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Today marks two years since I bought my new '22 NX350, and yesterday I hit 24,000 miles on the odometer so I thought I'd update people on things.
The short version is, I'm still lovin' it. It's been 100% mechanically reliable, it's comfortable to be in whether it's my ~6 mile commute to the office, or a 900 mile run to Houston (from Atlanta), and the minor gripes I have are small enough that they don't impact my overall satisfaction with the purchase. Gas mileage (this is the turbo, not the hybrid) around town is 23mpg or so, and I routinely get 26+ on the highway. My all-time best was on the road from Key West to Miami, where I averaged 32mpg! Mind you, that was under near-perfect conditions - flat roads, constant speed around 55mph, etc. Still, I don't think I've broken 30 on an extended trip since the days of my POS Saturn SC2.
I think I mentioned at some point that the Palomino interior wasn't my first choice (in truth, I thought all the interior choices were pretty crummy), but I'm happy to say it's really grown on me over the last two years. It's gotten a number of compliments from passengers, so that's nice.
There's been no recurrence of the leak from the rear window washer - Nalley Lexus appeared to have fixed it right the first time, and aside from the fact that it took two months to get the part in it was a no-hassle experience. I take my car in every 10,000 miles for regular maintenance, and I change the oil myself halfway between the dealer visits...I know the oil change recommendation is every 10K miles, but to my mind changing it more frequently is cheap insurance. I put the car up on ramps in my garage, and it's about a 20 minute job start to finish.
I did have this happen, however:
Thanks, hon.
I suspect my wife pushed the door open from the inside with her foot, and was pushing against the plastic trim piece at the bottom of the door. She broke one of the clips and pushed the rest out...but in her defense, I don't think the clips are very sturdy; I've had this piece come loose on both front doors a couple of times. Banging it back in with my hand is enough to reseat it, where it stays for a few months until I have to do it again. The passenger side doesn't come loose any more frequently than the driver side, so I haven't bothered to bring this to the attention of the dealer.
I'm still sore about the tiny gas tank - it feels like I'm always at the gas station. I know it's small to make room for the hybrid crap on other models, but they really should have installed a larger tank on the non-hybrids. But Toyota's got to save those nickels...
My only other negative is that the engine still sounds noisy. It's only at low speeds when it's cold that I notice it, but of course that's every time I pull out of my driveway in the morning. It's a jarring note in an otherwise great car, I'm still surprised that Lexus signed off on this.
Oh, one other negative, I still get the failure to connect to my phone more often than I should. But once it's connected it never drops, and the CarPlay integration is top notch. Audio quality is fantastic, my wife usually doesn't realize I'm talking to her from the car. Why it has so many connect issues, and why the charging pad isn't more reliable I do not know.
In closing, those negatives are really minor - I've never had a perfect car, but this one is as close as any. Very very pleased with the purchase - even if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't change a thing.
Originally Posted by Dorsai
On Thursday I finally picked up my new NX - just for fun I thought I'd share my first impressions and observations on the off chance someone might find them helpful or interesting.
First, the subject of today's discussion:
This is an NX350. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This is my shiny new NX350, non-hybrid, non-F sport. Cloudburst Gray with the Palomino interior, it has the Premium package with the 14" navigation and 20" wheels added on, along with a dealer tint job. Between playing with it immediately after taking delivery and a Memorial Day weekend road trip to visit my folks in the next state over, I've put about 450 miles on it so far. Some early thoughts, both positive and less so:
POSITIVE
I love this vehicle. Just wanted to get this out first in case there's any confusion later on. Not even a hint of buyer's remorse yet. It's not perfect, but it's really really good.
Performance is solid. It doesn't lay down the numbers some of its competitors do, but for my needs it's more than adequate. Merging onto the Alpharetta Autobahn is a snap, and it's easy to end up at 90+ if you aren't paying attention. I haven't had a chance to stress the handling, but all indications so far are that it's all good.
I'm happy with the interior comfort. I'm 5'8" and, uh, 'portly', and I can tell I will be able to drive this car all day. The seats are supportive and have plenty of adjustment, and front legroom is good. My 5'8" non-portly son can sit behind me with more than adequate legroom as well. Neither of us are blessed with height obviously, but my 6'+ salesguy was able to ride along with me on the test drive with plenty of headroom room as well.
I'm really liking the Lexus Interface. It only missed the "Hey Lexus" wakeup phrase once, and it never failed to correctly interpret my requests. That doesn't mean it could do everything I asked of course - the expression on my son's face when I said "Hey Lexus...fire passenger ejection seat" was pretty good, before the car admitted it had no idea what I was asking.
The safety and driver assistance tech seems to work well. I'm coming from an '04 RX where the most advanced technology is that the CD player can take six CDs instead of just one, so I suppose I am easily wowed here. Still...after a bit of fiddling and manual reading and road testing I'm starting to get the hang of it. With everything turned on I did about a hundred miles yesterday without touching the pedals once, which was really cool. Blind spot monitoring is effective and well-calibrated, and I even gave the rear cross-traffic system an unintentional test, which it passed with flying colors. Very pleased here.
Gas mileage so far has been about 25mpg. This is in line with the EPA estimate, which is surprising since (a) the car isn't fully broken in yet, and (b) I wasn't exactly observing the posted speed limits on the highway. My old RX has been closer to about 20mpg the last few years, so this is a welcome boost.
