2024 Lexus RX

The volume RX 350 carries the fifth generation's turbocharged 2.4-liter four (T24A-FTS) at 275 hp — unchanged for 2024 — which is adequate rather than strong against mid-size luxury rivals that routinely offer 330–400 hp inline-sixes.

317 lb-ft is the best part of the RX 350's spec sheet — well clear of the 267 lb-ft the old 3.5 V6 made and enough for the strong low-end shove reviewers note, even though peak horsepower is unremarkable.

Lexus claims 7.2 seconds for the RX 350 AWD and independent testing brackets it — MotorTrend recorded 7.3 sec for the AWD F Sport and Consumer Reports 7.5 sec for the Premium Plus AWD it road-tested — so 7.3 sec represents the volume AWD configuration fairly. That is mid-pack at best in a class where turbo-six rivals run mid-fives.

The turbo four is the least Lexus-like thing about the 2024 RX: testers consistently describe a gritty, gravelly character under throttle that the outgoing V6 never had, and there is perceptible lag off idle. It pulls strongly in the midrange and is quiet at a cruise, which keeps it mid-band rather than lower; the electrified variants sharing the showroom transition far more seamlessly.

The RX 350's eight-speed automatic is unobtrusive and rarely hunts in normal driving, but shifts arrive with a noticeable bump when pushed — good, not class-leading. Elsewhere in the 2024 range the 350h/450h+ eCVT is smooth but drones at full throttle and the 500h's six-speed is the crispest unit, though neither is the volume configuration.

3,500 lbs covers a small boat, a pair of jet skis or a light utility trailer — on par with an Acura MDX but roughly half of what a BMW X5 or Audi Q7 will pull, and no 2024 RX trim improves on it.

All-wheel drive is a roughly $1,600 option on every RX 350 grade, standard on the F Sport Handling, and standard on all three electrified variants via the E-Four electric rear axle — so effectively the whole 2024 range can be had with it. The hardware is on-road oriented, though: Lexus's electronically controlled Active Torque Control system with no low range, no locking differential and no terrain-select modes beyond Snow.

The RX is a pavement-first unibody crossover: about 8.2 inches of ground clearance, road tires, no skid plates, no low range, no locker and no off-road grade anywhere in the 2024 lineup. Snow mode plus on-demand AWD handles a slick road or an unplowed driveway; anything rougher than a graded dirt track is the body-on-frame GX's job.

2024 is the year the RX's electrified lineup was completed: the 275-hp turbo 2.4 gas car, the 246-hp 350h full hybrid, the newly added 304-hp 450h+ plug-in hybrid with an EPA-estimated 37 miles of electric range, and the 366-hp 500h F SPORT Performance. That gas-through-PHEV-through-performance-hybrid spread is among the broadest in the mid-size luxury class; only a full EV is absent, and Lexus points those buyers to the RZ.

The turbo 2.4 RX 350 is the entry powertrain and roughly half of US RX volume, so it is the representative configuration; 24 MPG combined is ordinary for a mid-size luxury SUV and is beaten by 12 MPG by the hybrid sitting one rung up the same lineup.

City is the gas RX's weakest cycle — a 4,400-lb crossover with a turbo four and an 8-speed automatic and no electric assist, despite stop-start. The RX 350h returns a full 16 MPG more in town on the same showroom floor.

Highway is where the downsized turbo four earns its place — 28 MPG is competitive with turbo-four luxury rivals and is the RX 350's best cycle, though still six short of the hybrid's 34.

427 miles is enough for a long day's drive without planning around fuel stops, but it is unremarkable for the segment and the comparison that stings is internal: the RX 350h covers nearly 200 miles more per fill from a smaller tank.

This is the RX 350's worst number by a wide margin: a mandatory premium-fuel requirement stacked on a 24-MPG combined rating makes it genuinely expensive to feed, and the EPA's own label warns of $5,000 more in fuel over five years than an average new vehicle. The hybrid costs about $1,100 a year less to run — the strongest single argument for stepping up to it.

Premium is required, not merely recommended: Lexus specifies 91 octane minimum for the turbocharged 2.4 and warns that lower octane may damage the engine and void warranty coverage, and the EPA label reads 'Premium Gasoline Required.' There is no mixed-requirement relief across the 2024 lineup either — the 350h and 500h are EPA-rated on premium as well — so every RX buyer pays the premium spread at every fill.

NHTSA crash-tested the 2024 RX 350 in both drivelines: the AWD volume configuration takes 5 stars overall (4 frontal, 5 side, 4 rollover at 15.5% probability), while the FWD car lands at 4 stars overall on the same frontal and side results with a marginally worse 16.9% rollover figure.

The 2024 RX earned a Top Safety Pick — but not TSP+ — and its crash sheet is Good almost everywhere: Good driver- and passenger-side small overlap, Good original moderate overlap, Good updated side. The exception is serious and is what costs it the plus: Poor in the updated moderate overlap front test, where the driver compartment held up well but the second-row dummy showed elevated chest-injury risk and restraint problems. A Poor in a core crashworthiness test caps this well short of the top band even with the award in hand.

Lexus Safety System+ 3.0 is standard on every 2024 RX grade from the base RX 350 FWD up — Pre-Collision System with pedestrian, bicyclist and motorcyclist detection braking from roughly 7 to 110 mph, full-speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control with Curve Speed Management, Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist, Lane Tracing Assist, Proactive Driving Assist, Road Sign Assist and Intelligent High Beam — and Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert is standard alongside it. All five core items (AEB, ACC, LKA, BSM, RCTA) are on the base car; only the extras (Advanced Park, Traffic Jam Assist, Panoramic View Monitor, driver monitor) climb the grade walk.

The RX's standard pre-collision system earns a Good IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention rating and, unusually, does it in the dark: collisions avoided in the 12 and 25 mph crossing-child and crossing-adult runs, avoided in the 25 mph parallel-adult night test on both beam settings, and avoided at 37 mph on high beams with a 32 mph speed reduction on low beams. Nighttime pedestrian capability is exactly what the top band asks for; the item stops short of full marks only because the RX carries no result under the tougher vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention test.

Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert is standard on every 2024 grade, and the RX's e-latch doors bring Safe Exit Assist with it — the door will not release into an approaching car or cyclist, which is genuine intervention rather than a chime. Rear cross-traffic braking and the Panoramic View Monitor stay package or upper-grade items, so the standard coverage is alert-only at the back bumper.

Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist (active above 30 mph) and Lane Tracing Assist are standard and hold the RX centered smoothly on well-marked highway lanes, with reviewers finding the system useful rather than intrusive. It is tuned conservatively in the Toyota/Lexus manner, though — it gives the lane back early on faded markings and in tighter sweepers instead of holding a confident line — which keeps it a rung below the best centering in the class.

Full-speed-range Dynamic Radar Cruise Control runs from highway speeds down to a complete stop with automatic resume, adds Curve Speed Management, and works with Lane Tracing Assist and Proactive Driving Assist — which brakes gently into corners and for a closing vehicle before the driver does — for one of the more polished, unobtrusive highway packages short of a mapped hands-free system.

Hands-free operation exists on the 2024 RX only as Traffic Jam Assist — limited to low-speed congestion on limited-access roadways, available on Premium and above, and dependent on a Drive Connect subscription (three-year trial) plus the 4G connection. Lexus Teammate Advanced Drive, the highway-speed system, is not offered on the RX, so there is nothing here comparable in scope to BlueCruise or Super Cruise.

Both 2024 RX headlight variations rate Good at IIHS — the standard LED projector lamps fitted across all trims as well as the Premium Triple Beam package on the upper grades — so a base buyer gets the same Good-rated visibility as a Luxury buyer, and Intelligent High Beam is standard fleet-wide. The only thing missing is curve-adaptive capability, which neither variation offers.

