Club Lexus Editor

How do the Mercedes GLE, the BMW X5 and the Lexus RX stack up against one another?

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WolfyLS460

My vote goes to....

2017 Jaguar F-Pace S.

starbai

iTrader: (1)

Meh. Sorry. I dont think I could possibly even consider the RX over the Benz or the BMW. Maybe in comparison to the X3 and the GLC, I'd go RX, but in my head the X5 and GLE are in a higher league.

starbai

iTrader: (1)

This would be my 2nd choice... first... Volvo XC90

Boognish

Buy German for driving dynamics and Japanese for reliability.

ericsan13

Did you even test drive the X5 or GLE? Or are you basing it completely off your own opinion? There is a reason the RX is the best selling luxury vehicle in the US by a wide margin.

sunnyside

I have never owned a German car that did not require constant service and for unusual reasons to boot. Never had Japanese vehicle that was not reliable. The last 4Runner was traded after 150,000 miles and only required routine service aside from the front brake pads and tires. The rear brake pads were original. We now have 2. An RX450h and a 350. These should last the next 10 years or more. If I had to buy today the RX 350 would be the first choice.

Robbinski

Just drove my wife's 2014 Lexus RX 350 on a 600 mile round trip to a large metropolitan city and over mountain passes.
Absolutely hate the mouse control for features that in my Escalade are all easy less distracting touch screen accessible. Also the navigation n the Lexus is horrible, difficult to use, not at all intuitive and again difficult to switch between screens for radio and navigation.
Comfortable , but under powered for the mountain roads.
Not impressed.

Valley101

On the navigation to radio, it is a one click operation to go from one to the other. It is in the manual if you care to read it.

JT4

Well I for one owned two ML's, a 2011 and 2012 and I am back in a Lexus because I became tired of going in for service because of so many problems.

The 2011 was hands down the most unreliable vehicle I ever owned, and after close to a year and a half of fighting MBUSA finally decided to buy it back. The 2012 ML while better than the 2011, especially in refinement, IMO left a lot to be desired in terms of build quality.

Even though I had my doubts, my wife talked me into the ML because she wanted an MB, and since it was her vehicle I figured why not. While I "never say never", meaning I won't say I'll never own one again, especially because the wife still likes them.

But when and if the time comes, I am going to remind her of all of those trips (and there were a lot) to the MB service dept that she had to make when I couldn't due to my work schedule. In all fairness to her she never really complained about taking it in, except when the 30 min trip would turn into over an hour due to rush hour traffic.

JDR76

The nav system in a 14 is a completely different system than that used in the current RX. The difficulty in going from nav to audio screens in the previous gen was, as you noted, a real pain. That's been remedied in the new RX.

ericsan13

That's a 3rd gen RX, not the 4th gen. Maybe 4th gen RX needs to be added to the title for those who don't know.

SDRider

I've driven all of these and honestly I liked the X5 the best. Trouble is, the X5 I drove had an MSRP of $71k. The GLE was in the mid $60k range and the RX was mid $50k. I also didn't drive them all back to back and I ended up buying a 2014 Mercedes E550 coupe. If money was no object though I would have the BMW.

JT4

I also liked the X5 and we almost bought one after the ML's, but my wife's cousin talked us out of it at the time. He worked for BMW in parts/logistics and of course drove one.

Back at the time (2013) he had a really nice X5, not fully loaded but very nicely equipped. So I took it for a drive and in all honesty I couldn't knock it, it drove great, and handled great and I liked the interior. As we drove I told him I was considering one, since he worked for BMW I assumed he would have been a big BMW fan and tell me how great they are, I have to buy one etc, etc...

I will always remember the look he gave me when he said that if he didn't work for them he would never buy one. He said for him if there is a problem it's easy to get it fixed, but if he didn't work for BMW he couldn't imagine constantly going to the dealer. And since he worked for BMW, if the issues ever got out of hand he said he would be able to get out of it with no problem.

Then he said "why do you think my wife drives a Sienna, and before the Sienna an Odyssey, I bring them in for maintenance that's it, there's nothing to think about."

So after all the issues I had with MB I wanted to avoid service depts as much as possible, so I decided to pass on the BMW for the time being after talking with him.

SW17LS

Quite a good showing for the RX.

Theres no doubt that an RX is going to be more reliable long term than the X5, or probably the GLE. if you were buying something that you were going to keep for 5+ years, undoubtedly you would have to think twice about that X5.

For a 3 year lease though? I'd still rather have an X5 optioned with the napa interior...although you're going to pay a big premium over an RX.

Reliability is important, but it isn't everything.