2025 Lexus NX 350 F Sport Pros and Cons Review: Unexpectedly Engaging

The 2025 Lexus NX 350 F Sport exhibits more personality than you’d expect from a mass-appeal luxury crossover. It’s not necessarily fast, but surprisingly, the steering feel is quite satisfying as you dive into corners. Though even with its adaptive suspension, things can feel a little rough on bumpy roads. But is that a deal-breaker?

Cosmetically, a lot is going on with this Lexus. Designers crammed many creases and shapes onto its relatively small car body, but the result is excellent. The new NX design is complex but cohesive. I dare say it’s pretty cool-looking, inside and out.

This second-generation NX is not a dramatic departure from the first one, looks-wise, but it’s a nice evolution. Only minor changes were unlocked for the 2025 model year. The most significant one is the color you see here, which Lexus calls “Copper Crest.” The new NX also offers more phone charging options, and more convenience features are now standard: Intuitive Parking Assist with automatic braking, auto-rain-sensing wipers, and a power liftgate.

If the size of this vehicle works for you and you want something practical with appreciable performance but don’t want to spend German luxury-crossover money, you should take a close look at an NX F Sport. If a smooth ride is your priority and you live somewhere with many potholes, consider one of the non-F Sport models for something softer, however.

Pros

Styling is definitely a strong selling point, though the compact-ish luxury crossover category is packed with good-looking rivals right now. The Acura RDX, Audi Q5, BMW X3, Genesis GV70, and Volvo XC60 are fairly elegant vehicles as far as practical, normie cars go. The Porsche Macan is prettiest, but also a lot more money.

Swipe through some details on this thing:

The NX has a purposeful, cockpit-like interior that’s fun to look at and to be surrounded by. I wish the infotainment screen were about half the size it is, but the general layout and shapes in front of the driver are great. The gauge cluster is cool-looking, and Lexus still offers some of the best interior materials and tactile experiences at this price point. While I’ve noticed the button quality has dropped on BMWs and Audis over the 15 years I’ve been reviewing luxury cars, Lexus has had the good sense to understand how important it is to keep classy hard keys in these cars.

The steering wheel is particularly excellent. It’s purposeful, comfortable, confidence-inspiring.

Outward visibility is also excellent—a trait not necessarily shared by all modern cars with high beltlines and tight windows.

And about the handling. The simplest way to describe it: The car goes where you point it, but it’s not hyperactively aggressive or darty. Lexus’ people did a really lovely job configuring this car to feel very direct and predictable while retaining most of the overall comfort you want in daily driving.

The result is a very satisfying driving experience that feels planted and even invites you to push a little through linked turns.

Previous F Sport NX cars had sharper handling than base cars thanks to stiffer suspension. Still, now the NX 350 F Sport has Adaptive Variable Suspension paired with performance dampers, adjusting the ride in real time for superior road holding. In other words, the F Sport is more than just a decorative package—there are some earnest performance parts under the car.

But while the steering and suspension tuning are great for cornering, the NX F Sport is not as compliant over crappy roads and potholes as its marketing material suggests. That brings us to the car’s weak spots.

Lexus NX F Sport Cons

You would think that adaptive suspension on a Lexus would achieve a best-of-both-worlds scenario where the car’s sharp when you want it to be and soft when you need it to be, but I did not find that to be the case. No matter the drive mode, the NX 350 F Sport felt pretty rough on rural roads in New York.

Hitting divots and crunchy pavement triggered a kind of pogo-stick effect you sometimes get on aggressively tuned cars, where the bump sticks with you for a bit because there’s not enough suspension travel to soak it up. Whether the trade-off for performance is worth it will be a choice you make as a buyer. I’m sure the non-F Sport NX feels more compliant over crappy roads.

This NX’s other shortcomings were less significant but still somewhat surprising in a Lexus. Road noise is oddly apparent, which is weird because the car promises active noise control—though again, the 20-inch wheels and lower-profile, 235/50R20 all-seasons of the F Sport package certainly play a role. The Mark Levinson stereo is disappointingly mid. Driver aids are annoyingly hyperactive—I had to turn off the lane-keeping assist entirely because it kept shunting me away from non-existent threats it perceived. You can turn that off, but you shouldn’t have to.

Here’s a tour of the car’s interior details:

The NX uses a unique multi-function button system on its steering wheel that makes a lot of sense in concept, but I found it to be a little weird to use in practice. There are two blank thumb pads on the steering wheel’s spokes, and you can toggle their function with what is essentially a “shift” key. A display in the HUD and gauge cluster shows the button’s function as your thumb rests on the pad. I like how this allows you some customization and effectively packs 16 functions on eight button spots. Still, it’s effectively impossible to operate without focusing on the gauge or HUD rather than the road. A week of test-driving wasn’t enough for me to get comfortable with this.

Verdict

This car left me a little conflicted. I really enjoyed driving it, but was surprised by its not-insignificant airballs in the luxury department, such as ride comfort, tech, etc.

The interior and exterior designs alone are enough to give this car an edge over rivals if you like it as much as I do—Lexus really did a great job in these areas.

The rear seat and cargo room are okay, probably a little on the tight side if you have kids who are still in car seats, but certainly viable for four adults and their stuff.

My takeaway is that the Lexus NX F Sport is like a better-executed, higher-budget Mazda CX-50—a practical get-around car with the essence of a driver’s car baked in. It was more intense than I expected, and while I’d stop short of calling it a “driver’s car,” it is pretty rewarding to put through its paces. If you’re looking for something lively that looks good and is happy to step out on Saturday night, then haul big-box store items home on Sunday, the NX F Sport is a pretty solid package in its $50,000 to $60,000 price point.

Lexus provided The Drive with a seven-day loan of this vehicle, fueled and delivered, for the purpose of writing this review.

The post 2025 Lexus NX 350 F Sport Pros and Cons Review: Unexpectedly Engaging appeared first on The Drive.