The high seating position and relatively slim A-pillars give a good forward view, but the fifth-generation RX's fast roofline, high beltline and thick rear pillars leave a genuinely compromised over-the-shoulder and rearward view — Consumer Reports calls rear visibility not ideal. Standard BSM with RCTA covers the worst of it, while the Panoramic View Monitor and Digital Rearview Mirror that would properly compensate are optional rather than standard on the volume grades.

IIHS rates the RX's LATCH hardware Good for ease of use — two outboard positions with exposed, easy-to-reach lower anchors and three clearly marked top tethers — and independent car-seat checks of this generation return straight A's, with wide rear door openings and room for two seats side by side. The five-seat cabin is not wide enough for a genuine three-across, which is the only real limitation.

The fifth-generation RX is a strictly two-row, five-seat SUV — Lexus retired the three-row RX L with this generation and handed that job to the new TX — so five is the ceiling on every 2024 grade, gas or electrified.

39.5 inches without a roof opening is comfortably mid-pack for a mid-size SUV and no one sits short of space up front — but the volume Premium grade's standard power moonroof and the optional panorama roof each claw some of it back, the latter down to 37.6 inches.

41.1 inches is a genuinely modest figure for the class — enough that tall drivers fit without complaint, but well short of the 42–43 inches the roomier mid-size SUVs offer, and it is the same on every grade.

38.6 inches in the second row is a good result and the fast roofline costs less headroom than it looks like it should; the panorama glass roof is the configuration to watch, taking it to 37.0 inches.

37.4 inches of second-row legroom is the RX's strongest passenger-space number — adults sit comfortably behind adults, helped by a 112.2-inch wheelbase and a reclining second row — though three-row rivals of similar outside length carry more.

There is no third row in the 2024 RX at any price. Lexus dropped the stretched RX L when the fifth generation arrived and launched the three-row TX alongside it for 2024, so a buyer who needs six or seven seats has to shop a different model — that is an outright absence, not a compromised third row.

29.6 cubic feet is the fifth-generation RX's real weakness: it is respectable for a compact SUV and thin for a mid-size one, so a family's luggage for four fills the hold before the roof rails are even considered.

46.2 cubic feet seats-down is well under the mid-size SUV norm — most two-row rivals clear 60 and many exceed 70 — and it is the single hardest number to defend on this scorecard given the RX's 192.5-inch overall length.

Everyday storage is competent rather than inventive: a usable covered console, decent door bins, a standard-on-Premium wireless charging tray and six USB ports, plus a reimagined cargo area with a low loading floor, a 40/20/40 split second row and underfloor space. Nothing here is a standout solution, though, and the 120V AC inverter — the one genuinely useful power feature — is restricted to the hybrid variants, so a 2024 RX 350 buyer cannot have it.

Seats are the strongest part of the RX's comfort case: reviewers describe cushy, well-bolstered front chairs with a wide adjustment range paired to a power tilt-and-telescoping column, and the second row is comfortable and reclining. Heated fronts are standard from the base grade and ventilation arrives with the volume Premium package, and only the absence of massaging or multi-contour options keeps it out of the very top band.

On the volume grade's 19-inch wheels the RX rides the way an RX should — the suspension absorbs broken pavement without fuss and reviewers repeatedly call ride comfort a strong point. It is short of class-leading on two counts: the tune is soft enough to allow pronounced body roll when pressed, and the 21-inch wheels standard on Luxury and the F SPORT grades noticeably firm it up.

Wind and road noise are well suppressed and testers describe the cabin as quiet even at speed, which is where the RX has always earned its keep. What holds it below the top band is the 2024 RX 350's own engine: the turbocharged 2.4-liter four has a gritty, gravelly voice under throttle that the outgoing V6 never had, so the car is no longer as supremely hushed as earlier RXs.

Comfort equipment is generous and, crucially, arrives early in the grade walk: multi-zone automatic climate control, heated front seats and ambient illumination are standard on the base RX; the volume Premium adds heated and ventilated front seats, memory and an available heated wood-and-leather wheel; heated and ventilated rear seats and power rear seats are available from Premium+ up, and remote climate start runs through the Lexus app. Only the subscription strings on remote start and the rear-seat heating being optional rather than standard keep it short of the ceiling.

