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This is the 2014 Lexus GX460.
It's Lexus's other big, boxy spindle-grilled SUV.
It looks a lot like the LXS cuz it's slot's right beneath it.
Offering.
Just a little bit less off-road capability, but still really good levels of luxury.
And it still strikes an imposing figure in a parking lot.
Let's hop behind the wheel of this twenty fourteen model and check the tech.
Now here in the engine room you're gonna.
Find a 4.6 liter V8 engine.
That is where the GS8 460 gets its name from.
460 4.6.
Your looking at about 301 horsepower.
329 pounds via torque.
You are looking about 15 miles per gallon city and 20 mile per gallon highway.
17 combined.
Now, this engines strongest suit is that it is kinda dead simple and dead reliable.
It's kinda what you want.
From a big SUV and it's gonna be paired with a six speed automatic transmission.
That's gonna have a sport mode that you're probably never gonna use in this vehicle and it also has a manual shift mode that could come in handy for passing every now and then.
Now, what we have here is the Lexus GX460 luxury.
It is the step up trim level from the base.
So, we've got a couple of nice amenities, like nicer leather seats that have heated and cooled surfaces.
Right here in the center of the dashboard we have Lexus' eight inch.
Informed system.
At this luxury trim level we get navigation built in.
The navigations pretty rudimentary.
You get a 3D sort of like birds eye view maps.
But the graphics aren't the smoothest that we've seen in Toyota or even a Lexus vehicle.
But it will get you from point A to point B and it does have voice.
Control, which is pretty good.
We've also got the inform app system built into this.
And what that will allow you to do, is pair your phone via bluetooth, and run an app on your phone.
That's gonna give the Lexus a connection to the internet.
And access to a handful of apps.
For example, you'll be able to stream music from I Heart Radio or Pandora.
You'll be able to access the Facebook places, on your Facebook account.
So if you've RSVPed to a party.
The address will show up right here in the Facebook app.
Other apps that you have access to are things like movietickets.com or opentable, so you can make reservations and actually find something to do tonight before you hit the road.
Now, if we look a little bit lower down on the center console here, this vehicle's equipped with a.
Full time four wheel drive system.
And you've got the controls.
Here, you'll be able to switch between your four wheel drive high and four wheel drive low mode that's gonna be able to drop you down to a sort of low speed, high torque setting for when you need to tow something or kind of climb a really steep hill.
And when it comes time to go back down that hill, you've got the DAC mode right here.
That's downhill assist control.
Flipping this on is gonna activate a sort of brake baked cruise control for downhill that's gonna help you control your speed so that you can focus on steering the vehicle, while you go down a really steep decline.
Up above that we've got the controls for the adaptive suspension.
In this case you have the option to switch between a sport mode, a comfort mode when you want the ride to feel a little bit more supple, and then a normal mode.
And right next to it we have the ride height controls and what that'll allow you to do is flip the switch and either lower the vehicle a few centimetres.
Or raise the vehicle for those situations where you wanna go off road and need a little bit more ground clearance beneath the vehicle.
Now that we've got that bit sorted, let's take this thing off road and see what it can really do.
No, I'm just kidding.
Nobody actually off roads in a $50,000-
$70,000 Lexus.
Let's hit the road and check this out.
The power does feel adequate.
But the [INAUDIBLE] engine delivery is a bit remote, it seems that there's a [INAUDIBLE] between what's happening with my foot on the pedal and the actual [INAUDIBLE] delivering that I get [INAUDIBLE] that in [INAUDIBLE] seem to have gone out of their way.
It kind of isolates the driver away from what's happening with a fingertip feel in the steering wheel and what's happening through the suspension.
Now this is a big seven passenger luxury SUV, but we just tested the Lexus LX, which is another big.
[INAUDIBLE] So you've gotta kinda wonder if what this is maybe what's putting these vehicles in direct competition with one another.
On paper it would seem that way, but in person the GX actually [INAUDIBLE] a lot smaller, now the LX is based on the land cruisers the GX is based on the Toyota forerunner that means.
It has a base that gives it some pretty good off road bone but what we have in front of us isn't a whole lot of off road controls, we don't have a lot of the different settings for dirt, and for rock crawling because that's not what the point of this vehicle is.
Okay, let's price this big box of luxury on wheels.
The GX460's gonna start about $49,085 for the base model.
But this luxury model that's gonna come pretty well-equipped with a lot of the optional features as standard is gonna be about 60.
Now we've also got an optional Mark Levinson surround sound system, and a destination chart, it's going to bring us to our as tested price of about 64,461 bucks.
That's a pretty good sweet spot for this vehicle.
But there are a couple more options you can add.
We've also got the optional driver aid package, and a rear seat entertainment.
So it's really easy to push the price of this thing.
Up to about $71000.
Find the sweet spot somewhere in the middle and you have a nice luxury cruiser.
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