Lexus model reference
Lexus RX
What our record holds on the RX, sold in the UK since 2000: body styles, fuel types and the road tax a used one pays.
No reliability figure is published for the Lexus RX that this site could cite. What circulates instead is survey data from panels that select themselves, and warranty claim rates published by companies with something to sell.
Any percentage would be our own calculation. Which years count, and whether a facelift and a new generation sharing the RX name are one model or two, both move the answer, and neither choice is anybody official's.
So the field does not exist. We do not average the other Lexus models into a number and put it here, and we do not push a marque figure down onto the RX. What is real and specific is the paperwork for one car.
No fault ordering is published for the RX
A 2013 RX 450h at about 145 g/km is band F, so read the exact figure from the V5C. A 2019 RX pays the standard £200.
That figure is a worked example for the year and engine named, not a rate for every RX. Read the CO2 figure and the first registration date off the V5C before you budget, because both change the answer.
See every band for this tax yearStanding next to one
Buying a used RX: what the record settles
Our record puts the RX's UK sales period at since 2000. That range is the useful starting point, because everything about the cost of running one turns on where a particular example sits inside it. It came in one body style here, SUV, with 3 fuel types: petrol, petrol hybrid and plug-in hybrid.
The RX was on sale on both sides of the road tax change of 1 April 2017, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you buy one. An example first registered up to 31 March 2017 is taxed on its CO2 figure under the lettered bands, so engine, gearbox and even wheel size can move two cars of the same year into different bands. One registered from 1 April 2017 pays the flat standard rate instead and its CO2 stops mattering. Two otherwise identical cars a year apart can cost noticeably different amounts to keep taxed, and only the V5C tells you which one you are looking at. The earliest ones predate 1 March 2001, and anything registered before that date is taxed on engine size in two bands rather than on CO2 at all. There is also a quirk worth knowing on the oldest examples: a car registered before 23 March 2006 cannot be charged above band K however high its emissions, so a thirsty old one can be cheaper to tax than a newer car a class below it.
For running costs the fuel matters more than the badge. A plug-in hybrid still takes the full emissions test on its engine, so ask when that engine last did a long run rather than a series of short electric trips. Four wheel drive versions carry more driveline than the two wheel drive ones. Driveshaft boots, propshaft joints and the extra bushes are all inspected, and they are the items that turn a cheap purchase into an expensive first year.
None of that is a substitute for the record of the actual car. The invoices name what was replaced, when and at what mileage, and the same job appearing twice in three years says more about a RX than any statistic about the model ever could. A mileage that goes backwards across a paperwork trail is worth walking away from whatever the badge is.
Lexus launched in Britain in 1990 with the LS400 and has sold only petrol and hybrid cars here since it dropped diesel in 2012. Its used stock is dominated by the CT and IS hybrids, which spent years in private hire work in London because they avoided the diesel penalties. The hybrid transmissions have proved durable, and the maintenance that matters is brake fluid and inverter coolant rather than clutches. That is context on the marque rather than on this car, and there is more of it, along with every other model line, on the Lexus page.