The 2024 RX opens at $49,950 delivered for the front-drive RX 350 — one of the lowest entry prices in the mid-size luxury SUV class, thousands under a BMW X5, Mercedes GLE or Genesis GV80, though not cheap in absolute terms against the SUV band that spans mainstream models.

Edmunds identifies the RX 350 Premium as the best-selling 2024 configuration at $52,100 delivered; adding the $1,600 all-wheel drive most buyers in this class specify puts the representative car at about $53,700, still below where the German rivals start.

The two industry models disagree sharply — CarEdge's owner-cost model puts scheduled maintenance alone near $2,600 over five years while KBB's dealer-rate service-plus-repair schedule runs past $7,000 — so this sits between them, leaning toward KBB because it includes repairs. Either way the Toyota-derived hardware makes it one of the cheaper cars to keep in its class.

The RX is the resale benchmark of the segment: independent trackers put five-year depreciation near 33% against a class average above 50%. KBB's more conservative residual model pulls the number down, so this lands just under the trackers' 67%.

Standard Lexus terms, unchanged for 2024 — a year longer than the mainstream 3/36 norm, but a year short of Genesis's 5/60 in the same segment.

Six years/70,000 miles on the scored RX 350's gas powertrain is mid-pack and trails Genesis's 10/100,000 badly on paper; the far longer hybrid-battery coverage applies only to the electrified RX variants, not this turbo-four car.

Lexus covers only the first two scheduled visits — one year or 10,000 miles of service — which is thin beside the longer plans BMW and Volvo were offering in 2024, but four years of unlimited-mileage roadside assistance plus the Safety Connect / Service Connect / Drive Connect trials lift it well above a bare-roadside package.

$53,700 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (65% retained, or about $34,905) leaves about $18,795 in depreciation. Add the projected $6,000 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $24,795 in total.

Consumer Reports predicts the 2024 RX (the gas RX 350, the trim scored here) "more reliable than other cars from the same model year" — the strongest of the three RX drivetrains, with the Hybrid rated about average and the Plug-in Hybrid below average — and RepairPal ranks the RX 350 4.0/5.0, 3rd of 14 luxury midsize SUVs. Held short of the top band because this is only the second year of the fifth generation and CR's own trouble-spot data for it is concentrated in infotainment, cameras/sensors and head-up display.

Lexus ranked highest overall — not merely highest premium — in the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study for a second consecutive year, at 135 PP100 against Porsche's 175 and BMW's 190 among premium rivals. The RX itself took the Midsize Premium SUV dependability award that year, one of nine model-level awards for Toyota Motor Corporation.

Four NHTSA campaigns reach the 2024 RX: front head restraints that can be pulled off without the release button (24V482000, FMVSS 202), damaged second-row center seat belt webbing (25V059000, FMVSS 209), a Panoramic View Monitor that can freeze or blank in reverse (25V744000) and a rearview camera that may not display at all (26V162000). None is a powertrain, fire or structural defect and all are free remedies, but four campaigns in two years — two of them hardware replacements on safety-compliance items — is above the "few and minor" band, and the 2.4T family also carries TSB activity for cold-start vibration and throttle hesitation.

The 2024 RX 350 runs the T24A-FTS 2.4L turbo four with the 8-speed automatic — an engine family introduced only in 2021 that replaced the 3.5L 2GR V6, one of the most durable engines Lexus ever shipped. No systemic failure has emerged and analysts project roughly 170,000 trouble-free miles with maintenance, but the watch items (timing-chain wear, oil coking at the turbo seals, sensitivity to fuel quality) are unproven-at-mileage rather than proven-clean, so it sits in the mid band rather than the 80+ reserved for a long high-mileage record.

