2025 Lexus GX550 Overtrail review

After 22 years of forbidden fruit – on sale in the US and select left-hand-drive markets – the Lexus GX four-wheel-drive is finally available in Australia as of late 2024.

It is the luxury twin to the new Toyota LandCruiser Prado and, alongside unique styling, a more luxurious cabin, and extra features, it stands apart from its sibling with a hearty 3.4-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 in place of a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel.

It is the first Lexus with the option of an Overtrail grade, a flagship off-road edition with adjustable e-KDSS suspension, all-terrain tyres, and other upgrades intended to take it further from tarmac roads than the company’s earlier models.

Is the best Toyota Prado not branded as a Toyota, or do its less prestige bones hold it back in competing with the Land Rover Defender?

There are three variants in the GX range – the $118,320 plus on-road costs Luxury, $130,770 plus on-road costs Overtrail, and $124,840 plus on-road costs Sports Luxury.

On test in this review is the Overtrail, the only five-seater in the otherwise seven-seat range, and while it’s the most expensive, it misses out on some of the Sports Luxury’s amenities to instead fit additional off-road equipment.

This test vehicle was optioned in Moon Dust two-tone paint, which adds to the bill for a drive-away price in New South Wales of $139,980, according to the Lexus website.

Similar money would buy various flavours of its chief rival, the Land Rover Defender 110 – a petrol P425 X-Dynamic SE V8 ($127,100 plus on-roads) or diesel D350 X-Dynamic HSE six-cylinder ($130,200 plus on-roads).

In the Toyota family, the GX Overtrail is about $30,000 dearer than an equivalent Prado Altitude ($92,700), and on par with a mid-spec Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series turbo-diesel V6 (VX for $122,510, Sahara for $139,310), but cheaper than Lexus’s version of the 300 Series, the Lexus LX (from $158,700), all before on-road costs.

If the GX’s looks matter more than its heavy-duty off-road DNA, there are plenty of similarly sized, car-derived large SUVs available, such as a BMW X5 ($142,600 plus on-roads for an xDrive40i petrol).

If your priorities are the other way around, there’s also something like the Ineos Grenadier (from $105,000 before on-roads), which places off-road capability well ahead of on-road refinement.

Overtrail-specific features include 18-inch alloy wheels with all-terrain tyres, Electronic Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (e-KDSS) with adaptive dampers, a locking rear differential, Multi-Terrain Select off-road modes, a suite of off-road cameras, hill descent control, Crawl Control, and a larger alternator.

It also includes olive green Ultrasuede seat accents, tweaked front seats with stiffer bases and softer bolsters, a refrigerated cool box, altered front and rear bumpers, wheel-arch flares, black exterior trim, and bridge-type roof rails.

Items shared with the GX550 Luxury include a low-range transfer case, locking centre differential, auto LED headlights, a 14-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 12.3-inch instrument display, a head-up display, and a 10-speaker stereo.

Also standard is NuLux synthetic leather-look seat trim, heated and ventilated front seats with eight-way power adjustment, heated outboard rear seats, tri-zone climate control, a power tailgate, wireless phone charging, keyless entry/start, and a suite of advanced safety systems.

The GX’s cabin blends the best of modern Lexus with – for better or worse – a somewhat rugged and hard-wearing edge you’d expect of a four-wheel-drive.

The dual displays, steering wheel and sumptuous seats are straight out of the same playbook as a Lexus NX or RX, but occupants are greeted by a blockier dashboard than those road-biased SUVs, and chunky switchgear for the off-road controls.

Soft materials have been used on the dashboard and door tops, but they’re not as soft as you might expect of a luxury car, and there are harder, scratchier surfaces lower down in the cabin. It’s not as opulently trimmed as a Defender, but it’s hardly spartan or cheap-feeling.

The seats are excellent, though. I didn’t realise the upholstery was fake (branded ‘NuLux’) leather until we checked the spec sheet, such is its suppleness, and the front chairs offer ample adjustment and adequate support, provided you don’t take corners at Mach 1. Taller drivers may like a bit more underthigh support, though.

Heating, ventilation, and two-way lumbar are on offer for both front occupants, plus memory for the driver’s seat. Kneepads on the centre console help with comfort.

