INTERIOR:
...But in the rest of the interior, IMO, it was obvious that the bean-counters had a field day with it....and I don't know what some of the designers were thinking when they designed some of the controls. Aside from the nice things that I just mentioned, IMO this interior is not worthy of a 33-40K vehicle. The door panels are probably the worst offenders....acres of hard, cheap black plastic and other materials (apparently the same material as in the base RAV-4), with virtually no pleasant soft-touch materials on the at all. The dash, and console, likewise, have bargain-basement materials, with black plastic trim and panels...
...The video screen is operated by a small square finger-touch pad (Lexus has ditched the mouse-type controller for the screen that it formerly used). Just imagine using that on a bumpy road, with your fingertip bumping around). The stereo controls, IMO, border on ridiculous.....they are mounted on a small, flat, black-plastic horizontal, curved, pod that sticks out below the arm rest/center, with tiny black thumb-wheels. Again, just try and use them on a bumpy road...
...So, while, yes, there are some good things inside, overall, the designers get a D for the interior...IMO, it's back to the drawing board.
This. VERY much.
This past Tuesday, with one of the
QueAutoCompro.com reviewers traveling abroad, I received a Lexus UX 250h AWD to sample. Externally, it looked identical to the Nori Green Pearl sample pictured above. The interior
looked nicer than what mmcartalk describes above, since my sample had the Glazed Caramel NuLuxe with Glazed Caramel
Washi Dash interior. This adds extended soft-padded caramel-colored touches to the dash top and armrests (including those on the door) and, of course, the seats. Here's a picture:
Looks very nice, but if you'll allow me to mangle a popular expression, beauty is only knee-deep. No sooner did I start out on my first drive that I banged both my bare knees (remember that here in South Florida shorts are the attire of choice) on hard plastic on the door panel and center console. In fact, aside from the caramel-colored bits, all the black plastic ranges from firm to outright hard. Definitely unworthy of a luxury-branded vehicle.
It took me a while to find that ridiculously tiny thumbwheel that raises and lowers the radio volume, and I find the UX to have, by far, the worst iteration of Lexus' Remote Touch Interface. It was notably inferior and clunkier than those in the IS, GS and LC.
I did find the new 2-liter M20A-FXS hybrid powertrain to be a notable improvement over both the Lexus CT 200h's 1.8-liter 2ZR-FXE and its Toyota C-HR sibling's non-hybrid 2-liter 3ZR-FAE powertrains. Unfortunately, that's just about the extent of my impressions, for, as I was driving towards a SAMA car journalists' luncheon in the UX barely 2 days later, I was rear-ended by a Jeep Wrangler in, ironically, a similar olive-green hue. No injuries or pain, thank God, but my evaluation was literally cut short.
Overall, the Lexus UX's interior brings to mind ex-GM vice chairman Bob Lutz's best-selling book
Car Guys vs Bean Counters. Here, sadly, the bean counters won, big time.