The fifth-gen cabin pairs NuLuxe or leather with open-pore wood, textured upper door panels and well-grained plastics over solid structure, and reviewers read it as a clear step up in design from the fourth generation without losing Lexus material quality. Short of the top band because the Mercedes-Benz GLE and Genesis GV80 are still rated richer for outright material spend at this price.

Lexus placed second among premium brands in the J.D. Power 2024 Initial Quality Study at 173 PP100 against a 195 PP100 industry average, a point behind Porsche, and owners describe assembly and cabin isolation as impressive. Docked because the year's two hardware recalls were assembly-quality failures (head restraints that detach without the release, seat belt webbing damaged in build) and CR's trouble spots for the 2024 RX are dominated by in-car electronics.

Lexus ranked highest among premium brands in the J.D. Power 2024 Customer Service Index for a third consecutive year at 897, and highest in the premium SUV segment for a second consecutive year at 898 — the RX's own segment. Roughly 240 US dealerships is thinner than a mass-market network but dense for a premium brand; that coverage ceiling is the only thing keeping this out of the mid-90s.

Running costs are far below the luxury norm — RepairPal puts RX 350 average annual repair at about $550 against $807 for luxury midsize SUVs and $652 across all vehicles, with 0.4 unscheduled shop visits a year and low repair severity — helped by deep parts commonality with Toyota's GA-K platform and Dynamic Force engines. Not 90+ because it remains a luxury nameplate whose trim, glass and electronics are dealer-priced with little aftermarket alternative.

The volume RX 350 Premium leaves the factory with the smaller 9.8-inch Lexus Interface screen; the 14-inch panel most reviews are photographed with is a paid option there and only becomes standard equipment from Premium+ upward. Scoring the configuration a typical buyer drives means scoring the 9.8.

Lexus Interface is the fix for the brand's long-criticized touchpad era and reviewers treat it as such — a fast, legible touchscreen with real knobs kept for climate and volume, putting the RX level with its closest rivals. It is not quite best-in-class: testers consistently flag a deep, busy menu structure that makes specific settings slow to find and the lack of a home button an irritation when jumping out of CarPlay.

Wireless Apple CarPlay and wireless Android Auto are both standard equipment on the base RX 350 and therefore on every 2024 grade — no package, no wired-only entry point, which is exactly what the top band asks for.

The 'Hey Lexus' Intelligent Assistant is a genuine natural-language system that handles climate, audio and destination requests conversationally, and Cloud Navigation brings Google point-of-interest search. The catch is commercial rather than technical: both live inside Drive Connect, which is a trial on the volume Premium grade and a paid subscription afterwards, and the navigation is cloud-dependent — so the owner who lets the trial lapse is back to phone projection.

The base system is not a base system in the usual sense — a 12-speaker Lexus Premium Sound setup is standard on every grade, so nobody buys into a four-speaker penalty box — and the optional 21-speaker Mark Levinson PurePlay Surround Sound tuned specifically for this cabin is one of the better factory systems sold in the class. The only demerit is that Mark Levinson is bundled with the 14-inch screen, so it cannot be had on the volume grade on its own.

The 2024 RX's gauge display is a 7.0-inch multi-information panel — crisp and clearly laid out, but a partial digital cluster in a hooded binnacle rather than the wide configurable screen that Audi, BMW and Genesis rivals fit at this price, and the grade walk never upgrades it. The F SPORT grades change the graphics, not the hardware.

The RX does update itself over the air, but the scope is the multimedia system and select modules rather than the whole vehicle — Lexus describes quality, capability and convenience updates for systems such as the audio multimedia head unit, with a Wi-Fi connection needed for some of them. That is squarely the infotainment-and-maps tier: useful, and nothing like the feature-adding whole-car updates the leaders ship.

The Lexus app covers the expected ground — remote engine start and climate, lock/unlock, vehicle locate, health reports and service scheduling — and Digital Key is available on every 2024 grade, letting the owner share access with up to seven guests. What costs it the top band is that essentially all of it is subscription-gated: Remote Connect and Digital Key both require an active trial or paid subscription, so the remote-start button stops working on a schedule set by the account, not the car.

