Potential GS300h Luxury purchase

klinsmania · January 26, 2016

Hi everyone, I currently drive a Jaguar XF and am considering either trading it in for the new XF model, or a GS300h Luxury edition. I have had a short test drive of it and I found it easy to handle and manoeuvre, and also found it to be quite quiet and refined. I think it also has a nice interior and comfy seats with a good range of options/gadgets included. What I would like to know is what is the real world mpg like, because on paper it compares favourably with the Jag, and I would imagine due to the hybrid engine it is probably slightly more efficient around town. However most of my driving is on motorways and I would imagine that's where the GS may fall down because it will be using mainly petrol power and will have to lug around the heavy batteries. Can any current owners give me an indication of their real world figures? Any comments on the car in general, such as what it's like to live with, how good the controls for the satnav etc are, any little annoyances about the design/layout etc? Any comments and feedback would be most welcome.

Thanks very much

Bluesman · January 26, 2016

Hi Richard and welcome to the LOC, we are a friendly bunch and some of us even know how to pull them to bits and put them back together again, with of course the one bolt and washer left over.

I cant help with your present queries but I'm sure someone will be along ASAP.

We recommend you spend a couple of mins looking over the rules of the LOC, we will be asking questions later

http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/terms-conditions/

Regards Mike.

rayaans · January 26, 2016

40-45mpg on motorways dependent on speed.

In town, probably about the same in all honesty dependent on how warm the engine is. What you have to wonder is whether the MPG will make a huge difference in terms of cost. You'd have to be doing some serious miles to get a large difference at all.

Satnav is easy as eating chips to operate compared to the slow XF thingy bob that they used on your car.

Its probably more relevant to compare XF and Lexus GS costs spec for spec. I mean, the 180ps 2.0D Portfolio isnt exactly the most refined engine in the XF, its too gruff for my liking but the main issue is the price isnt it? A like for like XF will cost you in the region of £43k whilst a GS300h will cost £37k as the GS has things which are expensive upgrades on the XF such as adaptive cruise control - £1430!!!

Zotto · January 26, 2016

I have a GS 300h in top edition (probably in UK it is called Premier), with nigh safety pack, 19" rims and all you can have , it is a wonderful car. If you like to know real mpg, it's the same or just a bit more depending by tyres dimensions you can read about IS 300h; with my driving style I am at about 16 km/l (37.5 mpg ??).

In motorways the big difference is the average speed, so it depends if you respect speed limits or not ;-).

If you have any question more , ask.

klinsmania · January 27, 2016

Thanks Rayaans, you're right if you look purely at spec then the GS makes more economic sense given that it is better equipped. That said a lot of the things which it comes with are not important to me, so shouldn't really sway my thinking. The satnav seemed easy to use, but I wonder how easy it is to use on the go. I found the little mouse pointer thing a little difficult to control so spent more time looking at the screen to make sure I had selected the right letter, than I did looking at the road. This concerns me. Is this something that you get used to? The new Jag has a much more responsive screen than the old one, and I personally find it easy to use on the go, but maybe it's just because I'm more familiar with it.

I also test drove the IS and found the voice control for the satnav utterly redundant, you can't search by postcode and every time I said a town name, it brought back something completely different. It was useless. Is the GS one any better?

klinsmania · January 27, 2016

Oh yes, one more thing, does anyone know why split folding rear sits isn't an option on the GS? The IS has them and so I don't understand why the GS doesn't. This could be an issue for me as I regularly transport large loads, and don't really like having to put stuff on the back seats for fear of damaging the leather. Given it has a small boot (at least small for its class) it does surprise me that it doesn't come equipped with folding seats.

Zotto · January 27, 2016

Yes, the rear is not folding, but in latest GS the boot is not so small as you think.

