2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV Review and Off-Road Test

Is there still a place for the Lexus LX570 in today's world of hybrids and high-tech? We walk with a $100,000 dinosaur on this episode of Driving Sports TV. Today, SUVs in the $100,000 price range are rolling masterpieces of high-tech comfort and efficiency. The latest Range Rovers can be had as plug-in electric hybrids. The Mercedes G-Wagon has some of the finest screens you'll find in any segment. And even BMW's X7 has added hybrid technology to improve performance and efficiency. So it's pretty amazing that Lexus is still soldiering on with the LX570 basically unchanged for more than a decade. Why should anybody want this in 2021? That is the big question. The LX570 we're testing today starts at $91,580. But the model we have is loaded with extras, pushing the price as you see it here to $106,854 U.S. dollars, including destination. Under the hood of the Lexus is a big, thirsty 5.7-liter V8 engine that pushes out up to 383 horsepower and 403 pound-feet of torque. It's connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission, and it powers all four wheels thanks to a full-time four-wheel drive system. EPA rates this setup at 12 miles to the gallon in town and 16 on the highway. Towing capacity is a competitive 7,000 pounds. In the back is a clamshell-powered gate with 16.3 cubic feet behind the optional third row. Hit a button and the back seats fold sideways for up to 41.6 cubic feet. With all rows folded, you get up to 81.3 cubic feet. As for that third row, it takes up quite a lot of rear cargo area. And unless you have very tiny children, it is simply not practical. Let me show you. Go. Let's see. Okay. Get that seat up there. Yeah, this, I don't think this is going to work. You know, actually, I do fit back here. It's kind of cruel, though. Yeah, technically, I can fit in the third row. This is a miserable place to be, though. So I'm just going to move on again. Thankfully, the second row is a much better place to be. Ours was optioned with the $2,005 second row entertainment system, which was thoroughly disappointing. Okay, second row seating. It's a little snug considering the size of this vehicle. But also keep in mind, it does have a third row behind me. Pull up these little sleeves. How does these work? Oh, you pull them up and then down. Headphones. Okay, down here, I have HDMI and audio in. I also have a 12-volt. Where's my remote? How do I turn this on? Oh, it tilts. That's nice. Remote in here. Oh, hey, look at that. I get seat warmers and coolers in the second row. That's cool. Literally cool. Get it? Ah, here's the remote. Power that on. Boom. And it's the same ancient menu system that's in the front row. I can do a disc, a Blu-ray disc. It's not touchscreen. I have to use the remote. Oh, my gosh. Are you kidding me? I mean, most kids aren't going to know how to use this because you have to use the remote, which is really weird for 2020. I can set my composite inputs or use HDMI. Yeah, yeah, this, you don't want to buy this option. Just pass on this. I don't even need to go into more there. I also get a large pull-up privacy screen. The cargo area is compromised. The third row doesn't even fit humans very well. And the second row has tech that would befuddle kids today. There has to be something good about this, right? Yes, we'll get to that a little bit later. First, I need to introduce you to the front seat experience of a Lexus LX570. I'm going to close my eyes, and I'm just going to feel the materials. Okay. Now, let's see the seats. Very comfortable. These are heated and ventilated. The leather is high quality, really high quality. Okay, let's move up to the steering wheel. You know, the leather here is super supple to the touch. It just really feels nice. The stitching is very smooth on the inside. Now let's go to the top. Okay, it feels like lacquered wood, probably. It always feels kind of plastic-y to me, but, you know, that's okay. There are paddle shifters. They feel a little plastic-y, a little small. Now let's put our hand down here on the transmission selector. Yeah, that's right where it should be. No reinventing the wheel here. It feels a little plastic-y. A nice leather around the outside, though. Just a little plastic-y on top. Overall, I can tell that this is a very luxurious experience. It feels like it. Now, I open my eyes. Oh, cheap plastic, cheap plastic, cheap plastic. What's with these cheap fake metallics? I mean, make it out of metal or make it look like something else. Don't make plastic look like metal, because it never does. Here, it is just an eyesore combined with what actually is really nice materials. I like these materials in general. That's nice, that's nice, that's hideous. Moving on, let's talk about this center infotainment system. It's a widescreen, it's high-resolution, and it's awful. Yeah, it's running the old software, and it's so old, in fact, it doesn't even support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Even the 4Runner's been updated to support that now. This thing doesn't. So, we can go to Map and use the old-school map destination. Okay, let's do a POI, because I think I can do that nearby. Okay, name, okay. Oh, it's not a touch screen. I have to use the controller down here. Stop, come on, S, T. Oh, you know what? I'm just gonna use my phone, because at this point, this is just stupid. Now, I can't plug this in for Apple CarPlay, because it doesn't support it. So, now I need to mount this up here, and what's the point of all that? So, you know, I can kind of see this being a problem. Even in the GX460, it was a little weird that it didn't have Apple CarPlay. But once you get down to something over $100,000 and they still don't have CarPlay, it blows my mind. On the upside, they do have a wireless charger available, but the pad is clearly shoehorned in and difficult to access. Thankfully, there are some things that save this vehicle to make it still worthy of consideration, and that is what is down here. This is the same hardware that powers the Land Cruiser. And the Land Cruiser is, of course, a legendary off-road machine. And this thing has all the features of the Land Cruiser. It even has turn control, which allows me to have a tighter turning radius by dragging an inside wheel on a loose surface. It even has the MTS system, so I can better control my off-road capabilities. And then, of course, it has drive modes, Eco, Sport, and Sport Plus. Of course, all the Eco modes in the world aren't gonna save the fact that this is a V8 and a very thirsty one at that. We also have 4 Low as well as 4 High, and you can drive this one in all-wheel drive all the time. It only locks into 50-50 when you hit the button up here, which locks the center torsion dip. That gives you more the feeling of a traditional truck 4x4 feeling. Height-adjustable hydraulic suspension is standard on all trims. Standard height is 8.9 inches. Flip a switch, and within seconds, it can modify its stance within a 3-inch range. The main gauge cluster is nicely crafted, but it is showing its age, especially when you compare to what you can get in a Mercedes GLE these days. But if you've owned other Toyota or Lexus vehicles, it will be a very familiar experience. This is also where you can adjust all the advanced safety tech, including lane detection, the blind spot monitoring system, and heads-up display. Adjustments are quick and easy. Just select the item, and a submenu brings up all the features, so you can tune them to your tastes, or shut them off completely. Visibility is quite good. I can see where my wheel arches are. Large mirrors with blind spot warning. I also have collision mitigation. Rear cross-traffic alerts, as well as a backup camera, because, of course, backup cameras are federally mandated now. It does cameras one better by also including an off-road mode when you need it. This shows vehicle position data as well as wheel tracking lines. And as a final piece of the safety pie, adaptive cruise control is standard. Now that we've covered all the features, let's head into the mountains so we can see just how capable this machine is. If you want the capability of the Land Cruiser, but you also want a luxury car, is this Lexus good enough? I mean, you look at the latest from Mercedes, and heck, even Infiniti, and they have made some big strides in capability of their vehicles, adding things like auto steering, semi-autonomy. I mean, they kinda have been caking on the features, whereas this LX570 is still squarely in the past. But does that really matter, or is this like an old estate home? Where, yeah, it's not modern, yeah, it has crummy Wi-Fi, but considering all of the charm and the eccentricities, and I guess you could say the fortitude of the old estate homes, does it really matter? So right now I'm cruising along on the freeway. I'm doing about 70. It's quiet in here. These seats are really comfortable. It's like sitting on pillows. I even have, of course, adaptive cruise control, so I can pace the vehicle in front of me. Let's go ahead and set that, adjust my speed, and it'll mirror the vehicle in front of me. However, where other vehicles today, like the Mercedes and the Audi, will auto steer down the middle, this one doesn't have that. It just has lane detection to tell you when you exit the lanes. But it doesn't do anything about it. Whereas the latest Audi Q7 will actually center down the middle. No, with the Lexus. I do like the V8 on this thing. I mean, this is a very large vehicle, but it drives quick enough because, of course, yeah, V8 under the hood. If they designed this with a clean sheet today, I guarantee it would not have this engine. It would be designed as a hybrid, with car play, with less articulation, and probably not as much advanced off-road tools, so there's that. There are several drive modes. We have comfort, eco, sport, and sport plus. As they denote, this also adjusts the air suspension to be firmer or softer, depending on how you need to use it. So let's go ahead and put it into sport sharp. Whoa, whoa. Yeah, that wakes up the engine. Let's switch it now to comfort and see what that feels like. Yeah, the throttle is slower to come on. It is a lot more roly-poly. Yeah, huge difference between the different drive modes. So if you really wanna get on it, definitely switch over to sport or sport plus. If you're just cruising around town, comfort is just fine. Okay, let's try a zero to 60. Putting the vehicle into sport plus, and everything else is just left normal. Three, two, one, go. And everything