weird transmission behaviour on RC200T

[PatrikS]

Hello all Lexus lovers. I just bought Lexus RC200T 2016 F-Sport with 28,000 miles on the clock, replacing my totalled IS200T 2016 F-Sport. I have found so many weird things but one is very specific can't recall seeing anything like this on any car I've owned. When standing still with my foot on the brake(even foot brake on) and shifting from R-reverse to P-park, there is additional gear stick movement with a click which I assume is a parking pawl getting in it's place but never experienced it like it is on the video on my previous IS200t which is same engine and transmission or on any other automatic cars I've owned over 18 years. 

Anyone else have seen/experienced this? 

[PatrikS]

One of the Lexus mechanics said it could be adjusted 🙂 am I answering my own question? yes. But it might help others

[Wingy]

I've seen this on my IS300h and now also on my RC300h.  Not every time, but fairly often so assume it's just the nature of Park engaging in the gearbox.   Obviously both of mine have the CVT box, where as i assume the 200t has a more traditional automatic transmission ?

[colin saunders]

On 9/16/2020 at 8:03 PM, PatrikS said:

Hello all Lexus lovers. I just bought Lexus RC200T 2016 F-Sport with 28,000 miles on the clock, replacing my totalled IS200T 2016 F-Sport. I have found so many weird things but one is very specific can't recall seeing anything like this on any car I've owned. When standing still with my foot on the brake(even foot brake on) and shifting from R-reverse to P-park, there is additional gear stick movement with a click which I assume is a parking pawl getting in it's place but never experienced it like it is on the video on my previous IS200t which is same engine and transmission or on any other automatic cars I've owned over 18 years. 

Anyone else have seen/experienced this? 

IMG_5795.MOV

Evening

I am thinking of buying a RC 200t 2017 plate. What are they like please? Thanks Col

[Linas.P]

8 hours ago, colin saunders said:

Evening

I am thinking of buying a RC 200t 2017 plate. What are they like please? Thanks Col

I think you should create your own thread as this is kind of stuck on old and unrelated thread now. 

Depends on what you looking for really... if you don't care about fuel consumption, then it is relatively practical, well handling and comfortable cruiser. It is not Sports car, way too heavy and underpowered, it struggles a lot from stand still, fuel economy is rather horrible and cars is generally very "unresponsive" i.e. it doesn't like being driven hard, thrown around too much, it is not "agile" as would be expected from sports car.

How bad is fuel consumption? Well it is bad, RC200t uses more fuel than RC-F in my experience for daily driving. To put it in numbers - my long term IS250 consumption was 26 City / 38 Motorway and average ~28MPG. Same roads, same driver, same "heavy" foot in RC200t I was getting 18 City / 30 Motorway and average ~22-24. RC-F... I only had for couple of days, but I made sure to reset trips to do some comparison. On the same commute route I got 22 MPG where RC200t was getting 18 MPG and on motorway RC-F regularly does 32-36MPG when driving at 70 - 90 MPH. RC200t would get at best 30MPG at 70, at 90 it would be 26-28MPG and I have only ever seen 38MPG once when driving on 18 miles of roadworks at 50MPH. And I don't want to make it all just about fuel, but RC200t just has unacceptable consumption considering what it is - if it would be some fire spitting monster with 700HP and 3s to 60, then fine, but it isn't particular fast, nor fast accelerating, nor sounds that great, yet it gulps fuel like there is no tomorrow. Driving RC-F it feels good to rev it and waste some fuel as it basically turns your money into symphony, but it feels horrible in RC200t because it turns your money into vacuum cleaner sound. 

It is important to note - I had very particular expectations and if you don't have same expectations then you may be alight. I for long time had IS250 (actually had 3 of them), the car was great, very comfortable, very reliable, but lacked little bit of performance 50HP maybe. I have tried RC300h and it was great car, but is noticeably slower (unacceptably slow for me) and doesn't sound good either. So what I expected from RC200t was - same everything as IS250, but newer car, newer tech, more power and lower fuel consumption. That is what it offers actually - it has 35 more HP and about 10% better fuel economy on paper. Now in reality it was very unresponsive i.e. you have to wait for power to come, it was actually slower up-to 50MPH, so in hypothetical drag race at the lights IS250 would be ahead of it all the way to 40MPH and only at 50MPH RC200t would overtake... and it didn't sound great and used even more fuel. So it was complete failure from my perspective. I came to RC200t hoping it could give me half-way house between IS250 and RC350 (which is not available in UK), but it was actually worse than IS250. RC300h on other hand - at least it is economical, yet it is slow, but so is RC200t. So all in all I would say RC300h is simply better car than RC200t and that is why they outsold RC200t like 10 to 1. To be fair between 50-120MPH RC200t is quite fast and pulls strong... but where can we go at 120MPH in UK?!

Now again if you don't have high expectations for the car, then maybe it is alright... it has some positives, looks great, it is practical with folding seats, if you get F-Sport it does feel kid of "special" inside even if there are some cheaper touches on plastics etc. So it is not all horrible, but the engine just kind of bad. 

I have quite extensive review of both if interested: