Lexus GX 550 vs Volvo XC90

What's the difference?

The retro-cool Lexus GX550 Overtrail is a solid mix of understated style, on-road performance and 4WD capability.

It’s suitably refined, luxurious and it’s a comfortable off-roader – and if you’re planning to cross-shop it against the likes of Land Rover Discovery, Toyota LandCruiser 300 or Land Rover Defender it actually compares quite favourably.

But there are some negatives: the Overtrail’s fuel consumption impacts its general appeal as a day-to-day driver, it lacks people-carrying flexibility without that third row of seats and the fact there’s no diesel Overtrail on offer is a real letdown.

Still, there’s no denying this is a worthy contender among the current line-up of large luxury SUVs and it makes a lot of sense.

The XC90 Recharge makes a lot of sense for a family with a couple of kids, who live and spend most of their time in the city and surrounding suburbs.

You’ll need access to a power point for charging and you’ll have to do it regularly to get the best out of this SUV, but in return you’ll get effortless and efficient driving, along with the practicality and prestige which comes with any XC90. 

The Lexus GX550 Overtrail is 5015mm long (with a 2850mm wheelbase), 2000mm wide, 1935mm high, and it has a kerb weight of 2515kg.

It has a chunky, almost straight up and down, old-school look, and leans heavily into retro cool rather than sleek styling.

A big front grille, bulging wing mirrors (more about those soon), as well as Toyo Open Country all-terrain tyres, wheel arch mouldings, and side steps that are all on the correct side of large, add to this wagon’s overall presence.

The bulky wing mirrors offer only a narrow field of rear vision, which is peculiar given the mirrors’ size and that field of rear vision is also vertically oriented which is even more peculiar.

The Overtrail has black trim highlights, and bridge-type roof rails that top off its sporty look.

Inside, there’s a little more posh-ness going on: most striking of all is the olive green synthetic suede accents and stitching added to the front seats, while the rest of the interior mostly consists of soft-touch surfaces with a smattering of durable plastic.

The interior is low-key classy with great build quality.

Cars are like dogs in that a year for them ages them more than one for us. So, this current-generation XC90 which came out in 2015 is getting on in age. Still, the XC90 is a design lesson in how to defy the aging process because the styling even now it appears modern and beautiful. It’s also big, tough, and prestigious looking which is how the flagship SUV in a premium brand should be.

The Thunder Grey paint my test car wore (see the images) is an optional hue, and it suited the battleship size and personality of the XC90. The enormous 22-inch five -spoke Black Diamond Cut alloy wheels were standard and filled up those giant arches nicely.

Maybe it’s the minimalist styling which has kept the XC90 looking cutting edge, because even the interior looks like the inside of a very expensive psychiatrist’s office with those leather seats and the brushed aluminium trim.

The vertical display is still impressive even in 2021, and while fully digital instrument clusters are in everything these days the XC90’s has a prestigious look and matches the rest of the cabin in its colours and fonts.

As for the XC90’s dimensions, it’s 4953mm long, 2008mm wide with the mirrors folded and 1776mm tall to the top of its shark fin antenna.

This is a Lexus so, of course, the Overtrail’s practicality comes with lashings of prestige.

As mentioned, build quality is impressive, as is overall fit and finish. The olive green synthetic suede front seat accents and stitching are nice subtle touches – it adds nothing in terms of practicality but geez it looks good.

The 14.0-inch multimedia touchscreen system dominates upfront. While setting up wireless Apple CarPlay was easy enough, I had consistent issues with it and needed to repeatedly stab my finger onto the screen in order to work my way through countless menus and sub-menus to actually eventually reach the function I wanted to reach – and that’s far from ideal.

I’ve experienced this in several new-gen vehicles and my tip to you is: while the vehicle is stationary, work out how to use the functions you need/want to use most often, because the operation of some of those functions is counter-intuitive.

The driver also gets a 12.3-inch digital cluster with a variety of vehicular information to keep track of and a head-up display, which is a handy addition but polarised sunnies rob you of that.

There’s also a powered sunroof.

Otherwise, there are plenty of charge points, including a wireless phone charging pad in front of the cooled centre console, six USB-C ports, and 12-volt outlets front and rear, and a 220V outlet in the rear cargo area.

There are also cupholders galore – upfront and in the second-row armrest – and too-small bottle holders in the doors.

And – whoo-whee! – are the seats in here so bloody comfortable! Obviously upfront, ventilated, heated and power-adjustable etc are the pick of the pews, but the second row is no Gulag jail cell either. There’s room enough there for three burly blokes - just.

The Overtrail does not have the third row of seats as the Luxury and Sports Luxury do, but that frees up more space in the rear cargo area. Cargo space is listed as 1063L with all seats in use, and 2000 litres if the back row is folded down.

