Lexus GX 550 2024 Review

The 2024 Lexus GX 550 comes in three flavours in Australia – luxury, super luxury and rugged luxury.

Prices start at $116,000 for the cunningly-named GX 550 Luxury, rising to $122,250 for the 550 Overtrail and $128,200 for the flagship 550 Sports Luxury – a title that adheres to the brand’s naming convention but won’t win awards for originality.

We’re testing the mid-spec GX 550 Overtrail, which wears robust Blundstone boots (33-inch all-terrain tyres on 18-inch alloys), rather than Italian leather loafers (21- or 22-inch alloy wheels with road-biased tyres) like its siblings.

Annoyingly for prospective buyers, the first year’s allocation of 1250 GXs are already spoken for in Australia and the queue is understood to be stretching towards 12 months already and could blow-out further, with the Overtrail in particular garnering a lot more attention than expected.

But if you think waiting a year or so for a new GX is a bit grim, it’s less extravagant sibling – the Toyota LandCruiser Prado 250 Series – could be facing a wait list so long it could tear a hole in the fabric of time and space.

And you can bet your bottom dollar many buyers will cross-shop the Toyota Prado and Lexus GX in a bid to reduce delivery time.

Beyond the Prado, rivals for GX include the Nissan Patrol, Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series, Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Defender, and it’s the latter Lexus has nominated as the chief competition.

Like all Lexus models, the brawny GX is backed by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty and buyers also benefit from the Lexus Encore aftersales program, which includes loan car delivery to your home or office and vehicle pick-up for servicing.

However, unlike all other Lexus vehicles (except the similarly-sized Lexus LX), the Japanese luxury car brand has set service intervals every six months, not 12 months, which is a bit rich. So the $595 per service – locked in for 10 years at that price – means owners will pay just under $1200 per annum to service their vehicle with Lexus.

This is the first time the Prado-based 2024 Lexus GX has been sold in Australia officially, yet it’s already up to its third generation. How? Well, it’s been on sale in North America and Europe since the early 2000s and thankfully this version is undoubtedly the best of the breed, making previous generation GX’s look drab by comparison.

With a standard feature list that will raise eyebrows of BMW owners, particularly given all models have loads of gear and very few options, every GX sold in Australia is fitted with auto-levelling LED headlights, heated and cooled power-adjustable front seats and a very handy powered tailgate with a separate flip up glass window.

Three-zone automatic climate control, a 10-speaker sound system, integrated trailer wiring harness and tow hitch receiver, plus a large central touch-screen, digital driver’s display and head-up display are also standard issue.

The Overtrail is the only variant of the three to ride on wheels smaller than 20 inches and not offered with three rows of seating.

It also also adds a locking rear differential to the equation and Toyota’s vaunted electronic Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (eKDSS) that can disconnect the front and rear sway bars, freeing up the suspension for maximum articulation.

Unique bumpers improve the approach and departure angles while Multi-Terrain Select (MTS) off-road traction control ensures grip in all but the hardest of conditions along with crawl and hill descent controls.

Visibility is meantime enhanced by a swathe of off-road cameras and a larger alternator has been added to run ancillaries.

The 2024 Lexus GX 550 has not yet been tested by independent safety authorities in Australia, Europe, Japan or the US but is expected to rate highly given it’s big, heavy, and comes with a heap of active safety tech and nine airbags as standard.

As part of the Lexus Safety System+ 3.0, the GX 550 gets a front facing millimetre-wave radar and monocular camera system and front/side radars that enable real-time speed limit updates (road sign assist), autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with day, night and intersection turning detection of vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles, plus daytime motorcycle detection.

Rear cross traffic alert is part of the safety package, as is tyre pressure monitoring.

Adaptive radar cruise control and lane keeping/centring systems give the big Lexus autonomous steering, braking and acceleration, while an adaptive high beam system and blind spot monitoring adds extra eyes.

The 2024 Lexus GX 550 Overtrail might be a muscle-bound mud-plugger, but it has a decidedly high-tech look and feel thanks to a trio of digital interfaces, starting with a large 14-inch central touchscreen.

Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work well on the big screen and can also be accessed via a wired USB-C connection, however the iOS and Android operating systems don’t fill all the digital real-estate of the screen. The flipside of this is the quick and easy access to climate controls (all the time) and it’s nice to have physical dials for volume and temperature adjustment.

The other two displays include a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster that has sharp visuals and reasonable customisation and a large, very good head-up display.

A wireless phone charger, five USB-C ports and a 220V/100W power outlet in the boot provide various power sources for different gadgets and even small appliances, like a portable fridge.

All GXs come with a DCM (data communication module) that allows owners to pair their smartphone with the vehicle and enable remote functionality – such as unlocking the doors from a greater distance than the key fob. Useful if you're inside but someone else wants access to the vehicle.

The only powertrain available to Aussie buyers of the 2024 Lexus GX is a twin-turbocharged petrol V6, meaning there’s no diesel power or hybrid power… for now.

Every one of the GX’s relatives are or will be offered with a diesel powertrain, but given the 3.4-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 in the GX is such a charming and tractable powerplant, it’s not as big a deal as expected.

Boasting a very healthy 260kW of power between 4800-5200rpm and lusty 650Nm of torque between 2000-3600rpm, the GX 550 has a 3500kg towing capacity and will rip from 0-100km/h in a claimed 7.0 seconds. It doesn’t feel quite that quick, but it’s certainly no slouch.

A full-time 4x4 system and smooth 10-speed automatic transmission do a great job putting the power down and keeping the force-fed mill on the boil as it revs eagerly and cleanly.

Those wanting to take the path less travelled also have low-range gearing at their disposal, gifting the 2515kg leviathan fantastic slow-speed scrambling abilities in tandem with that 10-speed transmission.

Lexus is expected to offer 2.4-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol hybrid powertrain in Australia in the future – a crucial move given the brand’s pledge to sell only hybrids and EVs by the end of the decade. and the introduction of stricter CO2 emissions in Australia via the NVES.

The 2024 Lexus GX 550 is surprisingly frugal for a corpulent 2.5 tonne colossus… at least on paper with its claimed appetite of 12.3L/100km on the combined cycle.

That figure is eminently achievable on the open road – less so towing – thanks to the wide spread of ratios offered by the smooth and smart 10-speed transmission which happily slots into top gear and has the engine putting along at 1500rpm at 100km/h.

Sub-10L/100km is more than doable on the cruise, but after five days in the saddle and taking on every reasonable kind of terrain, our test car was reading 16.1L/100km on the trip computer.

That’s partly due to the lovely (and addictive) warble that emanates from the engine bay under reasonable throttle loads and the fact we undertook plenty of urban and off-road driving which tend to involve lower speeds and therefore higher fuel consumption.

One area the new 2024 Toyota Prado has the GX beat is its cruising range, thanks both to its more frugal four-cylinder diesel powertrain and substantially larger fuel tank – 115L vs 80L.

Expect to average around 650km on a full tank in the GX 550.

To cut a long story short, driving the 2024 Lexus GX 550 is a pleasure, but not perfect.

The twin-turbo V6 is an absolute pearler, delivering strong low-end grunt for getting up to speed and the sort of mid-range punch that will leave you grinning like a Cheshire cat – it absolutely hammers when you mash the accelerator pedal at speed.

Power delivery is buttery smooth and makes for a car that’s beautifully docile and easy to drive at lower speeds, complementing the polished ride-handling balance.

The Toyo Open Country all-terrain tyres are surprisingly quiet and reasonably grippy on-road and the Overtrail maintains a flat attitude tracking through corners as well. It doesn’t wallow or feel too ungainly through the bends, particularly in Sport+ which firms up the adaptive dampers.

But in terms of outright ride comfort, the tall-bodied off-roader does get shuffled around somewhat over sharper hits and smaller, repetitive fissures and corrugations in the road, often followed by minor jiggles reverberated through the ladder-frame chassis.

