Lexus LS500H vs Isuzu NLS

What's the difference?

The Lexus LS 500 and 500h are both exceptional cars. The ‘obnoxious’ styling especially to the grille makes the offerings from BMW, Benz and Audi look bland and overly corporate inside and out. It’s really in the dynamics department that the LS falls short of its rivals and only the LS 500 is enjoyable if you like to drive with a degree of conviction. 

Both the LS500 and 500h, though, have wonderfully comfortable rides and this together with those sumptuous interiors makes these the perfect place to be if you’re in the back being swiftly and quietly taken to you next meeting.

For me the sweet-spot pick would be the LS 500 F Sport for its value and dynamic ability.

A truck like the NPR (or any other truck, really) is never going to replace a dual-cab ute in terms of its duality. While the latter can tend to weekday chores and be quickly reconfigured for weekend fun, the light truck has no such facility. Nope, it’s a workhorse. Period.

You need a fair bit of real estate just to park the Isuzu overnight and it certainly won’t fit in the typical supermarket car space. It’s hardly sporty to drive, either, although the latest upgrades have made it more user friendly in a total sense and safer than ever before.

But what it does do that a dual-cab ute can’t often do, is tackle bigger, heavier jobs with a fair bit of bandwidth still up its sleeve. And if the nine-to-five side of things is where you need to be, then a vehicle like this has to be worth a look. And if you consistently find that you’re sailing close to the wind in terms of exceeding a ute’s legal payload, towing capacity or GCM, then the extra bigness of a light truck could make a huge difference.

That’s especially so given the price tag. Okay, you’re not buying a lot of high tech for your money, but you are getting some seriously stout engineering and an expectation that you won’t be working the thing to death anytime soon.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

“You’re either going to love them or hate them.” You can bet that whenever you’re told this just before being introduced to somebody then that somebody is going to be downright obnoxious. The same goes for the LS, well it’s face anyway, because those are the kinds of statements made about that grille.

The thing is, the LS needs an obnoxious face because its up against The Establishment -  the Mercedes-Benz S -Class, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8, and given there’s no way they’ll ever let Lexus into their little ‘club’ it’s good that the LS has steered clear of imitating them and is boldly different.

This was also the type of thinking which inspired the grille’s creator, Tokuo Fukuichi. The so called ‘spindle grille’ first appeared in 2010 on the CT200h before rolling out to the rest of the Lexus line-up. The look polarised the opinions of fans and even executives inside Lexus. But Fukuichi was adamant the key to the brand’s survival and success was to not to be boring.

That massive gaping mouth is anything but boring, and for this new-generation LS the spindle grille has been overhauled. Yes, some car companies might make a few tweaks to a grille, but not Lexus. Using a CAD computer program, it took designers six months to refine each of the 5032 surfaces on the F-Sport’s grille and the more than 7000 on the Sports Luxury’s. If only you didn’t have to slap a number plate on these exquisitely spun net-like structures.

New LED headlights and the ‘Zorro blade-slash’ LED running lights are equally obnoxious and therefore perfectly suited for the LS’s face. So too are the enormous air inlets below them in the bumper. If only the rest of the car’s exterior was as wild and not mild and milder the further you get from the grille. The rear looks stately, modern and sleek but could have done with something more adventurous (similar to IS’s taillights).

But the LS’s insides make up for that dullness, with a cabin that’s decadent and alien at the same time. A dash which sweeps from door to door features asymmetrical string-like design elements which are a theme carved through wood and glass and stitched into leather throughout the cabin. The quality is superb, while the fit and finish is better than I’ve seen on some of its competitors.

There are four no-cost interior packages on the Sports Luxury ranging from 'Moon White' trim with walnut decorative inlays to black trim with 'Crafted Latte' inserts. But it’s the $9800 optional 'Black with hand-pleating' and 'Kiriko' glass which is a stand out. It’s an intriguing look, the pleated fabric which cascades around the hand-cut Japanese glass.

The F Sport’s cabin is less decorative with seats that hold you tighter in three no-cost option leathers from 'Moon White' to 'Flare Red' with aluminium door and dash decorative elements.

Both cabins are sumptuous, although they fall a little short in gob-smacking tech like those amazing, expansive, floating dash screens and the virtual instrument cluster in the S-Class. Yes, there’s the large screen up front and the seat-back screens in the rear but the styling of the graphics and typeface reveal the Toyota DNA.