Six USB ports spread across both rows is a generous count, and the volume Premium grade gets the Qi wireless charger as standard equipment rather than as an option the way the base car does. The gap is household power: the 120V AC inverter and the rear AC socket are hybrid-only equipment, so a 2024 RX 350 buyer cannot order onboard AC power at any price.

Proximity entry, push-button start, remote start and a power rear door are all standard from the base grade, and the e-latch Digital Latch doors add Safe Exit Assist on top. Phone-as-key exists as Digital Key across the range. Two things keep it off the ceiling: the hands-free kick sensor for the liftgate is an option rather than standard on the volume grade, and Digital Key needs a live subscription.

The parking toolkit is deep and clearly rendered — Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking standard from Premium, an optional Panoramic View Monitor, a Digital Rearview Mirror and Advanced Park with Remote Park, which parks the car semi-autonomously and can do it from outside the vehicle. It lands mid-band rather than high because every one of those beyond the sensors is a paid option on the volume Premium grade, and the RX needs them: reviewers call rearward visibility a genuine weak spot.

A head-up display is offered and it is a clear, useful one showing speed, shift position and assist information — but it is not available at all on the base RX or on the volume Premium grade. It first appears as an option on Premium+, becomes standard only on Luxury, and is an option on the F SPORT grades, which is textbook top-trim-only placement.

The hardware is excellent — IIHS rates the RX's LATCH Good for ease of use, independent car-seat checks return straight A's, and the wide rear doors plus a 37.4-inch second row make buckling a child in easy on the back. The ceiling is set by packaging rather than execution: five seats with no third row, a cabin too narrow for a true three-across, and only 29.6 cubic feet behind the second row, which a stroller plus a week's gear fills quickly.

A family buying the cheapest RX still gets the full Lexus Safety System+ 3.0 suite plus blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert and Safe Exit Assist as standard, and NHTSA gives the AWD car five stars — that is real safety on the trims families actually buy. One thing genuinely qualifies it: the RX is a Top Safety Pick rather than TSP+ because it rates Poor in the updated moderate-overlap test, where the concern is elevated chest-injury risk for the second-row dummy — the seat the kids are in.

Four people travel very well in an RX: a quiet cabin, comfortable reclining second-row seats, multi-zone climate and available heated and ventilated rear seats and rear AC power. The limit is luggage, not comfort — with all five seats occupied there are 29.6 cubic feet to work with, less than most mid-size SUVs, and there is no rear-seat entertainment system offered, so a long trip with a full car means packing tightly or fitting a roof box.

This is what the RX is built for and it is very good at it — a soft, absorbent ride, a quiet cabin, light steering that makes low-speed work effortless, a smooth-shifting eight-speed and full-speed adaptive cruise with lane tracing standard on every grade, so stop-and-go traffic is genuinely low-effort. It stops short of the top band only because the turbocharged 2.4-liter takes a beat to respond off idle and sounds gritty when it does.

The RX 350 is an expensive car to commute in. The EPA rates the volume AWD configuration at 24 MPG combined and it asks for premium fuel, which works out to roughly $3,250 a year at 15,000 miles — and the RX 350h sitting in the same showroom returns 36 MPG for a small price premium, which makes the gas car's running costs look worse rather than better. Lexus consumables and complimentary scheduled maintenance keep it off the floor.

At 192.5 inches long and 75.6 wide with a roughly 38.7-foot turning circle, the RX is an ordinary mid-size footprint — manageable in a city garage but not nimble. The real friction is sightlines: the fast roofline, high beltline and thick rear pillars leave rearward visibility that reviewers call not ideal, and the equipment that fixes it — Panoramic View Monitor, Digital Rearview Mirror, Advanced Park — is optional on the volume Premium grade rather than standard.