Drivers are given a great view of the road ahead thanks to big windows, an upright windscreen, and a tall seating position helped by the boxy shape that clearly defines the corners of the car.

The steering wheel material is similarly soft, the paddle shifters feel satisfyingly clicky, and the rim isn’t too big to manage around town. Power adjustment of the column is standard in the Overtrail, but there’s no heated steering wheel in this model grade (Sports Luxury only).

Lexus has moved some of the car’s functions – such as fan speed – into the screen, but it has kept quality-feeling switchgear for the 4WD modes, volume and air temperature dials, and a traditional gear lever, rather than a fiddly rotary dial or push buttons.

Storage space is adequate but not exceptional. The centre console storage box is cooled and reasonably deep, but it is not very wide or long. The glovebox is small, and the door pockets will fit 600ml bottles but not too much else. There’s some extra space on the dashboard for loose items.

Amenities up front include two USB-C ports, a wireless phone charger, two cupholders, an electric sunroof with manual sliding sunshade, keyless entry and start, and a 12-volt socket with a (perhaps slightly over-engineered) damped cover that slides into the dashboard.

The GX is a large car, but space in the rear seats isn’t as roomy as you might expect. At 186cm (6ft 1in) tall, there’s only a few centimetres of knee room behind my driving position – which is closer to the steering wheel than most – and toe room is barely acceptable.

The seat bases don’t slide – only recline in a 60:40 split – and they’re not the most ergonomically shaped, especially for the middle passenger, which has to contend with a flat seat base and broad tunnel on the floor.

Head room is excellent, however, and amenities are well catered for, with air vents in the roof, a rear climate-control panel with access to the third temperature zone and outboard heated seats, two USB-C ports, and a fold-down armrest with cupholders.

The ISOFIX anchor points (on the outboard seats only) are easy to access – with top tethers for all three rear seats also available – and the side steps assist with ingress and egress.

Boot space is excellent, for a few reasons. It’s a big car, sure, but unlike the Prado, there’s no 48-volt mild-hybrid battery to package under the boot floor and, as has been the subject of much criticism and controversy, cannibalise much of the cargo space. There’s also no third row of seats to contend with.

There’s no load lip – either a step up or step down – and the floor is flat, translating to a claimed 1063-litre cargo volume. Underfloor storage is limited, but there is a 220-volt, 100-watt household power socket in the boot, plus space on the side for small items, as well as cupholders and two USB-C ports carried over from seven-seat GX variants.

A top-hinged, single-piece tailgate – with power operation – means the full-size spare wheel is slung underneath the car. It means you won’t need to unpack the boot to extract it, but you’ll need to climb under the vehicle and lie on whatever surface you’ve parked on to unbolt it.

Standard in the GX is a 14-inch infotainment touchscreen with wireless and wired versions of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus embedded satellite navigation, Bluetooth, and AM, FM and digital DAB radio integration.

The screen is technically 14 inches across, but the bottom portion of it is taken up by the climate controls, so the area left for multimedia and navigation appears to be the same as the 12.3-inch display in a Toyota Prado.

And the software it runs is the same, too, albeit with Lexus fonts and a few small changes. The system looks modern, and response times are fine, but it is far from standout in its class, with a confusing menu structure, and icons in many places that are too small to use comfortably on the move.

The fan speed slider along the bottom of the screen is one of those, placed alongside touchscreen buttons for the heated seats and demisters – though there are big temperature dials to interact with.

Wireless CarPlay worked well in our testing, with no drop-outs or weird behaviour.

Ahead of the driver is a 12.3-inch instrument display, which offers three customisable, saved layouts – with three ‘pods’ within those, where various parameters can be displayed. It too has a learning curve, but once you’ve set it up, it will be a matter of setting and forgetting.

Buyers get three years of free access to Lexus Connected Services, which includes a smartphone app that includes vehicle tracking, automatic 000 calls in the event of a crash, remote unlocking, remote climate-control activation, and more. A fee is charged once this trial period is up.

The Lexus GX is yet to be crash-tested by ANCAP, but its Toyota Prado sibling earned a five-star rating in safety assessment conducted last year.

The Lexus GX offers a full suite of advanced safety technology, which generally works well and without annoyance.