BONUS POSITIVE
I was driving my wife around the day after I got it, showing her some of the tech features. As we were about to drive by my son's school she somewhat sarcastically asked me if it is smart enough to warn me of school zones. Not two seconds later the "Approaching school zone - prepare to slow down" alert popped up on the display.
LESS SO
The engine is a little buzzy, particularly when pulling away from a complete stop. It definitely doesn't sound premium - even my wife commented on it, and she typically doesn't pay attention to such things. Once you're at speed the buzz goes away, and even a little bit of radio is enough to cover it up at low speed, but still. Seems like Lexus could have done better here - do the NX's competitors have this issue?
I am experiencing some of the same phone related issues as others. Some of it may be my fault, as I haven't fully read the manuals yet, but still. This was all set up at the dealer so it should work. Hopefully an upcoming software update will resolve things and make this seamless.
That big display really shows fingerprints. It's OK once the display is up and running, but when you first get in the car it looks like a two year-old has been playing with it. I'm going to have to keep a cloth in the car to do regular wipedowns.
Sometimes it's not enough to have your foot on the brake, you have to be on it harder than a certain threshold. I don't recall what I was wanting to do or adjust, but a couple of times I had the car complain that my foot wasn't on the brake, when it was. Pressing harder made the problem go away, but...really?
The 'thematic illumination' is pretty weak. It's only $100 as an option so it's doesn't really matter, but I was surprised at how subtle it is.
The gas tank is only 14 gallons. I suppose that helps dull the pain when filling up from empty at the pump, but I'd personally like another couple of gallons in there - two more gallons would let me make a round trip from the parents' place in Alabama without absolutely having to fill up.
Finally, the seating position and vehicle dimensions are such that it is difficult for me to use the drive-thru ATM at my bank. I don't have this problem with my RX, my wife's Highlander, or my beater F-150, but it's uncomfortable to use in this car. I'm going to try playing with the seat height adjustment to see if it helps.
PROBLEM
I did mention that I have encountered my first actual problem already. We were coming back from the lake yesterday when I activated the windshield washer to wash away some bug remains that had appeared, so I decided to hit the rear window washer as well, just to see. I did, and it started raining inside the cargo area! I was so surprised that I asked my son to observe as I activated it again, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. This isn't water seeping around the hatch seals, it is coming from inside the vehicle. My guess is that there's a cracked fitting where the line from the washer reservoir up front meets the nozzle, or maybe a small split in the line itself. It's not a huge volume of water and it only happens while the washer is activated, but it still renders the washer unusable. If I can see how to remove the interior trim without damaging it I might try to fix it myself, only because I don't want to take the time to go back to Lexus for something so (hopefully) trivial. But seriously...WTF Lexus?
Enjoyed your review and glad its working out well for you, mine's at 14 months and, fingers cross, still pretty much zero issues. I agree the gas tank is too small for the turbo model. I'm getting acceptable fuel economy, my best tank has been 31mpg last summer on a pleasant country drive and now that winter is over my typical easy going 75% city 25% country I usually manage 25 to 27mpg. Goes down FAST though on fast highway or heavy traffic city, but that's a more rare drive type for me. Not nearly as good as the hybrid NX of course, but its actually pretty similar to what I was getting on my earlier gen RX hybrid but it had a larger tank so the NX range is still less (and annoying at times).
Those clips, yea, 65% of the car is held together with those clips. In another 10 years they'll be using those same clips to hold the pistons to the connecting rods, LOL.
Only thing I disagree on, I love the sound of the engine. Goldilocks zone for me. Not too loud, not too quiet. Not too rumbly, but not too much sewing machine like.
Wife's 2023 NX350h is 1.5 years old and friends is 1.3 years old. Both have had zero issues, loves theirs and both have no complaints. Both getting over 40 mpg.
Love my ‘22 non-hybrid as well and my experience tracks with yours. I don’t really take long trips, so the gas tank size isn’t really an issue for me. My main complaint is the road noise, but hopefully some new tires will help shortly. For me the engine noise is only an issue under acceleration, but yeah, a vehicle like this should be quieter.
Enjoyed your write up. I am coming up on 2 years with my '22 NX350 F-Sport next month. I love it....and I don't......I enjoy the NX.... it looks great, it's quick and I really enjoy driving it....I get compliments on it all the time.....mine is exactly what I wanted....Ultra White w/Circuit Red. I only have 12k on it. It is not our primary road trip vehicle and I don't go to my office every day so haven't put a lot of mileage on it in 2 years. I don't care about MPG but mine is about 23.8 since I bought it. Biggest complaint I have is still the CarPlay integration and the lack of some sort of spare tire. My CarPlay connects majority of the time but I can't get rid of the voice echo others hear when they talk to me on the phone. I've tried every suggestion I have found with settings on the car and the i-phone and nothing had been able to consistently fix the issue. I ask everyone I talk to if they have an echo and it is YES about 95% of the time. All in all, If I had to do it all over again I probably wouldn't have traded my 2016 ES350 for it but there isn't anything out there at this point that I'd rather have so I'm going to stick with it.
05-25-24 | 11:59 AM
Two Year Review - '22 NX350
