ben_caron

Hello dear GX470 owners.

I'm in the market to replace my Nissan Pathfinder LE 2002. I did try a '07 GX at the local lexus dealer (Spinelli Lexus in Montreal) but I feel that a 20 minutes test drive is not enough to do justice (or injustice!) to any vehicle.
Your feedback on this vehicle and comparables that you might have tried/tested or borrowed from friends would be immensely appreciated.

Here's my driver's profile:
1) I need an SUV that is polyvalent but with good road behavior on long highway trips. I do travel quite a bit by car between Montreal, Burlington, Boston, NYC. I feel that I take too much lower back punishment in my Pathfinder on long trips.
2) I will also need the occasional use of the 3rd row since I have 3 daughters and putting all 3 on the 2nd row is hard to do for now, as they are still in booster seats (aged 2, 3 and 5).
3) I'm soon turning 40, I'm 5'9" and weigh about 175 lbs. So pretty average, i.e. 1st row headroom, leg room and shoulder room was never a problem for me.
4) I do not seek thrills in my SUV, I already have a summer car for that (540i). But I do need my SUV to work WELL in the snowy and icy road conditions of Quebec and New England. (I already plan on winter tires, so no need to put neg feedback on factory-installed tires if they are not up to par).

Now the specific questions about the GX 470:
1) Is the third row problematic for young kids on long trips? I would not put a male adult back there, but I suspect it's big enough for kids. Any opinion on that?
2) How comfortable are the seats on long trips? Enough support? Can you find a good driving position or do you feel like you have to wiggle in the seat every 10 minutes after a couple hours in it?
3) Any wind noises? how does the vehicle behave in high winds? I find my Pathfinder is all over the place in cross winds.
4) Any significant pros/cons vs. other 3-row family haulers? (e.g. vs the Acadia, the CX-9 and the LR3)
5) For the same price would you buy a 2004 with 10,000 mi or a 2006 with 40,000mi? both are fully loaded with the premium package.
6) And lastly, did you ever regret not gunning for the LX?

Thank you so much!

Ben

The G Man

Well Ben, the GX is very comfortable for long trips, like more SUVs with soft suspension, it will be tricky to drive on the highway on windy days, but the ride is smooth as butter. SUVs will always drift on highway cross wind, performance suv such as CX9, rover sport, Porsche, Toureg or X5 will drift less, but the ride will be stiffer. The driver seat is very comfortable with good lumbar support on long trip, the front passenger seat not quite as comfortable, need more adjustments, but still ok. In snow and ice, the GX is one of the best SUV under those conditions, if you put snow tire on it, it will be a beast. 3rd seats have plenty of room for kids under 14 or 15 years old. Very little wind noise on the highway. The pro for the GX over the Acadia, the CX-9 and the LR3 is reliability. I would but the GX over the LX for the price, the redesign LX is a diff. story though

kphu

iTrader: (8)

Ben_caron welcome to the group...hahaha I know you haven't purchased it yet but for me as a true lexus fanatic there is no other besides a lexus so just buy it and call it a day.

All kidding aside, the GX is great in every aspect, off-road, snow, ice, rain. Very comfortable and drives like a well fine tuned machine. There's no other like it. As for the kids in the 3rd, no problemo there. I have 2 kids a 2 yr old and a 9 month old. I placed the 2 yr old in the 3rd row on the opposite side of the 9 month old (shes in the 2nd row) so that if we needed to use the additional seating for others then I need not to move her car seat around and just fold back one side. My mother in law is about 5' tall and she's sits in the 3rd row with leg room to spare so as The G Man said, kids under 14 should be fine.

hilljack

The GX absolutely has the best drivers seat of any SUV in my opinion. It is a great highway vehicle, stable , quiet, good tracking. One of the very best in snow. However not the people hauler as the Mazda or Arcadia which are more like a mini-van inside

brickauto

I had a Volvo XC90T6 with 3rd row seating and those were decent for small sized adults. I gave up on the Volvo cuz the engine blew a headgasket at 50k miles (thank god for extended warraties!) and the used car dealer bought the car back after 8 short months of my ownership.

The GX470 3rd row is best suited for kids in child/booster seats as there is no "step-into" leg room PERIOD.

I took my 2003 GX on a roadtrip last fall and driving 10hrs (with short breaks in between) with the heated seats on mid setting was very comfortable. The ride is compliant and wind noise is minimal. btw, I'm 5-11 and 170lbs and the driver seat supports very well, granted I'm not tossing my SUV into corners as I would in my previous Supra.

By some blessing of irony, I am very happy to be rid of the Volvo and in a Lexus
I'm a Lexus addict now!

GrdnRxR

I will agree with the postings above.. The GX has to be one of the best long trip drivers. I've done several 5+ hr drive and a couple of 7-8 hr drives. I'm always impressed with the comfort of the drive.

