Lexus UX Review

The Lexus UX is right for you if you want a hybrid SUV that’s cheap to run and relaxing to drive in town – it does this better than any of its rivals.

Okay so, relatively speaking, it’s not that spacious inside, but it does feel well-built and posh and you get plenty of standard of equipment – including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto – which makes up for the lacklustre performance of the standard infotainment system.  

So the Lexus isn’t without fault – it’s not that spacious or all that great to drive out of town – but if you’re looking for a trendy looking SUV that’s ideal for the city, it’s got to be top of your shopping list. 

Answering the first half of that question is simple – the Lexus is only available with one engine, a petrol-electric hybrid that’s frugal on fuel. That said, we’d avoid the specifying the optional four-wheel drive which is largely pointless in a car you’ll probably never take off-road. 

There’s more to consider when it comes to trim levels. The standard car comes with all the equipment you need and is a popular choice as a result, but nearly as many people go for the F Sport model which looks sportier outside and in and has extra equipment such as posher interior upholstery and heated front seats. 

The question should almost be “What other cars aren't similar to the Lexus UX?” there are so many car’s like this to choose from. 

The BMW X1 is a great all-rounder. It looks smart, is posh inside and also a lot more practical than the Lexus. Sure, it can compete with Lexus' in-town fuel economy, but it’s a more well-rounded package out of town and diesel models are still very cheap to run. 

Fancy something more comfortable, then consider the Range Rover Evoque. Its suspension soaks up bumps better than the Lexus’ and it’s also quieter in town. It’s also better offroad and a more accomplished tow car.

There’s no denying the Lexus UX is solidly constructed. Main plastics feel like they’d withstand a nuclear strike, gaps between materials are consistent and there are no squeaks or rattles.

What isn’t consistent is the material quality. Sure you find nice materials on the dashboard and door tops but the further down you poke the cheaper the materials seem to be. By comparison, a BMW X1 feels more consistently well-built.

Perceived quality improves depending on what model you go for. The standard UX makes do with fabric seats that look fine, so long as you avoid the Cobalt (blue and white) colour scheme.

F Sport models get posher looking Tahara Fabric seats (available in a range of tasteful and not so tasteful colour schemes) and sport aluminium pedals. 

Top-the-range Takumi models trump the lot, though. They have a leather interior as standard and also get a Washi Paper inspired centre console trim. 

Another area that lets down the UX’s interior is its infotainment screens.

As standard, you get a seven-inch centre-screen which is smaller than you get in most rivals and also features clunky old-school graphics that look dated compared to what you get in a BMW, Audi or Mercedes.

While the graphics aren’t great, the biggest problem with the Lexus’ infotainment screen is its touchpad controller. In theory, it should allow you to control the screen without having to take your eyes off the road. 

The reality, though, is that the cursor is extremely hard to control accurately, especially when you’re focused on driving, and the menus are also confusingly laid out and not very intuitive. 

All in all, you’re much better off ignoring Lexus’ controls and heading straight for the car’s Apple CarPlay or Android Auto systems. They mirror your smartphone’s display – for things like sat-nav and music playback – using your phone’s more intuitive menus and voice activation system. 

F Sport models get a revised instrument binnacle with an analogue rev counter that moves electrically to reveal a digital display hidden behind. 

For a proper infotainment upgrade, though, you’ll need the Takumi model that has a 10.3-inch central display (optional on F Sport cars) and built-in sat-nav, although the graphics are no clearer than the standard system’s. As well as the larger screen, Takumi cars also add a head-up display that can project important information – such as speed and sat-nav directions – onto the car’s windscreen. 

As well as upgrading the infotainment system, Takumi cars also swap the standard car’s decent six-speaker stereo for a Mark Levinson system. It has 13 speakers and sound quality that even the stereos fitted to luxury cars – such as the Mercedes S-Class –struggle to better.

Adults aren’t going to feel short of space upfront in the Lexus and both you and your front-seat passenger’s seat has height adjustment. 

The electrical adjustment on F Sport models makes it less of an effort to get the seat just how you want it, and it also comes with robust lumbar support, heated seats and a heated steering wheel. Takumi models go a step further by adding ventilated front seats that send a cooling breeze up your legs and back on sticky summer days.

Unfortunately, you don’t get that luxury in the back. Anyone above average height will feel their knees pressing hard on the seats in front and there’s not a lot of foot room either. Okay, so headroom’s okay, but the small windows make the back seat feel dark and dingy. On a positive note, you do at least get a rear centre armrest with two cup holders.

And you’ll want to use it because the Lexus isn’t great with three people in the back. It feels plain crushed and your mates in the outer seats will find their heads being pressed up against the roof. 

The limited space also makes its presence felt when you fit a child seat. The small rear doors don’t open that wide, hampering access and manoeuvring the chair into position is tricky with such limited room behind the front seat. On the upside, the Isofix points are marked behind removable plastic covers. 