In our testing, there were no false activations of the autonomous emergency braking, the adaptive cruise control system works smoothly, and we didn’t find ourselves frustrated by the lane-keep assist, which only makes its presence known when it is truly necessary.

The lane-centring assist tech – branded Lane Trace Assist – is less hands-on than others on the market, so it requires more attention in corners and on more challenging roads, but the flipside is it doesn’t try to wrestle control of the vehicle away from the driver.

A driver-facing monitoring camera is present, but we didn’t find it too intrusive, and it wasn’t constantly chiming at us on brief glances away from the road.

Nine airbags are fitted – dual frontal, front-side, front-knee, front and rear curtains, and front-centre coverage to prevent head clashes in severe side impacts.

A suite of parking cameras joins traditional sensors, including a Multi-Terrain Monitor system with underbody views stitched together through the cameras on the bumpers and mirrors.

The Lexus GX is covered by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, including any genuine accessories fitted to the vehicle.

Included in the price is a three-year free subscription to the entry-level tier of the Lexus Encore program (higher tiers with additional perks cost extra), which includes roadside assistance, and a 5c/L discount on up to 150 litres of premium fuel every 24 hours at participating Ampol service stations, and “exclusive offers” and "exclusive events".

There is also paid access to certain airport lounges available, plus a service loan car – either by collecting the keys when dropping your car at the dealer, or Lexus can come to you and take your GX away while leaving you with the loan vehicle.

That will be needed more than buyers may expect, as scheduled service intervals are shared with other Toyota group 4WDs, but short by modern standards – just six months or 10,000km, whichever comes first, rather than the more common 12 months/15,000km intervals seen on its rivals.

Prices are capped at $595 for each of those, but it amounts to $5950 over five years/100,000km.

Over the same intervals and period, a Toyota Prado costs $3900, a Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series costs $4200, and a Lexus LX costs $5950.

A five-year/130,000km prepaid service plan for a Land Rover Defender P425 petrol – which runs on ‘condition-based’ maintenance, where the car tells you when it needs to visit the dealer, rather than sticking to a set schedule – costs $3900.

A year of comprehensive insurance coverage with a leading provider is quoted at $3516, based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

If fuel economy is a priority, cover your eyes.

Lexus claims lab-tested consumption in mixed driving conditions of 12.3 litres per 100 kilometres, which is high but not unexpected of a big, boxy 4WD with a powerful twin-turbo petrol V6 engine.

Over a week of driving in city, suburban, highway and country conditions, the trip computer displayed 15L/100km.

We saw the read-out surge as high as 20L/100km in the city, and dip to the 11 to 12L/100km range on the open road. It will be hard to match Lexus’s claim unless you exclusively cover highway kilometres.

That consumption is, as mentioned, not unrealistic for a large petrol 4WD, but the GX’s ability to cover long distances in the bush is hampered by its 80-litre fuel tank.

Even at 11L/100km, that would cap driving range at 727km – not short, but hardly a match for a diesel’s 1000km-plus.

In exclusively city traffic, you’d be looking at 350km before the fuel light comes on (or about 400km if driven to empty) – a similar distance to many new $35,000 electric cars.

If Simpson Desert adventures are in the plan, a diesel Prado with a 110-litre fuel tank, assuming fuel consumption of 9.0L/100km, could cover a far more workable 1222km.

A requirement for premium unleaded – 95 octane at minimum – means visits to the pump are not cheap. Cover 10,000km a year at 15L/100km and $2.00/L, and you’d be looking at a $3000 annual fuel bill.

Simply lovely, and about as good as vehicles like these – heavy-duty, ladder-frame 4WDs on all-terrain tyres – get.

The 3.4-litre (officially badged as a 3.5-litre) twin-turbo V6 is not a sonorous engine like the inline-six in a Defender or BMW, but it’s a laid-back yet potent motor that suits the GX’s character.

There’s plenty of low-down torque, and it pulls hard through a strong mid-range to reach the speed limit with ease. Drivers are treated with a satisfying bark from the exhaust under hard acceleration, as with many turbo V6s, though it’s not loud or obnoxious.

It’s matched well with the 10-speed automatic transmission, which is not what you’d call a quick shifter. Even in its sportiest mode, downshifts are slow and slurred – and it often denies them, should you pull a paddle – though in normal driving it’s smooth, stays out of the driver’s way, and doesn’t hunt for gears up hills.