The rear cargo area has a 220V/100W socket (to run camp lights, fridge etc), a cargo blind, tie-down points and leftovers from the seven-seat layout: cupholders on both sides.

The rear tailgate is powered and lifts to open rather than swings to the side like the previous barndoor-style tailgate. Bonus: you don’t have to open the whole door to gain access to whatever gear you’ve stowed away in the rear cargo area; you can open the glass section only and reach in through there and that’s a very handy feature.

The Overtrail’s full-size spare is mounted to its underbody.

Clever interior packaging means the XC90 Recharge is more practical than many large SUVs. There are flashes of utilitarian brilliance everywhere from the children’s booster seat which pops out of the centre of the second row (see the images) to the way the XC90 can crouch down like an elephant to make it easier to load stuff into the boot.

The XC90 Recharge is a seven-seater, and like all SUVs with third rows those seats in the very back only offer enough room for kids. The second row is spacious even for me at 191cm tall with plenty of leg- and headroom. Up front as you’d expect has good head-, elbow- and shoulder room.

Cabin storage is good with two cup holders in each row (the third also has containers under the armrests) and there are large door pockets, a decent sized centre console box and a net pocket in the front passenger footwell.

The cargo capacity with all seats being used is 291 litres and with the third row folded flat you’ll have 651 litres of boot space.

Storage for the charging cable could be better. The cable comes in a stylish canvas bag that sits in the boot, but other plug-in hybrids I’ve driven do a better job of providing a storage box for the cable that’s out of the way of your regular cargo.  

The gesture control tailgate works with a foot swish under the rear of the car and the proximity key means you can lock and unlock the vehicle by touching the door handle.

The cargo area is filled with hooks for bags and a lift-up divider to hold items in place.

Four-zone climate control, four USB ports (two in the front and two in the second row) dark tinted rear windows and sun blinds top off what is a very practical, family SUV.

My family is small – there’s just three of us – and so the XC90 was more than what we needed. That said, we found a way to fill it with holiday gear, shopping, even a mini trampoline.

The XC90 Recharge lists for $114,990 making it the most expensive grade in the XC90 range.

Still, the value is excellent considering the number of features which come standard.

The 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster standard, so is the nine-inch vertical centre display for media and climate control, there’s also sat nav, a Bowers and Wilkins 19-speaker stereo, wireless phone-charging, four-zone climate control, power-adjustable front seats, proximity key with auto tailgate and LED headlights.

My test car was fitted with options such as the Nappa Leather perforated and ventilated seats in Charcoal ($2950), the Climate pack which adds heated rear seats and a heated steering wheel ($600), power folding headrests in the rear ($275) and Thunder Grey metallic paint ($1900).

Even at a grand total (before on-road costs) of $120,715 I think this is still good value.

The GX550 Overtrail has a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 petrol engine – producing 260kW at 4800-5200rpm and 650Nm at 2000-3600 rpm – and that’s matched to a 10-speed automatic transmission.

This is an impressive combination: smooth, plenty of torque across a wide rev range – punchy off the mark, and refined at highway speeds, always controlled, always comfortable.

The Lexus GX550 Overtrail has full-time 4WD and an electronic rear diff lock.

Its selectable driving modes include Normal, Eco, Comfort, Sport, Sport S and the Overtrail also has 'Adaptive Variable Suspension' and 'Multi-Terrain Select' with drive modes, such as Dirt, Sand, Mud and Snow, designed for off-roading.

The XC90 Recharge (Volvo calls it this, so for simplicity let's do it, too) is an all-wheel drive SUV with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder supercharged and turbo-charged engine, producing 246kW and 440Nm, plus an electric motor which adds 65kW and 240Nm.

Shifting gears is an eight-speed automatic and acceleration is rapid at 5.5 seconds for the 0-100km/h sprint.

All XC90s have a 2400kg braked towing capacity.

The 11.6kWh lithium ion battery is located under the floor in a tunnel which runs down the centre of the car covered by the centre console and hump in the footwell of the second row.

If you didn’t realise, this is the type of hybrid you need to plug into a power source to charge the batteries. A power point is fine but a wall unit is faster.  If you don’t plug in, the battery will only get tiny whiff of charge from the regenerative braking and that won’t be enough to put a tiny dent in your fuel consumption.

Fuel consumption is listed as 12.3L/100km and that's on a combined cycle.

On this test I recorded 13.9L/100km but, as I have a penchant for dirty stuff, I was doing a lot of low- and high-range 4WDing so I think that figure is actually pretty decent for a 2.5 tonne vehicle with a V6 petrol engine. That’s okay, but I can see those fuel figures climbing considerably once you load the Overtrail up or you tow something with it: a boat, a camper trailer, or a caravan.