What’s not so good is the Lexus’ tiny boot – at 320 litres, it’s nearly 20% smaller than you get in a Volkswagen Golf and miles off the 530 litres you get in a comparable SUV such as the Audi Q3.

There’s worse to come when you see the boot’s shape, though. 

It’s very shallow so you can forget about sticking your labrador in there and, although there’s no boot lip, the boot itself sits very high which makes loading heavy luggage a pain. Sure, you get storage areas under the floor (except in four-wheel-drive models, where space is taken up by an electric motor) but, with no spare wheel, that’s not a surprise.

Despite the 250h badge, the UX uses the same 2.0-litre self-charging system as found in the Toyota Corolla and not the 2.5-litre from the RAV4. Not that it's any poorer for using the smaller engine. We think the 2.0-litre is the better hybrid. 

When it comes to hybrids, Toyota has more experience than any other manufacturer and it shows. The UX is incredibly smooth. You pull away in electric power and the engine kicks in when needed. However, the transition is so polished, you will hardly notice.

There are no problems with performance when the UX is driven in standard hybrid mode. It's never short on power and accelerates with plenty of gusto if required, getting from 0-62mph in 8.5 seconds.

The Lexus UX’s hybrid powertrain’s ability to run on electric power alone makes it very quiet in town but with a soft right foot, it’ll get to 71mph without having to engage the noisier petrol engine, although it’ll only manage it for a few miles.

One oddity is the Active Sound Control fitted to F Sport models and above, which actively amplifies the engine noise using a loudspeaker hidden in the dashboard, it’ll even fake engine noise when you’re in full electric mode. It’s controlled using a dedicated volume button.

Unfortunately, the news isn’t so good in other areas. The Lexus suffers from more wind noise than the Audi Q3 – with noticeable flutter around its wing mirrors – and you’ll hear quite a lot of tyre rumble, too, especially in F Sport and Takumi models that have the larger 18-inch alloy wheels. 

The Lexus UX was awarded five stars for safety when it was crash tested under Euro NCAP’s extremely tough 2019 test conditions. 

Even standard UX models come with plenty of safety kit. You get active cruise control that can brake and accelerate the car on the motorway and automatic emergency brakes that can detect cars as well as pedestrians and cyclists. 

To that lot you can add bright-shining, auto-dipping LED headlights, lane-keep assist and road-sign recognition which display roadside information – like the current speed limit – onto the car’s big screen.

Top-of-the-range Takumi models have even more safety kit. They get upgraded LED headlights, swapping the bi-LED lights fitted to the rest of the range for more powerful 3-eye LED headlights that give you a larger field of vision and are also better at cutting through fog. 

On top of that, you get a Blind Spot Monitor system that’ll warn when a car is hidden in your blind spot on the motorway and Rear Cross Traffic alert which will sound a warning before braking the car if you try to pull out in front of traffic from a perpendicular parking space. 

The Lexus UX insurance groups range from Group 22 for a basic UX model to Group 26 for the top-of-the-range Takumi car. That makes it slightly cheaper than a BMW X1 which occupies Group 25-34 although, in fairness to the BMW, the cars that are at the higher end of the scale are more powerful than the Lexus. 

It’s also interesting to note that the Lexus UX is significantly more expensive to insure than the mechanically-identical Toyota C-HR which sits in Group 14. 

The Lexus UX was launched in 2019 so it falls under the latest taxing regime, however low CO2 emissions mean tax is cheap across the range. As a result, it’ll cost £165 across the range in the first year and £140 thereafter. The only time that changes is if you specify the optional four-wheel-drive system which increases the first-year charge to £205, although the annual cost is £140 after that.  

If you’re buying the UX as a company car, the BIK rate sits at 27% for the standard car, 28% for cars fitted with 18-inch alloy wheels and 30% if you fit the optional four-wheel-drive system. 

You won’t find a Lexus UX that’s been short-changed when it comes to standard equipment.

Even the basic model comes with active cruise control, automatic emergency braking, lane-keep assist and traffic sign recognition. The seven-inch infotainment screen comes as standard and includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and is hooked up to a reversing camera. Finally, you get LED headlights that dip automatically.

F Sport models have all of the above and add sporty looks into the mix courtesy of a unique body kit and 18-inch alloy wheels. Relatively speaking, they have a sportier drive, too, thanks to their stiffer suspension. Additional kit, meanwhile, includes front and rear parking sensors, a heated steering wheel and heated front seats with electrical lumbar support.

Takumi models sit at the top of the range and have extra safety kit including a blind-spot monitoring system and automatic emergency brakes that work when you’re reversing. Its intelligent parking sensors can also brake the car if you’re about to have a bump and you get a 360-degree camera that projects a view of the car’s surroundings onto the Takumi’s larger 10.3-inch screen. You also get a head-up display that projects info, such as your current speed, onto the car’s windscreen and an electrically operated boot lid. 

What Takumi models really add, though, is a more luxurious feel than you get in the standard car courtesy of its full leather interior (including ventilated front seats) and it’s Washi paper-inspired centre console trim.