flies back, 60, 7.55 seconds. It's pretty quick for a vehicle of this size. Compared against some of our other test cars, the Land Rover Defender 110 P400 was slightly faster than the LX570, with a time of 6.85 seconds to 60. But in the real world, a difference of less than a second really won't amount to much. Let's head into the mountains and play with all the little off-road toys to see how they work. There are a lot of potholes today. This road has been deteriorating over the season. I put the vehicle into comfort mode so that I can kind of get the most chill driving experience here. Man, this thing is like, it's big, but I just feel like I'm in a cocoon of comfort here. I mean, even these potholes, it doesn't care. Just shrugs them off like, yeah, no big. So the all-wheel drive system in this vehicle isn't really an all-wheel drive system per se. It's more like your traditional truck four-wheel drive system. What that means is that you actually have a center torsion locking differential. So right now, it is just pushing power around as it needs it, willy nilly, which is great. Power fluctuating front to back as necessary. Everything works super easy. I could drive around like this all the time. In fact, I do. It's the default drive mode. However, if I need more capability, I can lock that center differential, which will then put 50% of power to the front and 50% to the back all the time with zero slip. This is not like the system you find in the Palisade or the Telluride. That uses a clutch in the middle, and it just suggests that you want to lock that center clutch. But it will release as it sees necessary. This one is a proper solid lock. So that's why you don't want to drive in four high all the time. And why a system like this one is quite good, because it has the capability of a truck system, but it also has the comfort and everyday drivability of a crossover. The problem is this system, it's real expensive. So they don't put it on anything that is cheap. In fact, I think the cheapest thing you could get this torsion center diff on is probably the 4Runner Limited, which is priced in the mid to upper $40,000 range. Now, let's do this hill climb. Now, normally, the rock climb here would be the main attraction of the episode. However, this is not a normal vehicle. I know this is not gonna be a problem. I am, however, gonna use it as a tool to show you how one of the systems work here. So I'm just gonna stop right here, and we'll set up the vehicle. Now, I wanna show you crawl control. This is a feature that allows you to, I guess it's kind of like autopilot for off-roading. We have to put the vehicle into low range. It's a requirement for crawl control. Put it back into drive. Now we're in multi-terrain select. To change this into crawl control, I hit the little hill climb button there. And now it says crawl is activated, and I use this dial down here to set the speed. So now the vehicle is making horrible noises, but that is actually okay. That's how this system works. And up here I have my camera, and it's adjusting to the angle of the vehicle. I can also see my clearance on the sides. And I can even see where my wheels are gonna go so I can better place my wheels where I need them to. And I probably should have cleaned that camera off before I started this. So right now my foot is not on the gas, it's not on the brake. I am just using the dial here to adjust my speed. Now this is the portion where normally we take traction off the front wheel here and the back wheel back there. However, with this system, you don't even notice it. It's that easy. And now we're just gonna crawl all the way up. Again, I'm doing nothing. This is for really if you have a challenging situation and you need power to move around as much as possible. You really are having an issue with slip. This system can get you through pretty much anything. Even though this vehicle can have up to 11 inches of ground clearance, the 8.9 is fine for a trail road like this. Okay, I think that we don't need to be super slow now. I can increase speed. And we just drive out of it. You might notice, crawl control works backwards too. Yes, it sounds horrible. I guarantee you, the vehicle is not braking. This is normal. And then you can use crawl control also for hill descent. Not only does it control throttle, it also controls braking. Let's turn that speed down. And now that I've turned it down, it is all the way to a super slow crawl. This demonstration of crawl control, four low, and the height adjustment, right there you have covered 95% of any off-roading somebody who's gonna buy a Lexus LX 570 is going to ever attempt. However, there are those who need something a little bit more capable than even this. And this does have even more features. Now let's move on to something a little more challenging. This next location we're calling Powerline Park. This is a new location with several challenging courses. It's the perfect place to test the articulation and capability of this LX 570's more advanced off-road features. For today's test, we're gonna use this segment here. It has a hole to stress articulation and a loose dirt surface with a steep incline to challenge grip. To set up the Lexus, I put the vehicle into four low. I also engage the multi-terrain select system