The Overtrail has an 80-litre fuel tank so, going by our on-test fuel figure, you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 575km from a full tank.

Volvo says that after a combination of urban and open roads the XC 90 Recharge should use 2.1L/100km. That’s incredible - we’re talking about a five-metre long, 2.2-tonne, seven-seat SUV here.

In my testing the fuel economy varied greatly depending on how and where I drove the XC90.

There was a week where I only drove up to 15km a day doing the day care drop-offs, the shopping, popping into work in the CBD, but all within 10km of my home. With 35km of electric range I found that I only had to charge the XC90 every second day to keep it topped up to full and, according to the trip computer, after 55km of travel I was using 1.9L/100km.

I recharged using the outdoor power point in my driveway and using this method would take just less than five hours to fully charge the battery from empty. A wall unit or fast charger will top the battery up much quicker.

The charging cable is long at more than 3m, and the flap on the XC90 is located on the front left wheel guard.

If you don’t have a way of charging the XC90 regularly then fuel consumption will go up, obviously.

This happened when our family took a break down the coast and the holiday house we stayed at didn’t have a power point within reach. So, while we had been charging the car regularly in the week beforehand with a few long trips thrown in on motorways, for the four days we were away I didn’t plug it in at all.

After 598.4km I filled it back to full at the petrol pump with 46.13 litres of premium unleaded. That comes to 7.7L/100km, which is still great fuel economy given that the last 200km would have been without charging.

The lesson is the XC90 Recharge is most fuel efficient on short suburban and city trips with daily or every second-day charging.  

A larger capacity battery would add more range and make this plug-in hybrid SUV better suited to people who live further out of the city and do more motorway miles.

The smooth Overtrail driving experience begins before you even push the start button: the Overtrail has big grab handles for each door – and I bloody love a good solid grab handle.

Also, the combination of power-adjustable steering wheel and driver’s seat means you’re able to precisely dial-in your preferred driving position.

On road and at speed on dirt tracks, the Overtrail sits nicely. It has a wide wheel track and long wheelbase, so it retains a controlled and composed posture on sealed and unsealed surfaces. 

Some body-roll does creep in when you throw the Overtrail into a corner hard, but that won’t surprise you if you’ve spent any time at all in a large or upper large 4WD wagon recently and that characteristic is no deal-breaker.

Ride quality is very impressive and the suspension set-up – double wishbone IFS with eKDSS at the front, and four-link live axle with eKDSS at the rear – mostly soaks up any bumps, however, it does skip over some more substantial irregularities in the road/track surface here and there, but that’s mostly ironed out by the Overtrail’s adaptive suspension and you can also simply adjust tyre pressures up or down to suit the terrain.

With its 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 petrol engine at full go – and harnessed so smoothly through the 10-speed automatic transmission – this Lexus offers plenty of acceleration, plenty of power, and plenty of torque.

It's quiet in the cabin although there’s some wind noise from the massive wing mirrors but that's not a huge deal when the overall vehicle itself is so impressive on-road. 

Once underway, this is an easy-driving 4WD wagon. And off-road, there’s a lot of good news about the Overtrail.

It shares the same platform as the 300 Series LandCruiser and the all-new Prado and it has a lengthy wheelbase (2850mm) and a wide wheel track (1685mm front and 1690mm rear) and that means it drives with impressive composure through most off-road situations, whether it's rumbling along a corrugated dirt track or climbing a rocky hill.

Steering is well weighted and precise and there's plenty of feedback for the driver from the dirt to the steering wheel so you know exactly what's going on. And further to that you have a 360-degree camera system, so you can be exacting about your wheel placement and that maximises your chances of always being in control of the vehicle and minimises the risk of any damage.

This Overtrail has so much mechanical goodness engineered into it and so much driver-assist tech that I didn’t even need to engage the rear diff lock because through its off-road driving modes, – sand, mud, rock, snow – it just delivers the right amount of throttle response, the right amount of traction, and with the 'Electronic Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System' (e-KDSS) ticking away, working almost like a sway bar disconnect, the Overtrail is surefooted more often than not.

e-KDSS (essentially an electronically-controlled active swaybar) adjusts tension on the front and rear sway bars to suit the terrain and driving conditions. It tightens them for better body control at higher speeds on sealed surfaces, and allows for a lot more play in them when you’re off-road for improved wheel articulation through undulating terrain. It helps to get the tyres to the dirt and maintain optimum traction, maintain forward momentum – that's what it does and it does it with little to no stress whatsoever. It doesn’t even have to work hard. 

The Overtrail has decent all-terrain tyres – Toyo Open Country (265/70R18) – and even though they’re not as tough all-round as Light Truck (LT) construction all-terrains, they still provide plenty of grip and that's in a variety of off-road situations, on a variety of surfaces: sand, loose gravel, shale, even rain-soaked mud which can be very slippery and can quickly fill your tyre tread. These tyres are a handy addition to the Overtrail package and on a standard vehicle straight out of the showroom, they’re fine. 

