type c cable for android auto.
Electric under thigh support for driver & passenger seats, this was not in the official spec list
LED cornering lights, which were not mentioned anywhere on the spec.
Even though we had opted for an all-black interior and all the seats and other leather bits were black, the roof liner and a-b-c pillars of our car came with cream / light color material. People at the showroom were also confused on this one.

All in all, we are happy with the car and are still getting used to it.

The overall purchase experience was smooth and seamless. Looking forward for many years of fun with it.