The LS has the presence a prestige brand’s flagship car should - imposing, long and wide. Look at the LS’s dimensions. At 5235mm end-to-end and 1900mm across, the LS is longer and wider than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, but swoops in lower at 1450mm. The LS’s wheelbase is longer than a regular S-Class’s at 3125mm, too.

Apart from the grille you can tell an F Sport from a Sports Luxury by its black brake calipers and black elements in the front bumper, boot lid and sill.

To tell a 500 from a 500h, the difference is subtle. There are the badges, of course, but the 500's rear bumper also has a different design with chrome exhaust surrounds.

It can’t be easy to make a light truck look fashionable, but Isuzu has done a reasonable job of making the thing look, at least, current. The lighting has all been changed to LEDs now, and the bold, angular face the truck presents looks pretty modern.

But new tech has also forced some design changes. The bull-bar that is part of the Tradepack deal, for instance, has been redesigned with changes to the main hoop. That’s all to accommodate the radar units inside each headlight that inform the front cross-traffic warning system of anything in the way.

Also notable is the attention to detail of the optional (rather than the alloy tray seen here) Australian-made service body. With a choice of internal layouts, the flip-up sides reveal a proper workshop on wheels when configured that way.

It’s also nice to see that all the clips and catches on the drop-side tray can be easily replaced if damaged.

Anything with a 3.1m wheelbase has to be practical right? Well, legroom in the back is excellent, but I can’t properly stretch out in that reclining rear seat with the ottoman without my feet hitting the seatback.

Headroom is also a bit a restricted in that rear row for me, too. That’s something to keep in mind for taller passengers (I'm 191cm tall).

A cargo capacity of 480 litres is 30 litres shy of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, while the cooler box in the rear (that comes with the Sports Luxury trim) eats into the boot space and drops the total to 440 litres.

The LS is a five-seat sedan, but that centre rear seatback folds forward to become the armrest and houses the controls to the massage and reclining functions, plus two cupholders.

There’s another two cupholders up front and pockets in all the doors. While the storage area under the centre console armrest in the front and back is good – that’s about it for storage.

An access mode will raise the car by 30mm when getting in and lower it by 10mm when getting out. Those wide opening doors also make entry and exit easier.

The new cabin Isuzu has brewed up certainly brings the truck into the present, but it’s still very much a light truck in some respects. As in, it’s still a pretty good climb inside, although there are steps and handles to make that easier. The steering column still gets in the way as you swing your left leg inside, though.

The plastic surfaces would still make a car interior designer cringe, and the floor is vinyl and the seats cloth. But the three-abreast seating arrangement makes sense and, should you choose the dual-cab N Series option, there’s actually seven seats in all.

Cabin storage has obviously been a priority for Isuzu, and there are three large, netted overhead bins above the top of the windscreen, as well as bins and buckets across the width of the lower dashboard. Interestingly, each door has just a single, slim pocket and no bottle storage.

The centre console addresses that somewhat with a pair of cup-holders and a pen slot, while there’s also a large bin behind the seat on the bulkhead. There’s also an interior light that wouldn’t look out of place in an industrial kitchen.

The dashboard is home to a pair of USB charge-ports in the centre and the truck stuff continues with a wand for the exhaust brake and a knob near the steering column for a fast-idle setting. It’s also nice to see that even though Isuzu has adopted keyless entry and start for the N Series, the starter button resembles a conventional key and is located right where it should be in the side of the steering column.

What’s missing? Mainly a vanity mirror on either side of the cabin and a physical volume knob for the stereo. Oh, and paddle shifters would be nice too, especially when towing.

Externally, the Tradepack option gets you an aluminium drop-side tray, sturdy ladder racks, a tow bar, bull bar, toolboxes fitted below the tray between the axles and even a wash station for after-work clean ups.

The tray is fitted in Australia (many of the Ready to Work body options are also made here) and the load floor is a vast expanse of alloy with the ability to cope with small, heavy objects thanks to its high-impact materials. But the usual drop-side tray caveats apply including a high loading height, rattling from the sides and the legal requirement to lash everything down before hitting the road.

Meantime, part of the overall appeal of the Isuzu line-up is that there are something like 40 different permutations of cabin width, wheelbase, GVM, overall length and driveline.

But here’s perhaps the N Series’ greatest trick when it comes to being practical: While it’s easy to dismiss the vehicle for being too big and unwieldy, many operators would possibly find that the extra payload and real estate in the cargo area means that they might not need to tow a trailer every time they venture on to a job site. At which point, the dual-cab ute with a tandem trailer starts to look less convenient, especially if there’s any reversing or squeezing on to a tight site involved.