For the most part, however, ride comfort is pretty good, and refinement levels are very impressive, with excellent sound damping keeping external noises to a minimum. You do get a bit of wind noise around the mirrors above 90km/h but otherwise it’s impressively hushed in the cabin.

Pretty freakin’ good, it turns out. Who would’ve thought a vehicle sharing its platform, wheelbase and most external dimensions with the Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series would create such a ravenous mud-slinger?

The fact the Lexus GX 500 Overtrail gets more aggressive tyres than the LandCruiser 300 Series GR Sport as standard is a nice touch and shows a bit of bravery on Lexus’ behalf. The premium brand could’ve easily opted for milder and more-polite highway-terrains but decided against half-measures.

As such, the Toyo A/T hiking boots deliver impressive traction on loose rock and mud, and with a reasonable 225mm of ground clearance and solid approach (27 degrees) and departure (22 degrees) angles it handled almost everything we threw at it.

It wasn’t quite as effective as the Nissan Patrol Warrior, but with its eKDSS system allowing for extra wheel articulation – in turn keeping the wheels on terra firma (and finding traction) more often than not – it delivers a confidence-inspiring off-road experience.

And even when you do loft a wheel or lose traction, rear differential lock is only a button-push away.

Although the force-fed petrol V6 doesn’t have as much low-down urge as the 300 Series’ turbo-diesel donk, it provides a remarkably solid foundation for low-speed adventures on rough terrain.

Engaging low-range feels like entering a cheat code such is the GX’s effectiveness, and the clever external camera angles, including a chin and front wheel cams, allow you to place the 4x4 exactly where you want it without necessarily needing a spotter.

The fact the GX 550 Overtrail delivers a pulse-pounding experience in slow motion right out of the box, and with no need for aftermarket upgrades, is testament to the stellar work done by Lexus’ (and probably Toyota’s) engineers.

If you’ve ever sat in a Toyota LandCruiser and thought it would be nicer with some more luxury appointments and a few less buttons, the 2024 Lexus GX 550 Overtrail won’t disappoint.

It’s plush, very pleasant and dials in just the right amount of tech to make life easier without overcomplicating things.

The control layout is excellent, ergonomics are sound, and comfort levels are fantastic thanks to the cushy and supportive faux leather seats – which could have fooled me into thinking they were wrapped in real leather...

Material quality is uniformly impressive with lots of Nulux – Lexus speak for synthetic leather – covering the doors and dashboard, soft carpets underfoot and soft touch plastics everywhere else.

Storage solutions are good, and the Overtrail comes with a refrigerated cool box between the front seats which is a nice touch, as are large grab handles within each door.

Second row seat space is ample for two adults, three if you don’t mind getting a little touchy-feely, and boot space is excellent, starting at 1063 litres and expanding to 2000 litres with the back seats folded and tumbled.

If you’ve got the financial wherewithal to snag a new 2024 Lexus GX Overtail and it fits your requirements, you should most certainly take one for a test drive because it’s arguably one of the best and most versatile Lexus SUVs we’ve tested for a long time.

That the Overtrail version is fast becoming the most sought-after variant in the local GX line-up is no surprise given it delivers an appealing blend of luxury, practicality and capability. It comes with plenty of off-road gear, and while many owners may not frequently put it to use, the fact it’s not afraid of the rough stuff is hugely alluring.

Sophisticated but tough exterior visuals only add to its appeal and, like a well-dressed bushman heading into town, the GX 550 Overtrail is the kind of bloke who’s happy discussing the finer points of Bob Hawke’s legacy one moment, then sculling a frothy and hiking up Kosciuszko the next.

The queue for the Lexus GX 550 Overtrail is growing in Australia – and globally – but the wait is worth it.

2024 Lexus GX 550 Overtrail at a glance:
Price: $122,250 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 3.4-litre six-cylinder twin-turbo petrol
Output: 260kW/650Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Fuel: 12.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 279g/km (ADR Combined or WLTP if overseas model)
Safety rating: Not tested

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