Of course IS is also a good and cheaper choice, but GS is one step up for all. About the navi system, I don't know how it works speaking english, but I suppose it is better than in italian; not so easy because for a strange reason it asks street name before city (typing the address), but not so bad and fast in calculating route.

klinsmania · February 1, 2016

Hi all,

I took the GS out for a 24 hour test drive at the weekend, and I was pretty impressed with it. It's comfortable, quite nice to drive and pretty quick when in Sport mode, although I don't find the steering or brakes to be particularly sharp. However, there was one major issue I had, and that was with the satnav. My parents live in Chingford, so I tried to search for the town just to see what route it would suggest, and it seems Chingford as a town does not exist in the satnav. I could search for the street, and then scroll down the list to find the right place, but it seems strange that one cannot search by town first and then by street. I am used to doing it this way because otherwise if you search for the street first, and it is a common name like Station Road, then it brings up thousands of results, so it's always better to narrow down the search by inputting the town first and then the street. I'm sure if this was the case with Chingford then there must be dozens of other places which cannot be found when searching by town name. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Also, the voice activated satnav commands are completely useless, the system did not recognise any of the town names I said, and gave me normally two or three other places that either sounded similar or nothing like the name I'd said. Frustratingly, it doesn't even include the name I said within a list of possible names for me to select it, so I constantly had to say go back and try again, only to be presented with a list of wrong names once more. What is the point of putting voice activation in if it patently doesn't work? Does the system eventually 'learn' the voice and start producing better results or is it always this bad?

Thanks

Zotto · February 1, 2016

Uhm, sorry to read the issue with satnav Richard, it seems that also in your language the speech recognition is not good; using navi I usually input address writing street and selecting city is a bit easier if you are nearby choosing one from "5 cities near position" menu; unluckily navigation system in Lexus , generally speaking, is not so user friendly even if fast in response, may be it will be better with connected services developments. About address input, you can select town first, just moving to town line before inputting street name.

klinsmania · February 1, 2016

Thanks for your response Luigi. I did try inputting the town first, but the satnav system did not recognise the name of the town. It let me input C-H-I-N but then the letter G was not available for selection. It seems to think that Chingford does not exist, but given my parents have lived there for 40 years I can assure you it does. As I say, when I searched by street it found the street and then I had to select which town the street was in from the list of available options, but it seems strange that it could not find the town when searching for town name alone.

rayaans · February 1, 2016

5 minutes ago, klinsmania said:

Thanks for your response Luigi. I did try inputting the town first, but the satnav system did not recognise the name of the town. It let me input C-H-I-N but then the letter G was not available for selection. It seems to think that Chingford does not exist, but given my parents have lived there for 40 years I can assure you it does. As I say, when I searched by street it found the street and then I had to select which town the street was in from the list of available options, but it seems strange that it could not find the town when searching for town name alone.

Hey Richard. Apologies for my late reply.

The mouse sensitivity can be changed in the menu. It depends on how you like it. Personally I like the feedback all the way on (there are multiple settings for it).

The voice command is fully dependent on accent. It picks up things I say most of the time but you do have to raise your voice and be quite slow when talking to it.

Postcode is the best bet for the sat nav, it works 100% of the time with postcode input which is actually on the 2nd page after clicking destination.

Zotto · February 1, 2016

... but it seems strange that it could not find the town when searching for town name alone.

Here in Italy it happens the same with street names, for example "Via dei boschi" (woods street) may be found or not depending how it is stored in memory, if you type "dei boschi" it is not found, if you type "boschi" it's found like "boschi (via dei)" LOL.

May be the same with little towns depending from a main city, the street is found typing main city name.

klinsmania · February 1, 2016

Yes, the postcode search seems to work fine, but quite often I want to just put in a town because I am visiting the town rather than a specific street, and just want to be guided to the town centre, or at least get close to town and can then follow road signs etc. The system does not seem to allow you to do this.

Habu · February 1, 2016

Hi, the system is happy for you just to enter a town name (just ignore the street field) and navigate to the centre of said town by pressing on the circles next to the name. Bizarre about Chingford though as my system didn't recognise it too even though the word appears on the Lexus map. I looked up a Chingford business address on Google and entered it and it came up with Street xxx, London E4.😐

klinsmania · February 1, 2016

Thanks for taking the time to check, Peter. Maybe Chingford is just an anomaly, and there are no other similar examples but it is quite strange that it clearly recognises that the place exists, albeit you can't search for it.