Don't Buy: Safety Risk--2010 Lexus GX 460

Consumer Reports has judged the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV a Don’t Buy: Safety Risk because of a problem we experienced during our standard emergency-handling tests. When pushed to its limits on our track’s handling course, the rear of the GX we bought slid out until the vehicle was almost sideways before the electronic stability control system was able to regain control.

We believe that in real-world driving, that situation could lead to a rollover accident, which could cause serious injury or death. We are not aware, however, of any such reports.

Consumer Reports article

All four of our auto engineers who conduct the test experienced the problem in an exercise used to evaluate what’s called lift-off oversteer. In the test, as the vehicle is driven through a turn, the driver quickly lifts his foot off the accelerator pedal to see how the vehicle reacts.

We perform this evaluation on every vehicle we test, which includes the 95 SUVs in our current auto Ratings. No other SUV in recent years slid out as far as the GX 460, including the Toyota 4Runner, which shares the same platform as the GX.

This is pretty rare for CR to issue a don't buy alert. Apparently a 2001 Mitsubishi was the last time they issued this warning for a vehicle.

Toyota's response was, "...we're concerned by the reports, but we haven't be able to duplicate them."

This sounds like they are already trying to cover themselves. CR had 4 different tech's have the problem occur with 2 different Lexus GX 460's.

I used to be a big fan of Toyota's for their reliability, but lately they are seemingly having issues left and right, and are trying to cover up or say "that didn't happen" as much as the US Government does.