at the lowest setting, which allows for some wheel spin. Of course, this is rolling on stock all season tires, which aren't made for aggressive off-road driving. So that only adds to the challenge here. Boy, okay, let's get out and just check our nose first. We're close. I'm gonna move up a little closer just to see, cuz I'm not sure if that's gonna make it or not. Go a little bit to the right. Already I'm slippery, slipping. Okay, we're slipping. So let's lock the center torsion so we have equal power front to back. Just hit the button, it's easy as that. Go to the drive, and now we should have equal power front to back. Let the system do its job. Okay, let me look at the front just to make sure that we're not nose in. We're good. Sorry, Lexus, getting a little muddy here. This is tough, this is tough. We're just right off the bat doing something remarkably difficult. I'm gonna back out and get my wheels straight. And I'm also gonna turn off those parking sonars, cuz those are gonna drive me crazy. I cannot find the parking sonars. I guess we'll have to live with them. Can this get through? Now, there is no locking diff here. What? It just climbed up. Now are we gonna high center? I'm gonna get out and look, actually. Heyo. We're pretty high. I think we're good. Okay, I got mud and sand. Do it. I'm just gonna put the throttle in. I'm gonna let the system figure it out. What? That's amazing. That is seriously amazing. That was very difficult. It's a very short list of vehicles that could have gotten through that. Maybe the Bison, the Jeep with the Rubicon version. 4Runner, probably. If only we had a way to check. Well, luckily I have a 4Runner, and now I'm gonna try it. Ground clearance is an issue. I'm in four low. Let's just do the same thing that we did in the Lexus. I'm gonna go and turn on multi-terrain select. And I'm in mud mode, mud, sand, dirt. Now, I am really concerned about high centering. Also, I have a little bit of mud today, I mean snow. Let's go a little bit more to the right. I think I was a little more to the right. Okay, come on, can it do it? Can it do it? Is it gonna push that power around? I think it's gonna do it. I'm just keeping the throttle on medium, and it's slowly climbing up. Come on, you're gonna do it? Oh, it's so slippery. Yeah, and it did it. That was not really hard. Okay, so I guess I could have done it in a 4Runner. Now, let's get back into the Lexus LX570. Though the 4Runner was able to conquer the same obstacle, it's not a knock on the LX. The large Lexus is a far more comfortable driving experience overall. And with even more ground clearance than the 4Runner, it literally can turn mountains into mole hills. But that's not all. The Lexus also has one more trick, which is borrowed from the legendary land cruiser, turn control. Let's try it out and see if it actually makes a difference. I've marked the ground by my wheel so I know the exact position that I'm sitting in. I'm then going to do a U-turn. Of course, there's a cliff in front of me. I'm not going to go over that. But I'm going to do it first normal, and then I'm going to use turn control, and you can see the difference. So I'm in four low. I'm in drive. Let me unlock my center diff so it doesn't drag. And there we go. Turn. Pretty tight, but I barely make it around that ledge. So let's re-approach. So I'm going to go into drive, and now I'm going to hit turn control. Now, it's telling me before I use turn control, I have to turn crawl control on. So let's go ahead, crawl control on. Crawl is activated. Let's do the lowest speed, and now I'm going to do turn control. I have a little green logo there, and let's see what this does. And I could go a little quicker than this. So now I've turned the wheel all the way, and let's see how much tighter this turn is. So what it's doing is it's dragging the inside back wheel to kind of create a pivot motion. This is also on the Land Cruiser, but it's a neat feature. I'm glad they brought it over to this one. And there we go. First turn. This is the inside wheel. Second turn. I saved a good three feet there, which could be really helpful if that was a real cliff. The LX570 is a seriously capable off-road machine. Yeah, it's got out-of-date electronics, and the looks are a little overbearing. But if you want something that is luxurious, quiet, comfortable, and you don't mind the ancient electronics, the LX570 offers a ride unlike any other. The closest thing is, of course, the Land Cruiser. And that's the big question. Should you get this or the Land Cruiser? The Land Cruiser does have more capability, and that is simply because it has the KDSS system that gives you more articulation. Does this vehicle have enough articulation for most people? Of course it does. But if you need that little bit extra, then the Land Cruiser delivers in that department. And then, of course, there's the dealership experience. You can go to a Lexus dealer or you can go to a Toyota dealer. We'll just leave it at that. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douthit. This has been my test of the new, well, the latest 2021 Lexus LX570. It is a remarkable machine. Big engine, tons of capability. It's really unlike anything else. Be sure to subscribe, hit that like button, and we'll see you again right here next week.