MPG & Sat Nav

[Dells]

I had to do a 130 mile round trip today and according to the computer I averaged 56mpg so hoping that is somewhere near accurate I will be happy with that although to get a really accurate take I would need to do a tank brim to brim but considering my 1600 Bclass could only manage 40 I am chuffed, as for the sat nav why do they take you one way and back a completely different way, it’s not just Lexus all my Mercs were the same.

Dell

[VSR]

2 minutes ago, Dells said:

I had to do a 130 mile round trip today and according to the computer I averaged 56mpg so hoping that is somewhere near accurate I will be happy with that although to get a really accurate take I would need to do a tank brim to brim but considering my 1600 Bclass could only manage 40 I am chuffed, as for the sat nav why do they take you one way and back a completely different way, it’s not just Lexus all my Mercs were the same.

Dell

56mpg impressive, do you use premium fuel. Regarding Sat Nav, it goes for the fastest option at the time. NX300h AWD only averages 38mpg in town and about 43 on a combined run. If you can get apple car play, i think its a retrofit, maybe available for a 2017 at ur lexus dealership, u could apple car/android auto waze to ur infortainment. Waze is very good tells u about broken down cars and the police, as well as speed cameras and mobile cameras.

[Dells]

Just standard E10 although I have seen on here that it may be better to use E5 but only had a Lexus for a couple of weeks so still learning, I have looked into apple carplay upgrade but as I only use it occasionally I don’t think it’s worth the outlay.

Dell

[VSR]

1 hour ago, Dells said:

Just standard E10 although I have seen on here that it may be better to use E5 but only had a Lexus for a couple of weeks so still learning, I have looked into apple carplay upgrade but as I only use it occasionally I don’t think it’s worth the outlay.

Dell

Hi Dell, i have noticed my car gets about 5% better mpg when using shell's E10 over a supermarket E10, i would say about 7-8% better when using E5 shell and slightly better pick up. But i think the optimum money v economy v pick up is Shell Standard E10.

KR 

Vishi 

[Thackeray]

18 hours ago, Dells said:

I had to do a 130 mile round trip today and according to the computer I averaged 56mpg so hoping that is somewhere near accurate I will be happy with that although to get a really accurate take I would need to do a tank brim to brim but considering my 1600 Bclass could only manage 40 I am chuffed, as for the sat nav why do they take you one way and back a completely different way, it’s not just Lexus all my Mercs were the same.

Dell

Hope you're enjoying the car - I think you said on another thread that you recently acquired it. I've had mine six years and I'm still very happy with it. Quiet, comfortable, reliable, and the fuel consumption can be pretty good.

However, on the mpg computer, I've found that it's about eight pct optimistic over brim-to-brim fuel measurement. That's to say, typically, if you subtract three or four mpg it'll be close to the real figure. Nonetheless, even 52-53 mpg seems pretty satisfactory for a car of this body and engine size.

The best I've seen was 54.1 mpg over a run of 299 miles and the computer showed 59.5. But that was in August four years ago and as autumn comes the mpg will deteriorate. At the moment, the outside temperature where I am is averaging around 20-22 degrees, so no need for heating, little need for aircon, no lights, heated seats, screen defrost, windscreen wipers etc. But as the weather gets colder, the engine will not stop so often because the car uses the engine heat to warm the cabin. Plus all the other electrical items are ultimately powered from use of the petrol. At worst, I found that one winter, doing repeated four-mile runs that scarcely warmed up the engine before it started to cool down again, I got as low as 29 mpg over the course of a tankful.

More typical over the whole year is around 44 mpg, or 48 on the car computer. I'm happy with that.

[Mr_Groundhog]

24 minutes ago, Thackeray said:

Hope you're enjoying the car - I think you said on another thread that you recently acquired it. I've had mine six years and I'm still very happy with it. Quiet, comfortable, reliable, and the fuel consumption can be pretty good.

However, on the mpg computer, I've found that it's about eight pct optimistic over brim-to-brim fuel measurement. That's to say, typically, if you subtract three or four mpg it'll be close to the real figure. Nonetheless, even 52-53 mpg seems pretty satisfactory for a car of this body and engine size.

The best I've seen was 54.1 mpg over a run of 299 miles and the computer showed 59.5. But that was in August four years ago and as autumn comes the mpg will deteriorate. At the moment, the outside temperature where I am is averaging around 20-22 degrees, so no need for heating, little need for aircon, no lights, heated seats, screen defrost, windscreen wipers etc. But as the weather gets colder, the engine will not stop so often because the car uses the engine heat to warm the cabin. Plus all the other electrical items are ultimately powered from use of the petrol. At worst, I found that one winter, doing repeated four-mile runs that scarcely warmed up the engine before it started to cool down again, I got as low as 29 mpg over the course of a tankful.

More typical over the whole year is around 44 mpg, or 48 on the car computer. I'm happy with that.

Yeah only occassionally the car goes (by on-board comp) over 50mpg, which if you think about it, is an achievement given this is a heavy car with a drivetrain that was released in 2013.
If I try to be mindful of fuel, I am around 49-52 but rarely beyond. If I drive with a bit more energy, it is around 44-47. Again, pretty good for a 2.5 that's quite fat because of having two engines plus Battery. I have low-fuel tyres and use Shell E5 for the most part.