Oh, and if tight spaces really are an issue, the N Series’ sub-10m turning circle makes a typical dual-cab’s 12.5 metre turning circle look ridiculously ungainly. And that’s before we get to that trailer.

Typically for a vehicle like this, a full-sized spare tyre is included.

Like the rest of the N Series line-up, the NPR Tradepack model we’ve chosen to review here is available in a range of cabin widths and wheelbases and even a choice of Gross Vehicle Mass. But first, let’s break down the badge. In Isuzu-speak, N stands for the smallest family in the light-truck line-up. As such, it can be driven on a normal car license in Australia.

The P stands for the GVM, in this case that license-friendly 4.5 tonnes, although you can opt for the higher, 6.5-tonne GVM at which point an endorsed license is required.

And, finally, R is Isuzu’s in-house code for a truck that is two-wheel-drive and uses conventional steel-spring suspension rather than air suspension.

Isuzu says the Tradepack option with its large tray and fittings is a very popular one, so that’s what we’ve concentrated on here. That pack equates to all the drop-side tray, racks and fittings, so it’s a comprehensive add-on. Of course, you can take your NPR as a bare cab-chassis, too, and save by swapping over the tray and fittings from your old truck.

Beyond the nuts and bolts stuff, the NPR includes LED lights all-round, heated and powered exterior mirrors (and they’re huge), keyless entry and start, cruise control, steering-wheel mounted controls, climate-control air-con, a suspension driver’s seat and a tilt and reach adjustable steering column. There’s also a 10.1 inch multimedia screen in the centre of the dashboard, digital radio, sat-nav and wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

The features that tell you this is still a truck and not a passenger car include the steel wheels, cloth seat trim and vinyl flooring.

As it sits, the NPR Tradepack costs $86,014 on the road, but that’s an all-up figure, and not one where you then have to arrange your own accessories and bits and pieces. It’s also within a few hundred dollars of the Ford Ranger Super Duty Super Cab which, perhaps not so coincidentally, has an identical GVM of 4000kg, GCM of 8000kg and slightly more towing capacity of 4500kg versus the NPR dual-clutch’s 4000kg.

Let's talk engine specifications .The LS 500 has a 3.5-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 making 310kW/600Nm, with drive being sent to the rear wheels via a 10-speed automatic transmission. That's impressive horsepower, but this car is heavy is a weight of about 2.3 tonnes.

The LS 500h has a 220kW/350Nm 3.5-litre V6 (a different engine to the 500’s) plus two electric motors driving the rear wheels. The total power output is 264kW. Shifting gears in the 500h is a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Just a reminder, too, the LS 500h is not  a plug-in hybrid. Regenerative braking re-charges the lithium-ion batteries.  

If you're looking for a diesel, you won't find one here. Same goes for a manual gearbox. And, while buyers can choose an all-wheel drive (awd) Lexus LS in other markets around the world, ours are all front-wheel drive.  

Believe it or not there’s actually a family connection between the 3.0-litre turbo diesel in the Isuzu NRL and the Isuzu D-Max dual-cab and MU-X SUV.

While the displacement of the D-Max remains, the unit in the light truck has been retuned to liberate more torque at lower engine speeds. In this case, that’s 129kW at 2860rpm and 430Nm of torque anywhere between 1450rpm and 2860rpm. That gives the engine great flexibility, but the transmission also plays a part.

That’s either a six-speed manual or a nine-speed dual-clutch unit. The latter has either manual or fully automatic shift modes, and it’s worth is backed up by the potential for lower fuel consumption thanks to the inherent efficiency in such a transmission as well as the three extra ratios.

Designed and made in-house at Isuzu, the brand says it’s confident the wet-clutch unit doesn’t carry the potential flaws of some other dual-clutch units we could name. That said, Isuzu has downgraded the towing capacity from 4.5 to four tonnes if the nine-speed is fitted.

And just like any good truck, there’s the provision for a power-take-off on the side of each transmission option, as well as an exhaust brake to help the mechanical brakes when fully laden.

Unlike many light trucks before it, the Isuzu doesn’t get stuck with a rigid front axle. Instead, you get a proper independent set-up with coil springs, while the rear end remains a live axle with leaf springs in the interests of carting lots of heavy stuff.

