ElectricPaul

Had my ride yesterday. For some unknown reason the dealer decided to put me in an NX Sport rather than an F Sport, despite the fact that it was the one model I wouldn't be buying. I was at least able to try the standard suspension setup. To be honest, I was very disappointed, particularly with the road/tyre noise - it was worse than my Forester on winter tyres. The ride and handling were pretty good, but it didn't like drain covers or potholes. I loved the quality of the interior, but found the non-touch screen infotainment fiddly, although I'm sure it is something I would get used to. I was disappointed with the fairly limited adjustment on the driver's seat and steering wheel compared to the RX. I think I'm going to look for a suitable RX a little older than the NX and try to persuade the wife it's not really very big. Funnily enough, when I got back to the dealer a customer had parked an RX alongside an NX which was useful in making a direct comparison of size. I have to say that rayaans is right - seen together there really isn't a lot of difference in size. I took a photo with my phone to make the point to the wife! We'll see where we go from here. I'll keep you posted. Thanks everyone for your input.

Bodmeister, could the difference be tyres? In my experience tyres vary enormously, especially when it comes to noise. I see from the brochure that the Luxury models run on 225/60 R18 tyres. There's no mention of F Sport tyre size. Are they the same size, and if so, are they the same make/type of tyre? As I said earlier, my local dealer only has Sport and F Sport demonstrators, so I can't try the two back to back.

Thanks everyone for helpful replies. Regarding size rayaans, my reading of the dimensions gives the NX as nearly 6" shorter, 1.5" narrower and 3" lower than the 'old' RX. I consider that significant enough to be noticeable. DJP, can you switch off the ASC. on my previous short ride in an F Sport I found it annoying. I'm used to a CVT gearbox with the Subaru and like it, so I have no problem with the way the hybrid system operates regarding apparent lack of gears. GSLV6, being retired I fortunately no longer need to commute. Although I don"t off-road, I find increased ride height and AWD capability useful where I live in rural Dorset where we suffer flooded roads, potholes, general road damage and fords. My car usage is probably about 60% of round trips of up to 15 or 20 miles to my local town, 20% up to 100 or 150 miles and 20% longer trips of say 300 to 500 miles (the latter 2 or 3 times a year). Bodmeister, you mention you prefer the ride of the F Sport and then say you find the ride fidgety on uneven/potholed roads. Do you mean the ride of your Premier is fidgety, or is it the F Sport that's guilty? I'm interested in your comments because, as I said in my earlier post, it's what i described as the jittery ride at slow speeds on poor surfaces that annoys me about my Forester! It sounds as though the NX may suffer similar traits. Anyway, I've arranged for a 24 hour test in a NX300h F Sport. Unfortunately, my local dealer does not have a Premier or Luxury model as a demonstrator so I won't be able to test the two different suspension setups back to back. I'll report back.

I should have added to the above post that I consider that the performance of the 2.0 turbo in my XT Forester is probably too much for the chassis and the reason I went with it over the 2.0 n/a car was that the latter was an 'emissions special' to keep the VED reasonable. The 2.5 n/a engine (as currently in the Outback) would have been great. I've driven that engine in the Outback and it is fine, but that car actually weighs 12kg less than the XT and 200 - 300kg less than an NX 300h Luxury.

Evening all. I've been lurking here for a few days to educate myself on the finer points of NX ownership as a potential future owner. Just to fill you in on my current wheels - I have a 2014 Subaru Forester XT which is very quick and very practical. It's the quintessential SUV - i.e Sports Utility Vehicle - in that it is very sporty, very utilitarian and a vehicle. My major gripe with it is that it is a bit too utilitarian. Despite huge strides in recent years Subaru struggle to escape their heritage of building incredibly reliable, go-anywhere, no-nonsense workhorses, which is of course a huge strength in many ways. I was recently in a 'conversation' with a member of a Subaru forum I frequent about suitable replacements for my Forester. He suggested I look at a Subaru Outback (he had a Forester XT until about a year ago and replaced it with an Outback), but he also mentioned that he runs an RX450h as well as the Outback and had good experience of Lexus, running a number of different models as company cars until he retired and was a big fan. Bearing in mind that I usually buy Japanese automatic petrol cars ( 5 of my last 7 cars have been Japanese; 2x Honda, 1x Nissan and 2x Subaru) I thought it was worth a look. I didn't fancy the price of a new RX - but what a great looking car! - so I arranged a test drive of a 2.5 year old RX450h Advance. I loved the comfort and build quality so arranged to go back for another drive with my wife. She loved the seats, but thought it a bit big and the final nail in the coffin for her was the beige carpets in the boot. We've previously had similar and regretted it. I thought I had wasted my time and hers until, on the way out, she noticed an NX. I had paid no attention to this model previously as I assumed it was not her type of car. We sat in it and she loved it (apart from the black headlining). We went for a short accompanied drive in a NX300h F Sport - shorter than I would have liked because the salesman had not been expecting it. I was generally impressed, but my test drive raised a number of questions that NX owners here may be able to help me with. Reading this forum, two main issues seem to arise 1) is the performance of the hybrid adequate, or as some think, is it a little underpowered for the weight of the car? 2) is the suspension a bit 'crashy' over potholes and drain covers and a bit unsettled over poor and broken surfaces? Supplementary to this - is the F Sport worse? The answer to these two questions holds the key to whether I go ahead with purchase. I accept that I would initially find the performance of the 300h a bit disappointing coming from a 240 hp car that only weighs 1600kg, but would it prove so different I would regret the change? Very subjective of course, but I welcome your views. On the question of ride quality, one of my reasons for considering a change to the Forester is it's ride quality. It is best described as 'jittery' at slow speeds on poor or broken surfaces, due to the spring and damper rates. I think this is in a large part due to Subaru tuning the suspension so that it performs well off-road as well as on-road. It is brilliant off-road, but you pay the price in normal driving, although it's fine at higher speeds and acceptably compliant. As I don't imagine the NX has been designed with a lot of off-roading in mind, I was hoping it would be soft enough to be comfortable, but just firm enough to handle well. I'm not expecting much am I?! I'm anticipating that many will tell me to get an extended test drive, which I intend to do, although my local dealer only has the F Sport as a demonstrator and I can't take out any of the secondhand stock unaccompanied on trade plates. Also, I know from bitter experience that even 24 hour test drives are not always long enough to 'get a handle' on the true characteristics of a car. The experience of many on this forum is invaluable, but I still can't reach any conclusion, from what I've read here, whether the normal suspension tuning is worse than the F Sport or not and it may be difficult to get a back-to-back test of Luxury and F Sport at the same dealer. Hopefully, NX drivers out there will be keen to share their experiences of ownership with me. Apologies for the length of this post - I want to get it right.