We timed the GX550 from zero to 100km/h in 6.8 seconds on our satellite timing gear – not lightning fast (a Ford Ranger Raptor performance ute needs six seconds flat), but brisk for a large 4WD, and millennia quicker than the circa-12 seconds of a four-cylinder diesel Prado.

Given its construction, on-road ride comfort is a highlight of the GX.

As expected of a heavy-duty, body-on-frame vehicle, there is some shimmy through the chassis over sharp bumps, and it has a firm edge over smaller imperfections and expansion joints, particularly at the rear of the car.

But it’s impressively soft and supple over speed bumps, and wafts over crests and dips in the road at higher speeds, without feeling too unruly or unable to control the movement of its body.

Coil-spring suspension is standard on all four corners of the car – independent up front, and non-independent through a live axle at the rear, for improved off-road ability.

Adaptive dampers – allowing drivers to vary the firmness of the suspension – are standard, and flicking through the modes affects how sharply the GX reacts to potholes and speed bumps, rather than smaller, sharper bumps in the road. We left the car in Comfort or Normal modes most of the time, as we didn’t feel a firmer ride was needed in a car like this.

A Defender – with a monocoque chassis (where the body and underpinnings are one, rather than separate like this GX) and adaptive air suspension capable of height adjustment – is much more supple over bumps, but the GX does the best it can with its construction.

It’s not a corner carver, either, but it doesn’t lose its cool on a winding sealed road. Grip from the Toyo Open Country all-terrain tyres on bitumen is decent, though not exceptional, and the suspension shrugs off mid-corner bumps well.

The steering is also good – there is some vagueness to it, as to be expected of a big 4WD, and it can feel a bit artificial at times, but it’s light in Comfort mode, isn’t too cumbersome in parking manoeuvres, and offers reasonable precision in corners at higher speeds.

Braking performance is also good for a vehicle of this type. The pedal is soft and easy to get used to, and in an emergency situation, the all-terrain tyres perform admirably, pulling up from 100km/h in 42 metres on our timing gear – a long stopping distance by the standards of all cars, but about what we’d expect of a 2.5-tonne 4WD on knobbly off-road rubber.

Tyre roar and wind rustle are present, but the former is more hushed than some other cars we’ve driven recently on all-terrains, and neither is too intrusive that they can’t be drowned out with the stereo.

Off-road, the GX performs as well as you’d expect. Overtrail model grades gain e-KDSS, the Toyota group’s trick electronic suspension that can disconnect sway bars for greater wheel articulation.

Low-range, locking rear and centre differentials, and a strong engine help get the GX out of sticky situations, assisted by well-tuned traction control – but it can’t match the Terrain Response software smarts and height-adjustable suspension (for increased clearance) of a Defender in rough terrain.

For more on how the GX performs off-road, click here to watch Off-Road Editor Sam Purcell test the Overtrail in the environment it was designed for.

The GX is rated to tow up to 3500kg braked or 750kg unbraked across the range.

The gross vehicle mass (GVM) sits at 3110kg, and kerb weight is a quoted 2515kg, translating to a not-unacceptable, though far from amazing 595kg payload – which will be used up quickly as passengers climb in and accessories, from bull bars to the towball (and downweight of the trailer), are added.

A gross combination mass of 6610kg is claimed – perfectly enough to tow 3500kg at the 3110kg GVM.

The Lexus GX’s in-vogue boxy looks alone will win over plenty of customers, but there’s lots of appeal in this luxurious four-wheel-drive.

It’s great to drive, the twin-turbo V6 delivers brisk performance, the cabin blends luxury and ruggedness well, the boot is big, and it’s competitively priced.

That is all backed by Lexus’s excellent ownership program, and the reputation for reliability that comes with the badge (some recalls aside), especially compared to rival brands.

It comes with compromises, though: high fuel consumption, a limited fuel range, frequent and expensive servicing, average passenger space, and not-class-leading technology.

If those aren’t priorities for you – and you’re after a big, powerful, luxurious 4WD capable of venturing further off the tarmac than most – the GX may hit the spot for your needs.

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner

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