The LS 500 has an official fuel consumption of 9.5L/100km while the 500h’s is 6.6L/100km after open and urban road driving. We drove both cars on mainly country roads and saw an average of 10.1L/100km in the LS 500 and 9.1L/100km in the 500h.

This is a cursed subject in the truck segment, because there’s just no standard pattern of usage, nor a typical loading scenario. Some trucks will spend their whole lives heavily loaded going from red light to red light, others will be less burdened and driven between regional towns.

But what we can tell you is that unladen and driven sensibly, this truck should be able to return fuel consumption figures in the low teens per 100km. Throw the full payload and a trailer on the back and head for hilly country and you could easily double that and then some.

As such, the range from the 100-litre fuel tank is going to vary enormously, but should be somewhere between 500 and 800km.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the upgrade to this model has brought the Isuzus in line with Euro 6 emissions or their Japanese equivalent. So they now need AdBLue and there’s a 14-litre tank for that.

My first experience of the new LS was from the back seat of a 500 Sports Luxury being driven from the airport to the venue where Lexus Australia would deliver the presentation on its fifth generation of the car.

Seat reclined, I was whisked quietly and comfortably through the traffic, barely any road or wind noise, the ride was superb on that air suspension, a little floaty but still damped well enough for it not to become bouncy, with minimal head sway (the movement that makes you car sick).

Cocooned in leather with seat-back screens for audio and DVD the ride and environment was just right for a limousine chauffeuring important business types who need swift and tranquil transportation. Not for weirdos like me who were only interested in the way the front and back multi-link suspension kept a 2.3-tonne car with a 3.1m wheelbase so civilised, even through roundabouts. I wondered if this was actually the best way to experience the LS – from the back seats, being driven?

When I did drive the 500 and 500h in the two trims later it more or less confirmed that first impression. The 500 in F Sport trim was the best to drive, while the 500 in Sports Luxury was the best to be driven in. Why? I’ll explain.

The LS 500’s 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 makes more power than the hybrid for starters, which is always a good thing when you need to move a car this heavy. Even then the LS 500’s acceleration isn’t super quick, and the engine needs to work hard when asked to get a wriggle on. That 10-speed automatic transmission is excellent though. 

The same can’t be said for the CVT in the 500h which under harder acceleration does what CVTs do in that situation, make more noise without seeming to get the drive effectively to the wheels.

The 500h’s naturally aspirated V6 is a good thing, but it seems the weight of the car and the CVT work against it being exciting to drive. After a couple of hundred kilometres in a 500h blasting through the countryside steering it became tiresome rather than rewarding with the engine constantly kicking in and whining incessantly when asked for more beans, please. 

This car is far better suited to slipping silently through city streets than it is galloping through the bush – that’s where the 500 is a lot more at home.

The 500 and 500h are rear-wheel drive cars, and this, along with an almost 50-50 balance, sets the ground work for good cars to pilot. The F-Sport trim adds an active rear stabiliser bar as standard equipment and brings a more sophisticated version of Lexus’s 'Vehicle Dynamic Integrated Management' (VDIM) – a stability system using data from suspension, ABS, traction control, electric power steering, the stabiliser bar and rear steering. The result is the control of longitudinal, vertical, yaw, roll and pitch movements for better ride and handling.

The F Sport trims adds bigger brakes, too with 400mm x 36mm discs on the front and 359mm x 30mm at the back, plus staggered tyres with 245mm rubber at the front and 275mm at the rear.

The electric steering is light, which makes it easy to manoeuvre in carparks, and an 11.2m turning circle is great for the class. 

On the open road at speed the steering is pinky-finger light even in Sport+ mode, and while it’s smooth and accurate, I want to feel more connected to the wheels and where they’re pointed.

While the LS 500 is more the driver’s car than the 500h neither perform as well dynamically as Benz’s S-Class, but from the back seat the LS feels just as comfortable and even plusher.

Actually climbing aboard the Isuzu is job one, and you’ll need the handles and step to do it safely. Then again, it’s probably no more testing than getting into a really low sports car in a degree of difficulty sense.

With that accomplished, you’re met with two things; the view out and the very un-car-like driving position. The first is fantastic for forward vision. And it’s not just the height advantage over other traffic. The cab-over-engine layout also means you’re almost at the very front of the truck, meaning you can see a lot more of what’s directly in front of you, even if it’s almost under your nose. Jumping back into a dual-cab ute for comparison emphasises the point enormously.