Does anyone know which generation of the drivetrain this is? Second? I heard that the ES has the next one and the newest Corolla is on the 5th or something like that.

[Spacewagon52]

After owning  the RX300 and getting 22 mpg - 40+ out of my NX300h is brilliant to me!

Around 30 mpg for the RX400h overall.

[wharfhouse]

2 hours ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

Yeah only occassionally the car goes (by on-board comp) over 50mpg, which if you think about it, is an achievement given this is a heavy car with a drivetrain that was released in 2013.
If I try to be mindful of fuel, I am around 49-52 but rarely beyond. If I drive with a bit more energy, it is around 44-47. Again, pretty good for a 2.5 that's quite fat because of having two engines plus battery. I have low-fuel tyres and use Shell E5 for the most part.

Does anyone know which generation of the drivetrain this is? Second? I heard that the ES has the next one and the newest Corolla is on the 5th or something like that.

I think it's classed as 3rd gen hybrid 

[ColinBarber]

3 hours ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

Does anyone know which generation of the drivetrain this is? Second? I heard that the ES has the next one and the newest Corolla is on the 5th or something like that.

It’s meaningless really as Toyota and Lexus count from different points in time. The IS is a second gen Lexus hybrid (first being RX400h/GS450h) but it would be third gen when looking at it from a Toyota timeline as the tech is equivalent to a Prius series 3. After then you have cars being launched with minor upgrades that some people count as a gen, others not. 
 

Ideally for any TMC vehicle the gen should be aligned against the Prius as that is really where the main changes are launched. So an IS300h would be gen 3, an ES300h gen 4, and the latest Corolla as gen 5. 

[Stever750]

I've been experimenting with eE5 vs E10 on the basis the facebook UK owners group thought is almost unanimously a noticeable improvement in eco. I did with my Super 2.0TSI, not so sure with a normally aspirated engine. Two tanks in on E5 and I can't see any significant improvement in eco, but i did change the rear tyres after the first tank to supposedly A rated eco ones, but yet to see any real benefits. I guess cruising at a GPS speed of around 80 doesn't help.

[wharfhouse]

31 minutes ago, Stever750 said:

I've been experimenting with eE5 vs E10 on the basis the facebook UK owners group thought is almost unanimously a noticeable improvement in eco. I did with my Super 2.0TSI, not so sure with a normally aspirated engine. Two tanks in on E5 and I can't see any significant improvement in eco, but i did change the rear tyres after the first tank to supposedly A rated eco ones, but yet to see any real benefits. I guess cruising at a GPS speed of around 80 doesn't help.

Changing something part way through a test certainly wouldn't help with setting a benchmark. Given I do a lot of miles I have been able to do some pretty exhaustive testing comparing E10 to E5 over many thousands of miles on the same roads, same weight in the car (hybrids seem sensitive to weight, even the contents of a full tank compared to a near empty tank) and weather conditions (very important, especially to a hybrid as air temperature can make a lot of difference to the Battery efficiency and how much it supports the ICE / runs in EV etc.) to try and remove any placebo effects (I'm not one to be drawn in by the petrol companies marketing claims). My tests have been mainly done comparing Sainsburys E10 (95 octane) and Sainsburys E5 (97 octane) all bought from the same fuel station with a high turnover of fuel (using the same fuel station with a high turnover  is important as different E10 and E5 brands will produce inconsistent results, old fuel vs new also, and even different fuel stations of the same brand can). I am confident that under the same conditions that E5 delivers between 5% and 10% better fuel consumption than E10. This of course comes from a mix of the lower ethanol content and the higher octane rating of E5, though which contributes the most is anyone's guess.

A few other points that I have noted are:

a) The car runs more quietly and smoothly on E5 compared to E10, especially at higher speeds and accelerating hard.

b) I haven't tested for any performance gains with E5 over E10 and I doubt they would be measurable in a hybrid, but just noted as in a) above.

c) The improvement in fuel economy seems to be better with E5 at low speeds (there seems to be better pulling power from low speeds on E5 lowering the amount of throttle needed) than higher speeds - hence my 5% to 10% span for improvement as it does seem to vary a little depending on what sort of journey is undertaken.

d) As the fuel in the tank ages the difference between E5 and E10 become more noticeable - so E10 left in the tank for a couple of weeks seems to deliver noticeable less mpg whereas E5 doesn't seem to anywhere near as affected.

Since doing most of my comparisons I have now switched to using Costco fuel and did a few tests with that which largely bore out what I found with Sainsburys fuel.

So my rule of thumb now is that if E5 is no more than around 10p per litre more than E10 at the same fuel station (at todays prices) I will be saving money or at worst breaking even using E5. More than 10p per litre difference then it will cost more to run the car on E5 (putting aside other less quantitative benefits such as smoothness and noise etc.). Given that Costco E5 is as cheap as the supermarket E10 and much cheaper than any branded E10, and the car appears to run very well on it, that is now what I use wherever possible.