Economy Test: Lexus LX 570 2011 in Dubai

So we were offered a brand new 2011 Lexus LX 570 for a weekend, or what we like to call the “Lexus Land Cruiser.” Since we didn’t get invited to the actual Toyota Land Cruiser 5.7 launch event, we figured we’d take the LX anyway, since it is essentially the same thing, and we’d indirectly reacquint ourselves with the Land Cruiser. But since we had already reviewed the 2008 LX before, we used this truck for a fuel economy test instead.

But first, a brief review of the 2011 model is in order. The truck apparently got a minor facelift in 2010 seemingly involving only the front bumper, as well as larger 20-inch wheels and nice new options, such as the mild body kit and orange leather trim on our black tester.

Maybe it is our mind playing tricks, but we felt the new one actually handled better than the older model, possibly due to the two-inches-larger wheels with lower profile tyres and maybe even some air suspension retuning. Body roll was noticeably limited and it was easier to push into corners without feeling tipsy, and that too without understeer squealing in too early. The ride is smooth and ridiculously quiet, but if you concentrate too much, you’ll realise that there is a slight jitter over some pavement, a sign that this is a truck with a live-axle rear suspension after all.

Power is fair from the 362 hp 5.7-litre V8 engine, with decent torque making it feel quick, although our actual 0-100 kph testing led to a time of 8.2 seconds, only 0.2 ticks slower than the one we tested three years ago. Of course, this test car had only 800 km on the clock, barely broken in. The brakes are good but not spectacular. And the steering was surprisingly firmer than we expected, even during parking, and we don’t know if this was intentional. Oh, and the HID headlights are still only in the high beams, with regular low beams still cheapo halogens.

We didn’t play too much with the gadgets or go offroad beyond firm sand, since we’d done all that before, so after a day of mildly-aggressive driving which netted an all-too-familiar consumption number of 20.0 litres/100 km, we spent the next two days toning down the aggression in a bid to get better figures.

We started accelerating and braking lightly about 90% of the time, but still driving at the speed limit or slightly under. But we never went beyond 110 kph on any highways. However, we did go full-throttle on a handful of occassions when the situation required it. That is the advantage of having a big V8 — tons of power on reserve when needed, but still having enough juice to move in traffic at a decent pace even when driving “slowly” with the engine rarely revving over 3000 rpm.

This test is different from the one we did for the Chevrolet Camaro SS, in that we didn’t reset the trip computer after racking up 20.0 litres/100 km in one day, but rather just worked on reducing the average over the next two days. This will give you an idea of what you’ll burn if you drove in a hurry one day and then calmed down for two days to keep your fuel costs down.

With this, we managed 15.6 litres/100 km, or slightly more than what a Toyota Prado V6 gets with mildly-aggressive driving. The average refused to go lower than this, so if you want to save more fuel money after naively buying a big SUV, you’ll have to resort to lower-speed hypermiling, which would be excruciatingly boring.

For a full review, read our 2008 Lexus LX 570 road test.