The G Man

I have never had any problem with the GX on long trip as far as comfort is concerned. The GX does get tricky after 85 MPH, I know, I should not be driving that fast anyways. Luckily, I had a 85 MPH speed limiter in my old GX. It is called my wife, she screams at me to slow down Seriuosly though, on really windy days, I have a hard time driving the GX at 70 MPH. I suppose you can say that about any SUV that is boxy and has soft suspension.

gsobol

I took my GX on a trip from New York to Colorado (and back), with a 4 year old in the car. That's 3 days approx 10-12 hours per day each way. I used to take many long trips (over 8 hours) when I was younger in various near luxury vehicles of the time (lincoln,buick,Cadillac,BMW). Although these vehicles were very comfortable, they all had one thing in common. At the end of the extended drive, when I went to sleep, I continued to "drive", while asleep. Kind of like the sensation of still flying after an extended flight. Well, in the GX after the whole day behind a wheel, there was no such sensation. The car behaved really well, even in the cross winds of middle America, that is to say that the behavior was easily anticipated, and corrected for the truck of this size. It handled really well (for the car with such a soft suspension and high sidewall tires) even in the states with a higher speed limits (75,80). The wind noise does get a little loud above 65mph, but it's still much quieter in comparison to other trucks in similar body shape (escalade, denali). My old RX300 was a little quieter at those speeds. There's a lot less wind noise in the cross over SUVs like MKX, CX9, MDX, due to their more aerodynamic shapes, but they don't have the GX awesome 4x4 drive. You really do get some interesting looks when you drive the GX on some of those "jeep only" trails in CO :-) (but you have to watch those side boards! That was almost a very expensive lesson) Couple of recommendations: 1. get the RES for the kids, 2. get the NAV, KDSS and ML for yourself :-) Other aspects of the vehicle have been more than covered in other posts. This is not a vehicle without it's problems!!!, so do the research and be informed before you buy. But, just the same I have to honestly say, that this is the best overall truck I have ever owned. Also, find out from others on this board what's their experience with your dealer. That contributes to the overall experience. Mine is somewhat a mixed bag.

Good luck.

gsobol

The G Man, we have the same speed limiters installed . Any soft suspension car is tricky at higher speeds. What makes the GX more problematic is the high center of gravity, high side wall tires, no front skirt (large opening for the air to get under your car and offload the down force). I took the GX up to 120MPH - in undisclosed location - it definitely does not inspires confidence at these speeds. It felt that it still had plenty of power to go faster, but 120MPH was already pushing beyond my comfort limits. I guess, under normal conditions I would not push the truck beyond 80-85MPH. Even at those speeds rollover is a high probability, although it still behaves quite well, especially when you flip the suspension to hard.

GatorGreg

GX is great for road trips, just took a 1,000 mile trip over the holidays with no complaints, the GX cruises effortlessly at 82 mph (I have same speed limiter as Gman and gsobol )

As far as the third row though, I wouldn't recommend sticking anyone back there for a long trip. The most I've ever used it for is a couple of kids (ages 8 and 5) for an hour long cross town trip. I don't think it would be good for an overnighter cuz there's hardly any luggage space when you have both the 3rd row seats in use.

BTW, what does "polyvalent" mean?

ben_caron

woops, "polyvalent" is a litteral translation of "versatile"!

Me bad! That's from switching from french to english to french to english all the time at the office!

Last tricky one:
For the same price (less than $1,000 difference) would you go for a 2004 model with only 10,000 miles on it or a 2006 with 40,000?

Thanks for the feedback guys and gals, highly appreciated.

Ben

antonio98

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the club.

Do both of the cars you're looking at have DVD navigation and rear seat entertainment (RSES)? If so, the '06 includes bluetooth wireless which is not available in the '04.

40k sounds like a lot of miles for an '06, but I guess that depends on when the car was actually put in service. I would check the service records for both cars.

I did a comparison on kbb.com to check the value for cars with those specs and the '06 seems to be worth about 1k more on average.

If the '06 is in good condition and has a good service history, I would probably go with the '06.

Antonio.

The G Man

Thats depends on the built date of the 04. GX470 built after the second half of the 04 models year offers, back up camera and tire pressure monitor. Of course, the 06 have the added 30+ horsepower which really helps on the highway. I guess when it comes down to it, I would pick the 06. Assuming all those mileage are highway miles.

GatorGreg

Is either or both of them CPO? That would make a difference to me because otherwise both of them will be out of warranty soon (the '04 due to time and the '06 due to mileage). I would want to find out exactly when the "in service date" was for the '04 so I would know exactly when the warranty expires. That information, coupled with knowing how many miles you plan to drive will tell you which one will be under warranty longer. I only say this because these vehicles have lots of high tech gadgetry that are very expensive to fix if not under warranty (e.g., nav, air suspension, etc.) The infamous "clunk" fix alone will cost you over $1K if not under warranty.

ben_caron

Yup, both are fully loaded versions with DVD and Nav. There is a nice 2007 model with 21k miles, but sells for about 53k, i.e. 10k more than I managed to deal the other two. And yes, you guys will freak at the price we pay for luxury vehicles in Canada...we're totally being gouged...I'm tempted to go the importing route directly.

Here's the 2004
http://www.auto123.com/en/used/searc...make=374067776

And the 2006:
http://www.auto123.com/en/used/searc...make=374067776

And the 2007:
http://www.canadatrader.com/result/d...9&pgno=1&srt=1

They're all still under manufacturer warranty;
the 2004 till July 2009 and (I suspect it was bought in mid-2005)
the 2006 till December 2010.
the 2007, obviously

I'll ask the dealers to provide me with carfax or carproof reports and all that stuff, AND make sure the "clunk" issue is fixed prior to accepting delivery of the vehicle...

Guess I'll probably go with the 2006 given the engine upgrade. But the 2007 is tempting too, if only slighly above budget...would you pay an extra 8-10k for a 2007 with lower mileage? (15k less)

Thank you so much guys, you have been a great help!