2024 Lexus GX 550 Reviewed by a Dog (Owner)

The 2024 Lexus GX is one of my favorite vehicular designs to drop in a long time. It’s a clean, cool, quintessential luxury adventure look. We reviewed one in Arizona for a first drive and sent one on an adventure in Utah to compare it against both of its predecessors. Now, we’re unleashing a pack of dogs on this $70,000 GX 550 Overtrail to see how it does on canine-carrying duty.

If you’d like to zoom in on the new GX’s technical details and capabilities, check out our deep dive on the guts that make this thing so impressive. Or check out one of the above-lined reviews for driving impressions. On paper and in pictures, it’s pretty much the perfect modern 4×4. In practice, its ruggedness won’t appeal to everyone and I have to admit our test rig was a little rougher around the edges than I was expecting.

This is a sweet rig, without a doubt. And as an enthusiast, I’m happy it’s not made for pure mass appeal. But if you’re planning on driving one of these every day, make sure you’re ready to engage in some regular athleticism to climb in and out of it. That goes double if you’ll be loading up heavy dogs.

Test Dogs

Our GX test was conducted by Bramble, a 45-pound Aus Shep/Golden Retriever mutt, and her brothers Indi and Silas who are about 65 pounds apiece. Their adopted brother, Dallas, helped too. He’s some kind of cattle dog super mutt and around 60 pounds.

Climbing In and Out

The GX 550 is more than a little laborious to get in and out of. It’s a minimal issue for an able-bodied six-foot person like myself, but anyone outside that spec might get tired of climbing up into this thing every day. If your dog is old, short, heavy, or all the above, they’re going to need a lot of help.

Our super-springy animals could get their fluffy butts from the ground to the seat or into the rear cargo area. But the landings, jumping out onto a paved parking, lot looked pretty harsh on their joints. I ended up lifting Bramble out most of the time. There are huge lips on both the tailgate and side doors too; dogs have to clear almost a foot of protruding bumper plastic in addition to the vertical leap to make it into the back. The rubber weather seal took a lot of abuse from claws in just a few entries/exits for these photos, too.

If you want a tall and boxy rig, ingress and egress challenges are unavoidable. This didn’t stand out to me much when I was wheeling the GX in the desert, but it quickly came to my attention in this context.

Functional Dimensions

The 2024 Lexus GX has a high-effort hop-in but also great window access for canine passengers. These measurements are taken by hand, not from a spec sheet, to represent the most practically useful figure.

• Ground to rear footwell: 24″
• Ground to rear seat: 37″
• Ground to cargo area: 34″
• Seat bottom to window sill: 15″

Interior Materials and Layout

The GX has a common layout of two big thrones up front with a broad center console in between, a second-row bench, and fold-away third-row seats behind that on some trims. The Overtrail does not have third-row seating, so our test unit was strictly a five (person)-seater.

The soft interior materials are exceptional. The seats are comfortable and robust, as is the center console. Plastics seemed considerably less impressive. While I didn’t catch any dog-claw damage, human claws had already scratched the heck out of the window switch panel in the few months this truck had been cycling between test pilots. This doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in the cargo area looking nice after years of use.

There’s a big gap between the back seats and the center console, meaning a dog buckled into the back seat will not be in danger of climbing up and putting their paws on it, which is good. The seat backs are also pretty high, making them a good barrier to keep dogs out of the cargo area or seat.

Window Access and Air Flow

While the GX’s rear seats are very tall, its window sills come down quite low, and the rear windows roll all the way into the doors. That’s great news for animals that like to stick snouts out into the fresh air—even smaller breeds should be able to get some sniffs in. I recommend only letting dogs do that below 40 mph and while properly buckled in, of course. With the two front and one rear window rolled down at 40 mph, I recorded ambient noise levels of 81.2 dB in the cabin. I wouldn’t call it uncomfortably windy, but it was pretty noisy.

The rear window in the cargo door also opens, but this function is really just for cargo loading and maybe low-speed driving if you need to bring a really long piece of lumber home. It does make for a cute dog pose picture spot, though.

Finally, rear climate control from the air conditioner is strong. Air comes from two big vents below the center console which pump pretty hard when asked to.

Driving With the Dog—Animal Comfort on the Road

Tall tires and soft suspension make for great off-road performance. I happen to like the swaying of old trucks even in an on-road setting, so I didn’t mind that the GX does a bit of a listing-pirate-ship impression around backroad turns and on highway exists. Bramble was less enthusiastic about it. She had to do a lot of active surfing to keep from flopping around on the back seat as the truck heaved and galumphed its way around turns.

That said, she was generally pretty content in this thing once she’d made the leap into the back seat. She loved the deep windows.

Pack Hauling—Multiple Dogs On Board

We fit four dogs in the cargo area alone, and as you can see, these aren’t chihuahuas. I think two on the second-row seats and three in the wayback would be the most you could carry comfortably, but if you had to, you could clown-car a whole circus of animals into this thing. Being both tall and wide means there’s plenty of room for all kinds of pups.

Carrying Kennels

Once again, the GX’s interior height and depth of cargo space are a plus as it’s very kennel-friendly. Our medium-sized unit slid in easily and I could have almost fit a second one next to it. The second row of seats drops in a 60/40 split, which gives you a lot of flexibility for carrying a dog crate plus a person or two.

There are sufficient cargo latches in the wayback for kennel attachments or harness connections.

Lexus GX 550 Dog-Friendliness Verdict

You can fit plenty of dogs and a huge haul of animal accessories in a Lexus GX, but it’s not a particularly dog-friendly machine. Between the challenging ingress and egress, body motion while underway, and questionable resilience of interior plastics, this SUV introduces a lot of inconveniences when it comes to dog transportation.

Now, none of that stuff is insurmountable. Just know that you might need a ramp or enough upper-body strength to get your animal in and out if you’re dog-driving. If your rear-seat passengers are prone to car-sickness, canine or otherwise, you might at least want to look at the less off-roady non-Overtrail trim. But, at that point, why are you getting a body-on-frame 4×4 anyway?

I loved cruising around in the GX 550 with Bramble in the back and the wind whipping our hair around through open windows. For me, and folks who love the lumbering energy of an old-school SUV, driving this Lexus is a great experience. But it’s not for everybody, and it’s not going to make your life easier if “dog taxi” is one of your central vehicular requirements.

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