Lexus announces five-year warranty in Australia

Lexus Australia has used the launch of the brand’s first electric vehicle, the Lexus UX300e, to announce the move to a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty.

Available from launch on the electric UX, the five-year warranty will also roll out to the entire Lexus range from 1 January 2022, and from that time will be backdated to include Lexus vehicles purchased during 2021.

Replacing the current four-year/100,000km term, the new Lexus warranty brings the brand into line with rivals including Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Genesis.

Lexus initially positioned itself as a leader in terms of aftersales care, introducing its four-year warranty program in December 2001 (applying it to vehicles purchased from October 2001). Since then mainstream brands have widely adopted five-year warranty terms, while prestige car makers have been slower to react.

The new warranty term also matches parent company Toyota’s five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty – however Toyota adds two additional years of engine driveline coverage for vehicles serviced within the dealer network, which Lexus makes no mention of.

Prestige brands including BMW, Porsche and Audi retain standard three-year warranty terms with no kilometre cap, outside of specially-advertised offers.

Mercedes-Benz was the first prestige brand to break rank, announcing its five-year warranty in March 2020.

On top of the new five-year warranty, the high-voltage batteries on hybrid and EV models will come with a 10-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty in the event of a system fault, or 10 years and up to 160,000km in the event a battery retains less than 70 per cent of its capacity.

The battery warranty will initially apply to the UX300e, from its launch this month. But as with the whole-of-vehicle warranty, from January 2022 the 10-year battery warranty will apply to the existing range of Lexus closed-loop hybrid vehicles, and will be backdated for hybrid vehicles purchased during 2021.

Similarly, the plug-in hybrid NX450h+ SUV, which was recently announced for Australia, will also carry the same high-voltage battery warranty.