The 2024 RX tows 3,500 pounds properly equipped — enough for a small utility trailer or a pair of jet skis — and has no bed, no meaningful payload headroom and a unibody chassis tuned for a smooth ride. It will run errands for a business; it is not a work vehicle, and nothing in the grade walk changes that.

The mechanicals are about as trustworthy as this segment gets — Toyota/Lexus engineering, a strong predicted-reliability record and a dealer network built around long ownership — so an RX pressed into light commercial use is unlikely to break. What it is not is wear-tolerant: NuLuxe or leather upholstery, no rubber-floor or vinyl-seat option, no fleet heritage and repair costs priced as luxury, which is the wrong end of the market for abuse.

There is almost nothing here for work: no onboard household power on the gas RX 350 at all — the 120V AC inverter is hybrid-only equipment — no bed access features, no washable surfaces, and an accessory catalog that runs to cargo trays, nets and carpet mats rather than racks and upfits. Aluminum roof rails, standard from Premium, and the 3,500-pound hitch option are the extent of it.

The RX is a natural mile-eater: cushy, well-bolstered front seats with a wide adjustment range, a quiet cabin, a soft ride that flattens interstate expansion joints, and standard full-speed adaptive cruise with lane tracing and Proactive Driving Assist that meaningfully cuts fatigue. Range is about 427 miles on a tank for the AWD gas car — good, not remarkable, and the RX 350h goes nearly 200 miles further between stops.

Snow-belt and gravel-road duty is covered — all-wheel drive is a roughly $1,600 option on every RX 350 grade with a Snow drive mode, aluminum roof rails carry bikes or a box, and the 3,500-pound hitch handles a small trailer. Beyond a graded dirt track it runs out quickly: about 8.2 inches of ground clearance, road tires, no low range, no locking differential, no terrain modes and no skid plates, and the gas car cannot be had with the 120V outlet that makes camping easier.

The shapes are right — a 40/20/40-split second row that takes long items alongside two passengers, a lowered load floor, underfloor storage, a standard power rear door with an optional kick sensor, roof rails and a hitch option. The volume is not: 46.2 cubic feet with everything folded is well below the mid-size SUV norm, so bulky gear goes on the roof rather than inside.

The fifth-generation platform did sharpen the RX — reviewers note a more responsive feel through corners than the outgoing car — but the volume grade is still tuned firmly for comfort, with a soft rather than taut suspension and pronounced body roll once the pace rises. Secure and predictable, never engaging; the Adaptive Variable Suspension and rear-steer that would change the verdict are confined to the F SPORT grades.

The RX's steering is its least satisfying control: accurate enough to place the car and pleasantly effortless in a parking garage, but reviewers describe it as overly light and vague, with essentially no feedback about what the front tires are doing. It is tuned to make the car feel easy, and succeeds at that cost.

Braking is one of the gas RX's quiet advantages — the RX 350 uses conventional hydraulic brakes with no regenerative blending to muddy the pedal, so response is linear and predictable, and testers report short, drama-free stops with no fade in normal use. Pedal feel is soft in the Lexus manner rather than firm and communicative, which keeps it out of the top band.

Driven the way an RX usually is, the turbo 2.4 and eight-speed are smooth and unobtrusive, with strong midrange shove from 317 lb-ft and shifts that pass unnoticed. Push harder and the calibration shows its seams — a perceptible beat of turbo lag off idle and shifts that arrive with a bump — and the engine simply lacks the seamlessness the outgoing V6 had, which in this segment is the standard being judged against.

At a steady cruise the powertrain is close to inaudible, which is what drags this out of the bottom band — but under throttle the 2.4-liter turbo has a coarse, gravelly voice that reviewers single out as incongruous in a Lexus, and it is the main reason the 2024 RX no longer reads as quiet as earlier RXs. Four-cylinder character in a cabin engineered for a six.

Roughly 38.7 feet between curbs is average for a mid-size SUV — a three-point turn on a suburban street rather than a U-turn — and the 21-inch wheels fitted to Luxury and the F SPORT grades widen it further.