But the news is not all good. 

The Overtrail’s 225mm ground clearance is industry standard for a larger or upper large SUV, but it isn't great for a vehicle that’s intended as an off-road beast.

And the off-road angles, approach (27 degrees) and departure (22) aren't fantastic, and rampover is not listed. Again, those measurements are industry standard for a larger and upper large SUV, but for the Overtrail, a vehicle that is supposedly an adventure machine, ground clearance and off-road angles could be a lot better. Having said that though, the underbody is well protected by some substantial bash-plates. Note: The Overtrail’s full-size spare is mounted to the underbody.

Wading depth is listed as 700mm, which is on par with its rivals.

The big side steps stick out and if you don't drive with real consideration then they'll probably cop a scrape here and there and maybe even a bit of a dent. 

One of the quirks about modern-day, large luxury 4WD wagons, such as the 300 Series, the Land Rover Defender and the Land Rover Discovery, is that the driver-assist tech onboard is so laser-precise that it almost removes the driver from the equation of actually driving. Manoeuvring one of these vehicles off-road can sometimes feel so clinical that you almost feel like you’re a spectator, that the vehicle is in control, not you. 

But what the Overtrail has in its favour is that driving it doesn't have that clinical feel about it. As the driver, you do feel dialled in to the entire experience, even though the mechanicals and tech are so very effective, you do still feel like you’re in control … and that’s how it should be.

Towing capacities are 750kg (unbraked) and 3500kg (braked). Payload is listed as 595kg, which is not a lot once you throw in your kids, dogs, and camping equipment – not to mention anything you might be towing at the time – but that payload figure is about standard for this part of the 4WD wagon market. For reference, a 300 Series LandCruiser's payload, depending on the variant, is between 650kg (VX/Sahara/GR Sport) and 785kg (GX).

The Overtrail’s listed kerb weight is 2515kg, gross vehicle mass (GVM) is 3110kg, and gross combined mass (GCM) is 6610kg.

We put more than 700km on the clock of the XC90 Recharge during the three weeks it stayed with my family, covering a lot of motorway miles, country roads and a stack of urban usage, too.

Now without sounding like one of the haters who hated on me the last time I test-drove a Volvo hybrid, you will need to charge the XC90 Recharge all the time if you want to get not only the best fuel economy, but also the best performance from the SUV, too.

There’s the extra oomph from the motor, when you have enough charge in the ‘tank’ but also the serene and smooth pleasure of driving in electric mode on city and urban trips.

That tranquil electric driving experience feels kind of at odds with a large SUV at first, but having now tested a few big family plug-in hybrids and EVs I can tell you it’s a more enjoyable one.

Movement is not only smooth, but the electric grunt provides a feeling of control with an instant response which I found reassuring in traffic and at intersections.

The transition from electric motor to petrol engine is almost seamless. Volvo and Toyota are only a couple of the few brands which seemed to have achieved this.

The XC90 is large and that presented a challenge when trying to pilot it into my narrow driveaway and in car parks, but light, accurate steering and excellent visibility with large windows and cameras galore helped there.

The auto parking feature works well even on the higgledy-piggledy streets in my neighbourhood.

Topping off an effortless driving experience is air suspension which provides a cushioned and composed ride, with great body control all while wearing those 22-inch wheels and low-profile rubber.

Volvo has for decades been a pioneer of safety systems to such an extreme that people used to make fun of the brand for being overly cautious. Well, take it from this helicopter parent: there’s no such thing as being overly cautious! Besides, these days all car brands are striving to offer advanced safety systems which the XC90 has had for years. Yep, safety is cool now. Which makes Volvo the Kanye of car brands.

Coming standard on the XC90 Recharge is AEB which works at city speeds to brake for pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles and even large animals.

There’s also lane keeping assistance, blind spot warning, cross traffic alert with braking (front and rear).

Steering support provides assistance during at evasive manoeuvre at speeds between 50 and 100km/h.

Curtain airbags cover all three rows and for child seats there are two ISOFIX mounts and three top tether anchor points in the second row. Note, there are no mounts or points for child seats in the third row.

A space-saver spare is under the boot floor.

The XC90 was given the maximum five-star ANCAP rating when it tested in 2015.  

The Lexus GX550 Overtrail has a five-year/unlimited-km warranty.

Servicing is scheduled for every six months or 10,000km, whichever occurs soonest, and costs $595 each time for a total of $5950. That schedule is a little too soon for our liking.

The XC90 is covered by a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty. Two service plans are offered: three years for $1500 and five years for $2500.