The driving position, meanwhile, might take more getting used to. The steering wheel is almost flat and you tend to sit pretty upright. Long-distance drivers will tell you this is actually great for long stints at the helm, and it honestly feels pretty natural after just a few minutes. But the steering column placement means there’s no chance of left-foot braking which some drivers (this one included) prefer.

Once you’re rolling, the dual-clutch transmission starts to feel pretty handy with short, sharp upshifts and a calibration that sees it keen to downshift on deceleration to help balance the vehicle, take the stress off the brakes and ensure that the engine is in its power band for when you next throttle on.

Speaking of which, the engine is not exactly overpowering, but it does produce the meat of its muscle in the right places, helped no end by having nine ratios to play with. And here’s an interesting point: The way the engine is installed in the NPR – and despite the fact that you’re sitting pretty much right on top of it – there’s less noise and vibration from the 3.0-litre than in an Isuzu D-Max ute. Obviously, low vibrations and less noise are factors in staving off driver fatigue, and clearly Isuzu knows how to achieve this.

Ride quality will vary hugely depending on what’s on board. We tried the NPR with a full load of gear on the tray, taking it almost to its payload limit. At that point, the ride was actually quite compliant, and the only odd sensation is that of having your backside right over the front axle.

The other mantra held dear by fleet managers is that the best way to reduce breakdowns is to take the driver out of the equation as much as possible. That explains the dual-clutch transmission, for one, but it also perhaps explains why the NPR is set up to be actually very easy and simple to drive. It’s definitely scarier to look at than to pilot. And that turning circle is something else!

You can absolutely thank OH&S legislation for the huge leaps in active and passive safety that vehicles like the Isuzu have made in recent years.

Although this class of vehicle is not required to be crash tested (and, therefore, there’s no safety star rating available) even a scant knowledge of physics suggests that sitting the passengers up high in a vehicle with a strong chassis is a very good start when it comes to crash safety.

Passive safety is also helped by an airbag for both driver and the two front-seat passengers in the case of the three-seat variant we’ve looked at here. But only the outboard passengers get a three-point seat-belt, and the centre position gets a simple lap-belt.

There are also side intrusion bars in the doors as per passenger-car best practice and the overhead storage space features a safety net. There are no side-curtain airbags, but again, that high seating position makes the N Series inherently safer for passengers in a typical side impact.

But it gets better with a long list of driver aids, most of them straight out of the current passenger-car playbook. Running changes to the vehicle over the years have seen the addition of autonomous emergency braking (AEB), anti-skid brakes, stability control, a driver attention monitor, a distance warning system for vehicles in front, brake-force distribution and lane departure warning.

New safety tech this time around includes front cross-traffic alert and braking, mis-acceleration (pedal-error) mitigation, traffic and speed-sign recognition, a distance warning system that also advises of the speed of the car in front and improvements to the rear camera system.

And yet, there’s probably more work to be done here. We’d like to see a standard 360-degree camera and tyre pressure monitoring as well. These are both available at extra cost right now, but really should be standard on a vehicle like this. Rear cross-traffic alert is also missing, but that’s more about standardising the sensors and their calibration on a huge range of rear-body designs, apparently.

There’s also an apparent tech gap to be bridged, too, and right now only the dual-clutch-equipped version gets the speed limiter and adaptive cruise control, while the conventional manual does not.

Isuzu is also making a big noise about the new electronic park brake which can be used in an emergency to bring the vehicle to a complete, controlled stop if necessary.

The Lexus LS is covered by a four-year/100,0000km warranty. Servicing is recommended every 15,000km or 12 months. There is no capped price servicing program. Being a Toyota family product the Lexus LS also comes backed by the same reputation for reliability and you may experience lower maintenance costs than perhaps its German rivals. 

Despite the hard life many trucks are destined to live, Isuzu offers a standard six-year/250,000km warranty on the cabin and chassis of this model. The rear RTW body (whatever form that takes) is covered for three years. There’s also a three-year warranty on genuine accessories provided they were installed by a certified fitter.

Service intervals are every 25,000km, 12 months or 5000 hours of operation, whichever comes first. There’s also six years of roadside assistance thrown in.

Isuzu offers a range of service agreements ranging from the basic package right up to a plan that covers everything including wiper blade replacement.

There are currently 84 Isuzu dealers or authorised service outlets around the country, including some pretty far flung spots, so service and parts should be less of a problem than for some other brands.

Mechanically, Isuzu has worked to reduce servicing times, including the use of sealed-for-life wheel bearings.