Getting comfortable is easy and quick: power-adjustable seats with a wide range, a standard power tilt-and-telescoping column, a commanding seating height, slim A-pillars and — after the move to Lexus Interface — real knobs for climate and volume instead of the old touchpad. The deduction is rearward: the fast roofline and thick rear pillars leave an over-the-shoulder view that reviewers call not ideal, with the cameras that would fix it optional on the volume grade.

Nobody takes the long way home in an RX 350. It is a comfortable, competent luxury cruiser whose every tuning decision — light steering, soft damping, unobtrusive shifts — trades engagement for ease, and the one piece of character it does have, the turbo four's voice, is a sound reviewers dislike. Lexus sells the enthusiast version separately as the 366-hp RX 500h F SPORT Performance.

The base 2024 RX 350 lands at $49,950 delivered with Lexus Safety System+ 3.0, a 9.8-inch touchscreen with wireless CarPlay/Android Auto, 12-speaker audio, tri-zone climate, heated power front seats, power liftgate, rain-sensing wipers, ambient lighting and 19-inch alloys — content a BMW X5 or Mercedes GLE only reaches many thousands of dollars higher. It stops short of the top band because the entry grade still wears NuLuxe rather than leather, wireless phone charging is not yet standard (that arrives for 2026), and the 14-inch screen, Mark Levinson audio and panoramic roof are reserved for upper grades.

The RX pairs one of the lowest entry prices in the mid-size luxury class with the segment's best retained value and lowest running costs — KBB gave the 2024 RX its Lowest 5-Year Cost to Own award in class — so the money spent comes back in ownership terms. What keeps it out of the top band is performance and tech per dollar: the RX 350's 7.3-second 0–60 is well off an X5 or GLE in the low fives, EPA combined economy for the gas car is unremarkable, and reviewers single out the infotainment as a weak point.

2024 is the year the fifth-generation range was completed: four powertrains — RX 350 turbo-four, RX 350h hybrid, the newly added RX 450h+ plug-in hybrid and the RX 500h F SPORT Performance — across Standard, Premium, Premium+, Luxury, F SPORT Handling and F SPORT Performance grades, with FWD or AWD and a spread from $49,950 to $70,080. The one real gap is seating: this generation is five-seat only, so three-row shoppers are pushed to the new TX.

The RX was the best-selling luxury vehicle in the United States in 2024 at roughly 118,600 units, up 4% year over year and taking the best-selling mid-luxury SUV crown for a 26th consecutive year. Market acceptance does not get stronger than this in the segment.

Lexus posted its best US sales year in its 35-year history in 2024, carries an unusually loyal following built on dependability and class-leading resale, and repeats as KBB's top luxury brand for resale value — all of which protects the RX's residuals and owner satisfaction. It sits below the top band because the brand's pull is reassurance rather than aspiration; Mercedes, BMW and Porsche still hold the prestige halo at this price.

As the segment's volume leader the 2024 RX transacted close to sticker when new: Lexus Financial Services offered subvented APR and advertised lease programs plus loyalty and military rebates, but there was no meaningful cash-back money on the gas RX. Buyers shopping remaining 2024 stock later saw far larger discounts, though that is clearance pricing rather than what a 2024 buyer typically got.

2024 is the second year of the fifth-generation RX (ALA10/ALH10) launched for 2023 on the GA-K platform, and it is the year the lineup was completed with the 450h+ plug-in hybrid — about as fresh as this generation gets, with no redesign risk for a buyer and current-generation platform, safety and infotainment hardware throughout.

Reviewers rate the 2024 RX well without making it the pick of the class — Edmunds 7.8/10, The Car Connection 7.0/10 — with recurring criticism of the gritty turbo four, modest acceleration and fiddly infotainment against praise for build quality, quietness and ride. Its trophies are ownership-flavoured (KBB's Lowest 5-Year Cost to Own in class and #1 Best Luxury Hybrid SUV) rather than comparison-test wins, and on safety it took IIHS Top Safety Pick for 2024 rather than the '+' the NX earned.